"Rav said, I found a secret scroll of the school of Rabbi Hiyya wherein it is written, Issi ben Yehuda said: There are thirty-nine principal labours, but one is liable only for one."
While catching up with Daf Yomi today (the chagim threw off my schedule), I came across this fascinating line, in which Rav claims to have found a secret teaching of Rabbi Hiyya which seems to contradict some of our basic assumptions about shabbat, namely that breaking the melachot, the 39 labours, makes us liable for punishment. This secret scroll says that this is not the case, though it also does not tell us which we are liable for.
The Talmud interprets this differently, namely that one of the melachot does not make us liable, but if we read this teaching as stated, why did Rabbi Hiyya keep it secret? Did he think it too dangerous or too heretical to reveal? And why does Rav feel free and able to reveal that which Rabbi Hiyya sought to conceal?
Keeping Secrets
All of which makes me wonder whether there are ideas and teachings that we hold, that as future leaders we could or perhaps even should keep secret from our communities. Are there teachings which would do too much damage to reveal? Or is everything Torah, and our communities sophisticated enough to handle the most academic or esoteric of topics?
For example, if I work in a devout community, that keeps halacha because they believe Moses literally received the whole Torah from God, should I teach them otherwise or keep my sense of history and criticism a secret?
Reveal Secrets
Moreover, if I uncover a secret, an opinion that one of my teachers did not reveal, do I have the right to share that with the world, regardless of how it may change how that teacher is seen?
The border between public and private grows ever more blurry, as ideas are written, shared and recorded faster and more often than ever before. But I suspect that we as community leaders need to consider what we are sharing, and what we should be keeping secret.
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