Yeshua (Jesus) used Light and Heavy argumentation many times. Interestingly, the ancient sages taught that two forms of Light and Heavy argument exist. In some cases the argument is explicit, clear, and inescapably obvious. In other cases, the Light and Heavy argumentation is only implied.
Explicit Light and Heavy (Kal Vahomer Meforash)
Yeshua taught using the explicit form of Light and Heavy argumentation:
Or who is there among you, who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, who will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! —Matthew 7:9–11 (WEB)
Here we see the Master making a clear Light and Heavy argument. Sinful human beings give good gifts to their children, even though they are by nature evil. This is “Light” in comparison to the good gifts which God gives to those who ask him. God’s goodness is Heavy by comparison to the Light goodness of fallen humanity.
Implicit Light and Heavy (Kal Vahomer Satum)
Here also the Master taught using the implicit form of Light and Heavy argumentation:
Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel because of it. Moses has given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers), and on the Sabbath you circumcise a boy. If a boy receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me, because I made a man completely healthy on the Sabbath? —John 7:21–7:23 (WEB)
Here we see though the expression “how much more…” is not used, there is still a Light and Heavy argument being expressed. The Master tells us that the commandment of circumcision is to occur even on the Sabbath. That the Sabbath can be violated without guilt to keep the commandment of circumcision is really saying something—malicious desecration of the Sabbath is subject to the death penalty under Sanhedrin jurisprudence. Yeshua then declares that because the commandment of circumcision is more important than the Sabbath, so too is miraculous healing of the sick and infirm of greater importance than Sabbath observance.
At first, this seems like strange logic: what connection could circumcision possibly have with the healing of the sick? I had a hard time seeing the connection myself, but after some research, I hit pay-dirt from the Babylonian Talmud:
“Rabbi El’azar answered ‘If circumcision, which involves only one of the 248 parts of the human body, suspends Shabbat, how much more must [saving] the whole body suspend Shabbat!’”
—Yoma 85b
This passage from the Talmud records Jewish thinking on circumcision, healing, and the Sabbath in a manner that seems to shed light on the kind of logic Yeshua used. Here it seems that the Light part of the argument is keeping the commandment circumcision in that it involves only one part of the body: the removal of the foreskin of the penis. However, healing an ailing human-being is Heavy by comparison because it involves the entire body, not just a single part of it.
And here we have both kinds of Light and Heavy argument: explicit and implicit, taken from the teachings of the Master Yeshua. Next, we’ll examine yet another interesting ancient rule for understanding the Bible: Equivalence of Expressions.
Tags: hermeneutics, sages, seven rules of hillel