Mishna Kelim 5:10

For an oven made of earth with sand placed between each layer, Rabbi Eliezer says that it is able to be made kosher, and the Sages say it can not be made kosher.  This is the oven of Achnai, the ovens of the Arabs, since [Achnai] was a digger of land and spread mortar. 

Babylonian Talmud Baba Metzia 59b

 We learned elsewhere:  If he cut it into separate tiles, placing sand between each tile:  Rabbi Eliezer declared it clean, and the Sages declared it unclean; and this was the oven of Achnai.  Why the oven of Achnai?  Said Rab Yehudah in Samuel’s name:  It means that they encompassed it with arguments as a snake, and proved it unclean.” 

It has been taught:  On that day Rabbi Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but they did not accept them.  He said to them:  “If the halachah agrees with me, let this carob tree prove it!”  Thereupon the carob tree was torn a hundred cubits out of its place—other affirm, four hundred cubits.  “No proof can be brought from a carob tree,” they retorted. 

Again he said to them:  “If the halachah agrees with me, let the stream of water prove it!”  whereupon the stream of water flowed backwards.  “No proof can be brought from a stream of water,” they rejoined. 

Again he urged:  “If the halachah agrees with me, let the walls of the schoolhouse prove it,” whereuon the walls inclined to fall.  But Rabbi Yehoshua rebuked them, saying:  “When scholars are engaged in halachic disupte, what reason do you have to interfere?”  Hence they did not fall, in honour of Rabbi Yehoshua, nor did they resume the upright, in honour of Rabbi Eliezer; and they are still standing thus inclined. 

Again he said to them:  “If the halachah agrees with me, let it be proved from Heaven!”  Whereupon a Heavenly Voice [bat kol] cried out:  “Why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, seeing that in all matters the halachah agrees with him!”  But Rabbi Yehoshua arose and exclaimed:  “It is not in heaven” (Deuteronomy 30:12).  What did he mean by this?  Said Rabbi Jeremiah:  That is the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai, we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice, because You have long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai.  After the majority must one incline (Exodus 23:2).

Deuteronomy 30:10-12

10 Since you will be heeding the Lord your God and keeping God’s commandments and laws that are recorded in this book of the torah… 11 Surely, this commandment which I enjoin upon you this day is not to baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. 12 It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?”

Exodus 23: 2

You shall not side with the majority to do wrong—you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute to so as to pervert it to favour the majority.

Compiled by David Goldman

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