8) Comparing Talmudic sources to each other, can we reconcile what we read in Gittin with what we just learned about particularism in Bava Metzia and Shulchan Aruch?

The two aspects of Jewish existence: particularism and universalism. In exile, the universalist side gains prominence; in Erets Yisrael the universalism is expressed through the medium of particularism. Exile is a cleansing of the particularist phenomenon. Jewish history, which began on a universalist note, comes full circle.

Independent Israelite creation, in thought and in life and action, is possible only in the Land of Israel. In everything produced by Israel in the Land, the universal form is subsumed under the unique form of Israel, and this is a boon for Israel and the world. The sins that cause exile are the very ones that muddy the essential spring, and the source emits impure issues. The Tabernacle of the Lord he defiled. When the independent, particularist source is destroyed, originality rises to the supernal portion that Israel has in mankind. This is drawn upon in exile, and the Land is laid waste and desolate, and her destruction atones for her. The spring stops flowing and is filtered; manifestations of life and thought are emitted through the general conduit, which is spread throughout the globe. As the four winds of heaven I have scattered you. Until the impure particularist issues stop and the source is restored to its purity. Then exile is detested and superfluous, and the universal light reverts to flowing from the independent, particularist fount with full force. The Light of Messiah who ingathers exiles begins to appear, and the sound of the bitter crying of Rachel mourning her children is softened by this consolation: Stop your voice from crying and your eyes from tears, for there is reward for your effort, says the Lord, and they shall return from an enemy land. There is hope toward your end, says the Lord, the children will return to their borders. Creation of distinctive life with all its light and particularity, drenched in the dew of the universal wealth of the great man among giants, the blessing of Abraham, reappears through precisely this return. “Be a blessing – with you they conclude.”

Rav Kook, 2015 (originally published in 1920), Jerusalem: Koren Publishers, pp. 115-116

[T]he structure of the Hebrew Bible is unusual and significant. Its subject is the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah. Yet the Torah does not start with Abraham. It begins instead with universal archetypes of humanity as a whole. We read about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Babel and its builders. None of these is a Jew, a Hebrew, an Israelite. They are us in our universality: temptation and sin, sibling rivalry and violence, hubris and the desire for godlike powers. Only after this prologue does the Torah narrow its focus to one man, one family, eventually one nation and its highly specific destiny. The Torah is a particular text, but it begins with the universals of the human condition.

What is absolutely clear is that Genesis tells the story not of one covenant, but of two. The first, with Noah after the flood (Gen. 9), applies to all humanity. The second, with Abraham and his descendants (Gen. 17), does not. It is the covenant of one people, the people with whom God, many centuries later at Mount Sinai, makes a more highly articulated Covenant of Sinai with its 613 commands.

Judaism is built on a dual structure. It has a universal dimension and particularistic one, neither of which negates the other. God has a general relationship with all humanity and a particular relationship with the Children of Israel. Rabbi Akiva expressed this, simply and beautifully, in his statement in Ethics of the Fathers: ‘Beloved is humanity, for it was created in God’s image… Beloved are Israel for they are called God’s children.’ (Pirkei Avot 3:14)

https://rabbisacks.org/teaching-resources/universal-vs-particular/

Core Questions

Closing: