Rabbi Eliezer deems such an oven ritually pure, but the majority of his colleagues disagree, and when he canвЂ™t persuade them he resorts to a bit of magic, causing a tree to uproot itself, a stream to flow backwards, and the walls of the study hall to nearly collapse. In this story, which appears in the Talmud in Tractate Bava Metzia, the rabbis are discussing the purity status of an earthenware oven that has been cut into segments with sand placed in between each segment. The term appears only twice in the Mishnah, but it is found frequently in the Talmud, perhaps most famously in the story of the oven of akhnai.

The Tosafot, commenting on a passage concerning a bat kol in Tractate Sanhedrin, distinguishes it from a voice that descends directly from heaven (which might refer to traditional prophecy), comparing it instead to an echo, a voice that emerges from within another voice. Though this teaching clearly connects a bat kol to the prophecies of the Bible, instances of the latter indicate explicitly in the text that it is God speaking, while the language of вЂњdaughter of a voiceвЂќ concerning a bat kol suggests it is some sense a lesser (yet still divinely originating) voice. The clearest statement of the nature of the bat kol is the TalmudвЂ™s declaration that the bat kol served as a means of communication between God and humankind after the end of the prophetic era.

Later sources indicate that there were bat kols in biblical times that were not recorded in the text, as in the TalmudвЂ™s declaration that a bat kol announced the death of Moses. The term itself doesnвЂ™t appear anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, though GodвЂ™s voice is heard frequently in the Bible. My Jewish Learning is a not-for-profit and relies on your help DonateДЄ bat kol, literally вЂњdaughter of a voice,вЂќ refers to a heavenly voice that proclaims GodвЂ™s will or a divine judgment in a matter of legal dispute.

Hebrew translator with voice