Category: Talmud

On-Line Resources for Torah and More

To avoid repeatedly typing the same citations, I set up the “Source Materials” page several years ago. As National Blog Posting Month has progressed, I’ve been updating resources and links. There are now 30 new or updated sources, including some very cool interactive tools, on this revised on-line learning page.

As part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), a cousin of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), “A Song Every Day” plans thirty daily posts with some connection to the number 30.

NaBloPoMo_November_blogroll_large
TOP

Something Borrowed, Something Blue: prayer shawls and fringes

Rami bar Tamri, a traveler from another town, engaged in behavior contrary to local custom and apparently contrary to Jewish law. He was brought before R. Hisda. After inquiring into several other matters, R. Hisda asked Rami bar Tamri why his coat was missing tzitzit [required ritual fringes].

[Rami] replied. ‘The coat is borrowed, and Rab Judah has said. A borrowed coat is, for the first thirty days, exempt from the zizith.’ While this was going on a man was brought in [to the court] for not honouring his father and mother. They bound him [to have him flogged], whereupon [Rami] said to them. ‘Leave him alone, for it has been taught. Every commandment which carries its reward by its side does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Court below.’** Said [R. Hisda] to him. ‘I see that you are very sharp.’ He replied. ‘If only you would come to Rab Judah’s school I would show you how sharp I am!’
— Babylonian Talmud, Chullin 110a-110b

**The commandment to honor parents is listed with its reward “by its side”: “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” (Exodus 20:12)

Leaving for another day’s discussion the relationship of tzitzit, commandment and reward…
Continue reading Something Borrowed, Something Blue: prayer shawls and fringes

Legends of Luz

This week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei (Genesis 28:10-32:3), opens with Jacob, en route from his parents’ home to the land of his mother’s people. He stops for the night and dreams of a ladder, its top in heaven and its bottom on earth, with angels traveling up and down. In the dream, God is “standing over him” and speaking to him. Upon awakening, Jacob names the place “Beth-El [House of God].” The Torah adds: “but previously the name of the city had been Luz.”

Rabbinic and later Jewish tradition offer a variety of comments on the two place names and their connection to Jacob’s experience. This post and tomorrow’s briefly explore two of these name-threads:
Continue reading Legends of Luz

Find a scroll? Read, or at least roll, it every 30 days

MISHNAH. IF ONE FINDS SCROLLS, HE MUST READ THEM EVERY THIRTY DAYS; IF HE CANNOT READ, HE MUST ROLL THEM. BUT HE MUST NOT STUDY [A SUBJECT] THEREIN FOR THE FIRST TIME. NOR MAY ANOTHER PERSON READ WITH HIM.
— Babylonian Talmud, Baba Metzia 29b

The Mishna passage goes on to include care of other found items: cloth, which must be shaken once every 30 days and aired out; silver and copper vessels, which are to be “used for their own benefit, but no [so much as to] wear them out”; and gold and glassware, which “may not be touched until Elijah comes.”

The Gemara then proceeds to discuss how to treat a borrowed Torah scroll:

  • Don’t re-lend it to another person.
  • It’s fine to open the scroll and read it, but don’t study a subject for the first time: studying a new topic would stress the scroll.
  • The scroll may not be read by more than one person, because that would lead to multiple readers tugging, even if unconsciously, on the scroll.
  • Someone holding a borrowed scroll “must roll it once every twelve months, and may open and read it, but if he opens it in his own interest, it is forbidden.”
  • Some teachers say that new a new scroll should be rolled every thirty days, older ones, every twelve months.

Continue reading Find a scroll? Read, or at least roll, it every 30 days

Thirty worthy of Divine Spirit, 30 worthy of stopping the sun, 30 repetitions of previous teachings

The number 30 appears thrice, as it happens, in a brief Talmudic discussion of the Rabbi Eliezer’s teaching style:

Our Rabbis have taught: It happened that R. Eliezer passed the Sabbath in Upper Galilee, and they asked him for thirty decisions in the laws of Sukkah. Of twelve of these he said, ‘I heard them [from my teachers]’; of eighteen he said, ‘I have not heard’…. They said to him, ‘Are all your words only reproductions of what you have heard?’ He answered them, ‘You wished to force me to say something which I have not heard from my teachers. During all my life [I may tell you] no man was earlier than myself in the college, I never slept or dozed in the college, nor did I ever leave a person in the college when I went out, nor did I ever utter profane speech, nor have I ever in my life said a thing which I did not hear from my teachers.’
— Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 28a

The passage goes on to describe a similar set of habits ascribed to Eliezer’s teacher, R. Johanan ben Zakkai, concluding: “…so did his disciple R. Eliezer.” This is followed by more background on Eliezer’s teacher:

Our Rabbis have taught: Hillel the Elder had eighty disciples, thirty of whom were worthy of the Divine Spirit resting upon them, as [it did upon] Moses our Master, thirty of whom were worthy that the sun should stand still for them [as it did for] Joshua the son of Nun [cf. Josh. 10:12ff], and twenty were ordinary. The greatest of them was Jonathan b. Uzziel, the smallest of them was Johanan b. Zakkai. They said of R. Johanan b. Zakkai… [see below]… And if the smallest of them was so great, how much more so was the greatest?

“They said of R. Johanan ben Zakkai” that he did not neglect the following areas of study:

  • Scripture,
  • Mishnah [teachings of the Rabbis],
  • Gemara [explanations of mishnah],
  • Halakhah [decisions of law],
  • Aggada [homilies, legends, etc],
  • details of the Torah,
  • details of the Scribes,
  • inferences a minori ad majus,*
  • analogies,*
  • calendrical computations,
  • gematrias [teachings based on numerical equivalents of words],
  • the speech of the Ministering Angels,
  • the speech of spirits,
  • the speech of palm-trees,**
  • fullers’ parables***
  • and fox fables.****

This eclectic list includes additional mystical and exegetical areas (a very similar list appears in Baba Bathra 134a.)

It is interesting to compare Rabbi Eliezer’s extreme conservatism — refusing to teach anything not received directly from his teacher — with the description of his teacher’s varied background. In particular, several forms of exegesis are within R. Johanan’s expertise, while R. Eliezer refuses to engage in his own decision-making, in the passage above and elsewhere in the Talmud.

It’s noteworthy, too, that “Our Rabbis” are recalling these teachers, presumably from some distance. Rabbi Louis Jacobs suggests that generations after R. Eliezer viewed him with some suspicion, noting Eliezer’s famous excommunication as a result of his failure to abide by majority decision.

See also: The essay on Wikipedia about Talmudic Hermeneutics and this additional note on R. Eliezer.
Continue reading Thirty worthy of Divine Spirit, 30 worthy of stopping the sun, 30 repetitions of previous teachings

Blessings and Distance

R. Joshua b. Levi said: One who sees a friend after a lapse of thirty days says: Blessed is He who has kept us alive and preserved us and brought us to this season.* If after a lapse of twelve months he says: Blessed is He who revives the dead.**
— Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 58b

— * “Shehecheyanu,” for short [full blessing text]
— ** Kolel: The Adult Centre for Adult Jewish Learning presents both blessings as outlined in Berakhot 58b and another option for blessing upon seeing a long-lost friend.
Continue reading Blessings and Distance

“Iyun Tefilah”: Deeper in Prayer


For years, I’ve been looking at the expression “iyun tefilah,” as in the famous passage from Shabbat 127a, where it is translated as “contemplation [or “meditation,” maybe “devotion”] in prayer.” Mishkan T’filah includes this phrase in the morning study passage, a kind of mash-up of Peah 1:1. and Shabbat 127a. (See pp.206-207 in Mishkan T’filah and below.) We often sing, “…v’iyun tefila-a-ah, v’iyun t’fila-a-ah…,” using Jeff Klepper‘s setting for “Eilu Devarim“.

Until a recent Talmud class, however, I didn’t realize that “עיון [iyun]” was the same word translated elsewhere as “study,” “learning,” or “investigation.” In some contexts — a class on the prayerbook, e.g., or the 19th Century siddur commentary known as Iyun Tefillah — “iyun” is understood in terms of “study (of prayers).” But translators seem to agree that the phrase in Shabbat 127a means something more like “contemplation” or “meditation.” My People’s Prayer Book translates it as “paying attention to prayer.”

In both study/investigation and contemplation/meditation, the idea seems to be to delve, go deeper: In the former case, it’s into an idea or text, perhaps the idea or text of a prayer; in the latter, it’s into prayer itself.

Elsewhere in the Talmud, Torah study [la’asok; “to immerse in”] is described as a “remedy” for “vexation of heart” in prayer.

I’m not sure what, if any, conclusion to draw from the delving and immersing. But I think it’s worth pondering relationships among prayer, prayer text, and Torah. And I know from my own experience that the more (non-prayer) time and exploration I spend with a particular prayer, the deeper my encounter with that prayer when I’m actually praying.

L’shana tova/a good year
Continue reading “Iyun Tefilah”: Deeper in Prayer

More on Mouse: Pinchas, part 2

More on Mouse

[addendum to dvar Torah, “Pinchas and the Scary Friend”]

Many hard-boiled detectives have their “scary friend.” But Ezekiel (Easy) Rawlins’ friend Raymond (Mouse), is something else again. Mouse is written by Walter Mosley as a true psychopath.

To illustrate: At one point early in the series, Easy asks why Mouse has just killed a man, and Mouse responds:

You said don’t shoot him, right? Well I didn’t; I choked… look, Easy – if you ain’t want him dead, why you leave him with me?

On the DVD of “Devil in a Blue Dress,” the only Easy Rawlins story made into a movie so far, there’s a special feature showing the actor Don Cheadle (Raymond, aka Mouse) busting out in laughter the first few times he tries to deliver those lines, so absurd to any sane person. When Cheadle finally gets it, the character he’s created is terrifying. Cheadle’s portrayal helps us understand why Easy would like to distance himself from this man, even as we realize that the detective would be dead without his friend’s help.

The extreme nature of Mouse’s personality makes it all the more interesting, I think, that Mosley wrote this man so deeply into Easy’s life. The author could have chosen to rely on any number of fixers, who show up for a minute, do what needs doing, and then disappear. It happens often enough in this kind of fiction.

“You know,” Mosley observes, “you can have the existentialist detective. He’s all alone; he may know somebody, but that person’s only going to appear in one book, and then it’s over. But Easy, he works with people. He trades favors. That’s part of how he lives.”
— from David Ulin’s LA Times interview with Mosley [paywall might be involved, sorry]

Continue reading More on Mouse: Pinchas, part 2

Cucumber Magic, Cucumber Illusion

some notes/resources on the planting and reaping of cucumbers (by magic or illusion), “worship of stars,” R. Eliezer, and Christianity. (posted here for Temple Micah’s Hebrew Poetry group and anyone else interested — and to make use of WordPress’ memory, which is better than mine).
Continue reading Cucumber Magic, Cucumber Illusion