2,711 pages of Talmud. A gem a day.

Humility is the basis of all character growth. Apparently, Rabbi Abbahu was incredibly humble and I think we all have a lot to learn from him (or just me).

The Gemara asks: And what was the humility of Rabbi Abbahu? The Gemara relates that Rabbi Abbahu’s interpreter’s wife said to Rabbi Abbahu’s wife: This one of ours, i.e., my husband, has no need for your husband Rabbi Abbahu, as he could teach everything on his own. And the fact that he bends over to listen to Rabbi Abbahu, and then stands up above him, and repeats his words to the congregants is merely to show respect for him.

Wow1 What an insult? So, what does she do? Rabbi Abbahu’s wife went and told this to Rabbi Abbahu. He said to her: And what difference does it make to you? Through me and through him the One above will be exalted, and it does not matter which one of us is teaching.

Humble. He is not even worried about who gets credit as long as the right thing is done/taught.

And furthermore, in another example of his humility, the Sages were counted and reached a decision to appoint Rabbi Abbahu to be the head of the yeshiva. Since he saw that Rabbi Abba of Akko had many creditors and was impoverished, he attempted to get him out of debt. He said to them: There is a man who is greater than me, Rabbi Abba.

He could have taken a great job! But, what does he do? He campaigns for someone who needs employment more!

The Gemara relates another example of his humility: Rabbi Abbahu and Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba happened to come to a certain place. Rabbi Abbahu taught matters of aggada, and at the same time Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba taught halakha. Everyone left Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba and went to Rabbi Abbahu, and Rabbi Ḥiyya was offended. Rabbi Abbahu said to him, to appease him: I will tell you a parable: To what is this matter comparable? It is comparable to two people, one who sells precious stones and one who sells small items [sidkit]. Upon whom do the customers spring? Don’t they spring upon the one who sells small items? Similarly, you teach lofty and important matters that do not attract many people. Everyone comes to me because I teach minor matters.

Wow! And why did this all start? Because Rabbi Abbahu was saying :

And Rabbi Abbahu says: At first, I would say to myself that I was humble. Since I saw that Rabbi Abba of Akko himself stated one reason for a matter, and his interpreter stated one other reason of his own rather than delivering the reason that Rabbi Abba stated, and yet Rabbi Abba did not mind, I say to myself that I am not humble.

Love this! Proof, again, that he is humble in that he does not think he is the MOST humble AND it also teaches that maybe we can have limits to our humility – like when someone who is supposed to teach what we say changes it.

So, Abbahu is the picture of humility while still knowing what his role is and having the self respect to own it.

Want a long life? Our daf has some pointers:

Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua was once asked by his disciples: To what do you attribute your longevity? He said to them: In all my days, I never made a shortcut [kappendarya] through a synagogue. Nor did I ever stride over the heads of the sacred people, i.e., I never stepped over people sitting in the study hall in order to reach my place, so as not to appear scornful of them. And I never lifted my hands for the Priestly Benediction without first reciting a blessing.

1. Respect the synagogue as a holy space.
2. Respect other people as vessels of learning. And
3. Say a blessing before you bless others.

So, you might wonder what the blessing is:

The Gemara asks: What blessing does the priests recite before the benediction? Rabbi Zeira says that Rav Ḥisda says:Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with the sanctity of Aaron and commanded us to bless His people, Israel, with love.

You may notice that this isn’t the normal formula for a blessing. Usually we say “who has sanctified us with God’s commandments” to fill in the blank. So, why is the sanctity of Aaron found here?  And a second oddity, why the mention of love at the end of the blessing – Making this the only blessing before the performance of a mitzvah in which love is required? 

The answer to our two questions is identical: Blessing depends on love. The Torah does not assign the priests the task of rote recitation. On the contrary, it calls upon them to love the people. 

In fact, the priest is not the one who does the blessing when giving the priestly benediction, the priest merely is serving as a conduit through which God blesses the people. So, what do we learn? That the only way to serve as a conduit of God, to truly bless another person, is to love that person. 

Two gems, and both about doing for others.
And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says: Any priest who blesses the people is blessed from Heaven, and one who does not bless the people is not blessed, as it is stated: “And I will bless those who bless you” (Genesis 12:3).

Here we see that those who have the power to bless should. How powerful is that? Who can you bless? How can you be a blessing? How can you take a moment to make people feel seen/noticed/loved? Don’t squander that opportunity.
And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says: One may give a cup of blessing to recite the blessing of Grace after Meals only to someone with a good eye, i.e., a generous person, as it is stated: “One who has a good eye will be blessed [yevorakh], for he gives of his bread to the poor” (Proverbs 22:9). Do not read it: “Will be blessed.” Rather, read it: Will bless [yevarekh].

Stage kind of person who is really grateful is one who shares what they have with others.
Two beautiful gems to teach us how to be in the world.

A gorgeous story on the daf (that I believe we have heard before, but it’s such a good one, let’s hear it again). It’s the moment when the Hebrew slaves are trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the Reed Sea. No one knows what to do. Moses is praying. Someone needs to act:

Rabbi Yehuda said to Rabbi Meir: That is not how the incident took place. Rather, this tribe said: I am not going into the sea first, and that tribe said: I am not going into the sea first. Then, in jumped the prince of Judah, Nahshon ben Amminadab, and descended into the sea first, accompanied by his entire tribe, as it is stated: “Ephraim surrounds Me with lies and the house of Israel with deceit, and Judah is yet wayward toward God [rad im El]” (Hosea 12:1), which is interpreted homiletically as: And Judah descended [rad] with God [im El]. And in this regard, the tradition, i.e., the Writings, explicates Nahshon’s prayer at that moment: “Save me, God; for the waters are come in even unto the soul. I am sunk in deep mire, where there is no standing…let not the water flood overwhelm me, neither let the deep swallow me up” (Psalms 69:2–3, 16). At that time, Moses was prolonging his prayer. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: My beloved ones are drowning in the sea and you prolong your prayer to me? Moses said before Him: Master of the Universe, but what can I do? God said to him: “Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward. And you, lift up your rod and stretch out your hand” (Exodus 14:15–16).
This is the story of Nachshon! His name is synonymous with leadership and courage. But he couldn’t have done it if the rest of the tribe hadn’t followed him. Leaders are nothing without followers. Because of them the whole tribe is rewarded:

For this reason, because Nahshon and the tribe of Judah went into the sea first, the tribe of Judah merited to govern Israel, as it is stated: “Judah became His sanctuary, Israel His dominion. The sea saw it and fled” (Psalms 114:2–3). The baraita interprets the verses in this manner: What is the reason that Judah became His sanctuary and Israel came under His dominion? It is because “the sea saw it and fled.”

May we be blessed with good leaders and own leadership when we need to and follow when we need to.

Oh, what a daf! It has some pretty bizarre passages. Like this one where Joseph shoots semen from his fingernails: The verse about Joseph continues: “And the arms of his hands were made supple” (Genesis 49:24), meaning that he dug his hands into the ground and his semen was emitted between his fingernails.

So, this daf is a weird one! The gem is the hornet(s) from Exodus. Here is the Exodus verse:

Exodus 23:27-29 (27) I will send forth My terror before you, and I will throw into panic all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn tail before you. (28) I will send the hornet (Tzirah) ahead of you, and it shall drive out before you the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites.

What’s happening here?

The hornet [tzira] did not cross the Jordan with them. The Gemara asks: And did it not? But isn’t it written: “And I will send the hornet before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, and the Canaanites” (Exodus 23:28)? Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says: The hornet stood on the banks of the Jordan and threw its venom at the inhabitants of the land and it blinded their eyes from above and castrated them from below, as it is stated: “Yet I destroyed the Amorites before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and they were strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed their fruit from above, and their roots from beneath” (Amos 2:9). Rav Pappa said: There were two hornets. One was the hornet of Moses, which helped conquer the eastern side of the Jordan, and one was the hornet of Joshua. The hornet of Moses did not cross the Jordan, but the hornet of Joshua did cross.

No wonder “Hornet” is an identity used by five characters in Marvel Comics. And who knew that the Hornet character was so biblical?

A lesson in lying on today’s daf:

The Torah states: “And they told him, and said: We came to the land to which you sent us, and it also flows with milk and honey” (Numbers 13:27), and then it is written: “However the people that dwell in the land are fierce” (Numbers 13:28). Why did the spies praise the land and then slander it? Rabbi Yoḥanan says three statements in the name of Rabbi Meir, represented by the mnemonic device: Truth, alone, borrowing. The first statement answers this question: Any slander that does not begin with a truthful statement ultimately does not stand, i.e., it is not accepted by others.

I really should have said a lesson not to believe everything you hear. Good liars start with truth and then say things that sound believable/feasible and continue to stretch the truth before they full out lie. (Again, good liars.) We often wonder how someone could believe such outlandish things (think of Pizza-gate) but it starts with the truth, then the truth with a slant, then a stretch and then when the full out lies begin – you already trust your source. So, don’t believe all you’re told, especially if it’s being filtered by a computer algorithm whose job is to keep your interest.

Today’s daf get’s into two different stories/moments in Jewish history. The first (in terms of what the daf addresses) is from the Book of Joshua where the Jewish people cross the Jordan into the Promised Land with the Ark of the Covenant. The daf talks about the miracles that happened at that moment. The second moment rewinds the clock. If we are reading of Joshua leading the people into the Promised Land, then it only makes sense for the daf to go on a long tangent about when Joshua really differentiated himself in the book of Numbers – the scene with Moses sending the spies to scout the land.

To jog your memory a bit, in Numbers 13, Moses sends 12 spies to check out the land of Canaan. 10 of those spies come back with an evil report about the land (with it’s giants and devowering earth) while only Caleb and Joshua have faith, say the land is good and we should enter. (As a result we continue to wander instead of entering the land.) So, Joshua get’s a whole book of the bible! He gets to be Moses’s second in command and then take over for Moses. He leads us into the Promised Land. So, we may wonder – what about Caleb? Didn’t Caleb do the same? Where is his praise?

Enter today’s gem:

The biblical verse stated with regard to the spies: “And they went up into the south, and he came to Hebron” (Numbers 13:22). Why is the phrase “and he came” written in the singular form when it’s a group? The verse should have said: And they came. Rava says: This teaches that Caleb separated himself from the counsel of the other spies and went and prostrated himself on the graves of the forefathers in Hebron. (So it’s referring only to Caleb.) He said to them: My forefathers, pray for mercy for me so that I will be saved from the counsel of the spies.

So, Caleb prayed separately from the group that he not be judged by associating with the spies. But shouldn’t Joshua have done the same?

The Gemara explains: Joshua did not go to the graves of the forefathers because Moses had already prayed for mercy for him, as it is stated: “And Moses called Hoshea son of Nun Joshua [Yehoshua]” (Numbers 13:16), meaning: God will save you [Ya yoshiakha] from the counsel of the spies.

So, why did Moses pray for Joshua and not Caleb?

And this is the meaning of that which is written: “But My servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land where into he went” (Numbers 14:24), which implies that Caleb changed his mind over time. Joshua, however, was opposed to the intentions of the other spies from the outset.

So, Joshua was on the right side the whole time while Caleb shifted his opinion. So, maybe we can see why Joshua got to take on the mantle of leadership. At the same time, Caleb is a beautiful example of, to quote Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Bravo Caleb.

Today’s gem will be an important one for any non-Hebrew speakers:

It is stated in the mishna that the Amida prayer may be recited in any language. The reason for this is that since prayer is a request for divine mercy, one may pray in any way that one desires.

Want to talk to God? Just talk. We have prayers in the prayerbook that give us themes and words and framework – but don’t let that limit you! More than anything God wants to hear the prayers of our hearts, and I am imagining most of us for whom Hebrew is not our first language, that would mean speaking the words of our heart, which are likely our native tongue.

A quick little gem today that is a callout against the narcissism of our times.

As it is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai says: A person should say his own praise in a soft voice, and say that which is to his discredit in a loud voice.

We live in a world of self-promotion and, especially with some leaders, a tendency to deny any fault. How can we shift to a culture of humility and admitting faults so that we all realize we are not perfect and all create an environment that encourages growth?

There has long been debate about what we need to motive us towards a certain behavior – the carrot or the stick. Today’s daf teaches:

The Gemara asks: What difference is there between one who performs mitzvot out of love and one who performs mitzvot out of fear? The Gemara answers: There is that which is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar says: Greater is the one who performs mitzvot out of love than the one who performs mitzvot out of fear, as with regard to this one who acts out of fear, his merits endure for one thousand generations, and with regard to that one who serves God out of love, his merits endure for two thousand generations.

So, let either the carrot or the stick motivate you, what’s most important is that you do the right thing. But your internal motivation? It’s always better to be motivated by the positive. Better to exercise because you’re motivated by endorphines and enjoy the work out than your cardiologist, or your gym teacher, yelling at you. Better to give because you want to help then out of obligation. Better to act because you care than you’re afraid. But at the end of the day, what really matters is that you act the right way, no matter what motivates you.