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

Today’s entire daf is dedicated to proving Shmuel wrong. What did he say that is needs to be proven false again and again in so many scenarios?

Rav said: The court apportions sustenance for a married woman, i.e., if a husband went overseas and left behind nothing with which his wife could provide for her sustenance, the court withdraws money from his estate for this purpose. And Shmuel said: The court does not apportion sustenance for a married woman.

What!? If a man goes abroad, shouldn’t his wife be supported from his estate? Why would Shmuel say no? (Now you see why they need the whole daf to figure out his thinking and to show, in various situations, that the wife IS sustained.)

Why might Shmuel disagree? The Gemara suggests, maybe he left her money for her food. Rav Papa suggests that maybe she agreed to feed herself from her earnings. In both cases, she does not need the additional sustenance.

But the daf continues to show that a woman can demand to be sustained from his estate and has even more claim that his heirs since she only needs one witness to say he died to collect while the children need two.

Next it shows cases where rabbis rule differently, however in the end we get the final rule: The Gemara concludes: And the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rav, and therefore one apportions sustenance for a married woman whose husband went overseas.

So, a wife is supported by his estate, and Shmuel, while oh so wise, is overruled again and again. Why do the rabbis need to give so many scenarios? Well, makes me assume that people who did not want women in these situations to take any sustenance were more worried about their own pockets and not what’s right. They might have tried to find a dozen work arounds. Today’s daf makes it so no matter how you look at it and what excuses you give, a woman is still not going to be left destitute by a husband who goes abroad and leaves her nothing.

Today’s gem begins at the bottom of yesterday’s daf and, again, reminds us of how important it is for judges to avoid any sort of bribe. Here, a judge recuses himself, but still, there are bad consequences . . . to the point that he is haunted . . . by Elijah!

A man wants to give Rav Anan a gift, but Rav is supposed to be adjudicating a case of him. So, Rav Anan initially refuses. However, the man says:

Whoever brings a gift to a Torah scholar, it is as though he has presented first fruits. This visitor to Rav Anan wished to fulfill this mitzva. Rav anan doesn’t want to prevent him from fulfilling a mitzva, so he said to him: I do not want to take it from you, but now that you have explained to me the reason that you wish to give it to me I will accept it from you.

So, he takes the gift, but then recuses himself from judging his case. But the story does not end there. Rav Anan sent the man to Rav Naḥman, and he also sent him a letter: Let the Master judge this man’s case because I, Anan, am disqualified from judging his cases. Rav Naḥman said to himself: From the fact that he sent me this letter, I can conclude from here that the reason he is disqualified from judging the case is because he is his relative.

So, Rav Nahman wrongly assumes that Rav Anan is related to this guy. This will now have bad consequences as we shall see:

At that time, a case involving orphans was being heard before Rav Naḥman. He said: This is a positive mitzva, for judges to judge cases properly, and this is a positive mitzva, to honor Torah scholars and their families. Rav Naḥman concluded that the positive mitzva of giving honor to the Torah takes precedence. Therefore, he put aside the case of the orphans and settled down to judge the case of that man, under the mistaken assumption that he was a relative of Rav Anan. Once the other litigant saw the honor being accorded to that man by the judge, he grew nervous until his mouth, i.e., his ability to argue his claim, became closed, and he lost the case. In this manner, justice was perverted by Rav Anan, albeit unwittingly and indirectly.

Oh no! He is treating the man with such deference that the other party can’t speak up and argue his position! So, justice is perverted.

Now? We get the amazing repercussion for Rav Anan.

Elijah the Prophet was accustomed to come and visit Rav Anan, as the prophet was teaching him the statements that would later be recorded in the volume Seder deEliyahu, the Order of Elijah. Once Rav Anan did this and caused a miscarriage of justice, Elijah departed. Rav Anan sat in observance of a fast and prayed for mercy, and Elijah came back. However, when Elijah came after that, he would scare him, as he would appear in frightening forms.

Yes! Elijah was upset, left, then after Rav Anan prayed, retuned – only to haunt and scare him!

And Rav Anan made a box where he settled himself down and he sat before Elijah until he took out for him, i.e., taught him, all of his Seder. And this is what the Sages mean when they say: Seder deEliyahu Rabba, the Major Order of Elijah, and Seder Eliyahu Zuta, the Minor Order of Elijah, as the first order was taught prior to this incident and the second came after it.

Fabulous. And clearly, the rabbis did not time this to line up with Halloween, but what a happy coincidence.

Two take-aways today. The first is about justice, not taking bribes and not showing preference in our judgements. The second, that the Talmud is full of amazing stories. Who would have imagined Elijah haunting someone? He is the undead, having ascended to heaven without dying, but still . . .

How much does it cost to buy off a judge? That’s the subject of today’s daf. The Torah explicitly states, “And you shall take no bribe” (Exodus 23:8), but what qualifies? What if the judge asks both parties to pay the same amount, not as a bribe, but because he is missing work (yep, judge is not his full-time gig) to preside over the case? Like a court fee? What if it’s not money, but goods? What if it’s not goods, but a kindness? What is so dangerous?

On the daf we see that different rabbis drew the line at what qualified as accepting a bribe. While none would outright take a bribe from one party and not another, the Sage Karna would take an istera, a small coin, from the innocent party, and an istera from the guilty party, i.e., he would charge both parties that came to him for judgment, and then he would judge their case. Other Sages worried that even this compensation for his unemployment might cloud his mind. They worried he would chase after cases in order to make money . . .

What is the meaning of that which is written: “The king by justice establishes the land, but he who exacts gifts [terumot] overthrows it” (Proverbs 29:4)? If a judge is like a king, in that he does not need anything and is not dependent on anyone, he establishes the land, i.e., he can serve as a judge. But if he is like a priest, who seeks out his terumot from various granaries, as he is dependent on others, he overthrows the land. Here, a king is independently wealthy, while the priest represents someone who is reliant on his position for being sustained. While terumah does legally belong to the priest, the comparison imagines him going from threshing floor to threshing floor searching for it. This is like a judge who seeks to make money off his work as a judge, and we are told that he overthrows/destroys the land.

Already we are seeing that what’s is considered a bribe can be something that, in today’s world, would be well within the lines of what is permitted. But how far do the rabbis go to make sure their judgements are impartial?

The Gemara explains: This can be demonstrated by that episode involving Shmuel, who was once crossing a river on a narrow ferry. A certain man came along and gave him a hand to help him out of the ferryboat. Shmuel said to him: What are you doing in this place? The man said to him: I have a case to present before you for judgment. Shmuel said to him: I am disqualified from presiding over your case, as you did me a favor. Although no money changed hands, a bond was formed between the pair.

Just this man offering his hand as he stepped off the ferry was enough for Shmuel to render himself disqualified from adjudicating the case. Similar examples are given, where a man removed a feather from the judges head and where a man covers spittle on the floor where both judges recuse themselves.

The Gemara cites another incident. The sharecropper of Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, was accustomed to bringing him a basket [kanta] full of fruits every Shabbat eve. One day, he brought him the basket on a Thursday. Rabbi Yishmael said to him: What is different that you came early now, this week? The sharecropper said to him: I have a case to present before you, and I said to myself that along my way I will bring to the Master the basket of fruits, as in any case I am coming on Thursday, the day the courts are in session. Rabbi Yishmael did not accept the basket of fruits from him, and he said to him: I am disqualified from presiding over your case.

Rabbi Yishmael recuses himself. Now, we get a glimpse of what goes on in his head while other judges hear the case”

Rabbi Yishmael seated a pair of rabbinic scholars and they judged the sharecropper’s case. As Rabbi Yishmael was coming and going, he said to himself: If he wants, he could claim this, and if he wants, he could claim that, i.e., he kept thinking of all the ways in which the litigant who brought him the fruits could win his case. He said to himself: Blast the souls of those who accept bribes. If I, who did not accept anything, and if I had accepted, I would have accepted my own property, as it is my sharecropper and the fruits legally belong to me, am nevertheless in this state of mind due to the proposed gift, all the more so are those who actually accept bribes inevitably biased in favor of the one who bribed them.

Here we see that, even though he didn’t accept the bribe and he recused himself, he STILL finds himself taking the man’s side. He says, if I can’t help but favor him in my judgements, all the more so someone who does take a bride cannot see clearly.

The message is one of how difficult it is to be an impartial judge. Even the most righteous, even those who have little to gain financially, even they fall into bias. So, we must strive for fair courts and strive to uncover and correct our unconscious biases.

Today’s gem is one that invites us to question end of life issues. When is it okay to withhold life-saving treatment? What quality of living is really living? and the question on the daf is in regard to the most beloved of the rabbis.

It is related that on the day that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi died, the Sages decreed a fast, and begged for divine mercy so that he would not die. And they said: Anyone who says that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi has died will be stabbed with a sword.

The Sages are in denial that it’s his end of life. They are fervently praying for him to remain alive. Which, so far, is working.

The maidservant of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi ascended to the roof and said: The upper realms are requesting the presence of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, and the lower realms are requesting the presence of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. May it be the will of God that the lower worlds should impose their will upon the upper worlds.

At first, his maidservant agrees and prays that the rabbis will be able to stave off death’s hand.

However, when she saw how many times he would enter the bathroom and remove his phylacteries, and then exit and put them back on, and how he was suffering with his intestinal disease, she said: May it be the will of God that the upper worlds should impose their will upon the lower worlds.

She realizes that he is suffering. She wants what is best for him, and wants him to stop experiencing pain.

And the Sages, meanwhile, would not be silent, i.e., they would not refrain, from begging for mercy so that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi would not die. So she took a jug [kuza] and threw it from the roof to the ground. Due to the sudden noise, the Sages were momentarily silent and refrained from begging for mercy, and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi died.

Here, we see the maidservant remove the life saving treatment – the prayers of the Sages. The Sages were being selfish in their desire to keep Rabbi with them. They did not see how much he suffered.

End of life issues are so difficult to discuss. We must constantly re-evaluate what it means to live a meaningful life. We must constantly re-evaluate where the line is between prolonging life, and only prolonging death (one is a mitzvah, the other is not). On our daf, surrounded by Sages, the wisdom came from the maidservant. May his memory continue to be for a blessing.

Gems! Everywhere! What a great daf. Okay, to keep it manageable. I will keep the first gem as a one liner, but know the daf elaborates on it. 1:

Rav Huna said: The language of the Sages teaches blessing, the language of the Sages teaches wealth, and the language of the Sages teaches healing.

Love this! We learn, through studying the daf, blessings, good business pracitces, and healing. Fabulous.

The second gem comes on the death bed of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. . . . and it’s perfect for those who love a little spookiness:

Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi commanded his sons: My lamp should be lit in its usual place, my table should be set in its usual place, and the bed should be arranged in its usual place after I die. The Gemara asks: What is the reason he made these requests? The Gemara explains: Every Shabbat eve, even after his passing, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi would come to his house as he had done during his lifetime, and he therefore wished for everything to be set up as usual.

That’s right! He plans on haunting his home!

The Gemara relates the following incident: It happened on a certain Shabbat eve that a neighbor came by and called and knocked at the door. His maidservant said to her: Be quiet, for Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi is sitting. When he heard his maidservant reveal his presence to the neighbor, he did not come again, so as not to cast aspersions on earlier righteous individuals who did not appear to their families following their death.

Wow wow wow! That’s right – the greatest rabbi of all time, who would visit home every Shabbat, continued to do so after death! He only stopped when others learned of his visits because he worried that he might make righteous individuals who died before him look bad in comparison (so modest).

And the third gem is a true treasure and perfect one for Simchat Torah:

And this is the background to an exchange that took place when Rabbi Ḥanina and Rabbi Ḥiyya argued. Rabbi Ḥanina said to Rabbi Ḥiyya: You are arguing with me? If, Heaven forfend, the Torah would be forgotten from the Jewish people, I would restore it through my analyses, i.e., using my abilities of analysis I would be able to rediscover all that had been lost.

Okay! So Rabbi Hanina is arguing that he is the greater Sage because of his memory. He would be able to reproduce the Torah by himself! Watch Rabbi Hiyya’s response:

Rabbi Ḥiyya said to Rabbi Ḥanina: I am working to ensure that the Torah will not be forgotten from the Jewish people. For I bring flax and I plant it, and I then weave nets from the flax fibers. I then go out and trap deer, and I feed the meat to orphans, and I form scrolls from the skins of the deer. And I go to a town that has no teachers of children in it and I write the five books of the Torah for five children. And I teach the six orders of the Mishna to six children. To each and every one of these children I say: Teach your order to your friends. In this way all of the children will learn the whole of the Torah and the Mishna.

God bless that Rabbi Hiyya.

While Rabbi Hanina may have a vault of a memory. What would happen if something happened to him? All his learning would be lost. And, who is that learning benefiting? Right now, only Hanina.

Rabbi Hiyya is planting, growing, feeding. Both in the literal sense and the figurative. He is creating a world where Torah proliferates, both in the teachings being taught ana available to be learned, and in the teachings being put into action.

Gorgeous.

On this festival day, may we all aspire to be a bit more like Hiyya.

Drama on the daf! Who gets custody of a child after the death of the father? In the US, it’s assumed the mother, but in many other cultures, once there is a marriage, property and people all go to the husband’s side, so a child would not leave the care of her/his father’s family. But not so on the daf (although I have heard of cases in the hassidic community where this a mother left and lost the rights to even see her child, so don’t think we’re so egalitarian in all cases).

As it is taught in a baraita: In the case of one who died and left a minor son to the care of his mother, and the heirs of the father say: The son should grow up with us, and his mother says: My son should grow up with me, the halakha is that one leaves the child with his mother, and one does not leave the child with one who is fit to inherit from him, i.e., the father’s heirs.

So, the rule is that you leave the child with his mother – as the other men have an incentive for the child to die. This child is in the way of their inheritance! While most would hope that no one would be so cruel as to hurt or kill a child just to get a little money, the daf knows better.

An incident occurred, and the boy lived with his father’s heirs, and they slaughtered him on the eve of Passover. So too, a minor girl is not left in the care of those who are obligated to sustain her and who have a financial interest in her demise.

Woah! Crazy story. Horrific story. But also, believable.

(Side note. During the middle ages there were blood libels agains the Jews claiming Jews used the blood of children to kasher matzah. This is hideously inaccurate. Jews are forbidden from consuming any blood, even animal blood. Jews are forbidden from killing – it’s right there in the top 10. Jews do not slaughter children. Nor do Jews believe non-Jews are less-than. These libels have been proven false again and again, but once a horrible thing is said, it can never be taken back. So, they persist. I only mention this as this story has the son murdered on Erev Passover. This is just a coincidence.)

A zoom out on today’s daf is kinda interesting as we see vast differences between how it begins and ends.

The daf begins with a discussion about an annulled marriage (where a woman was married off as a minor and when she came of age, she rejected her (intended) husband). Here, the rabbis get into the weeds about in what ways it counted as a real marriage with all the obligations of one partner to the other both during the time between when she was promised to the time she rejected, and the time after the annulment.

The daf ends with a discussion about a woman who married and made her husband promise to provide sustenance for her daughter from another marriage for a specified amount of time. Here, even if the couple divorces the man must still provide for her daughter. Even if the woman remarried, even if the daughter married, EVEN IF THE MAN DIED – he is still obligated to sustain her.

What’s interesting is that some of the rabbis believed that the “husband” of the minor girl had no obligations to sustain her, bury her, or care for her like a regular husband even before the annulment. While the rabbis seem to all agree that a husband would stay obligated to his step-daughter even in situations where she really no longer needed sustaining.

The moral of the contrast? Be very specific in what you’re agreeing to. As the Mishna points out, The perspicacious ones would write an explicit stipulation into the agreement: I agree on the condition that I will sustain your daughter for five years only as long as you are with me.

When we make our expectations explicit, they are easier for others to fulfill. And, if they won’t/don’t want to, then we can avoid a lot of headache and heartache for all involved.

As a prank, in high school, one of my boyfriend’s friends listed his car as free-with-pick-up in “The Penny Pincher.” For months he would get calls asking when the person could come and pick up his car. The Penny Pincher was the paper version of on-line local marketplaces, you could breeze through it and find things that others were selling because they needed the money and needed it fast. Governments also put on public auctions, where they sell repossessed homes, cars, and other goods. If you know where to look, you can buy these things on the cheap. Someone else’s misfortune could become your fortune.

Today’s daf also discusses making public announcements when a person’s property is up for sale. The idea being that the announcement would bring about market competition and ensure that the price was fair. But not everyone is comfortable with the idea of announcing these sales.

Rav Naḥman said: They never made an announcement of sale in Neharde’a. Some of the students understood from Rav Naḥman’s statement that no announcements were made in Neharde’a because the Sages there were all expert in the appraisal of an article’s value.

So, idea #1 – they don’t need to make announcements because the rabbis can pin-point the exact price for the items and we don’t need the market to weigh in (think Price is Right). Idea #2:

Rav Yosef bar Minyumi said to them: This was explained to me personally by Rav Naḥman himself: It was because those who purchase the property are called: People who consume property that was publicly announced. This disparaging nickname was given because the purchasers were perceived as taking advantage of the distress of others by running to buy the property of someone in trouble. Since decent, honest people did not wish to buy property whose sale had been announced, they stopped making announcements.

Ah! The vultures are swooping in! So, apparently, no one in Neharde’a wanted to be perceived as a vulture taking advantage of others’ misfortunes. But, at the end of the day, the items needed to be sold and the seller needed the money – so they sold it quietly.

That greasy feel is still around. But, by the number of calls my high school boyfriend got – there are plenty of people willing to cash in on others misfortunes. We are not all as classy as the people of Neharde’a.

Today’s gem is a nice one liner that I will paste and then explain the context.

However, in a case where the agent erred, the homeowner can say to the agent: I sent you to act for my benefit and not to my detriment!

The daf is discussing purchases made by an agent that do not fit what was requested by the purchaser. Rav Nachman is asked: What if the agent made an error? What if he sold it to the wrong number of people? What if he sold it for too low a price? That’s why we get this great exclamation: I sent you to act for my benefit and not to my detriment.

What’s the rule? The rule of overcharging/undercharging does not apply when the owner sold the land himself. If he got less than he might have – then it’s his fault, he cannot go back later and complain that the price was too low. However, if he told an agent to sell for a certain price, and the agent sold for a lower price, then he can invalidate the sale.

Today’s daf unpacks an interesting Mishna –

MISHNA: In the case of a widow whose marriage contract was worth two hundred dinars and she sold property that was worth one hundred dinars for two hundred dinars, or if she sold property worth two hundred dinars for one hundred dinars, she has received payment of her marriage contract and can demand nothing more. If her marriage contract was worth one hundred dinars and she sold property worth one hundred dinars and a dinar for one hundred dinars, the sale is void because she sold property that did not belong to her. Even if she says: I will return the additional dinar to the heirs, the sale is nevertheless void.

Having trouble following? The rabbis did too! (That was fun reading.) Eventually, we learn that, the woman in the mishna is like an agent and the heirs are like the person who hired the agent to do a dal for them. So, they sent her to sell a hundred zuz worth of land. If she sells 101 zuz worth of land, that’s a problem since she only had permission to sell 100. Even if she and actually receives 101 zuz! We learn that, even if she promises to give the extra dinar to the heirs, the sale is invalid since she didn’t follow the instructions. Rav Huna has a slightly different take. He says that this is not a case where she sold more land than she was supposed to but that she sold the 101 dinars worth of land but only received 100 in return. Now the problem isn’t that she sold too much land, but that she sold for the wrong price and that is why the sale is annulled.

The gem? There is a protection here for purchasers who send others to negotiate on their behalf. If the emissary is taken advantage of – the sale is no longer valid! So, you can’t be ripped off because you’re using a second party to do the purchasing. How great is that for consumer protection? !