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

I really struggled to find a gem on today’s daf. This afternoon I read Rachel Scheinerman’s piece for My Jewish Learning. It’s brilliant. Here is the link – hopefully I can be more inspired tomorrow. Shabbat Shalom! https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yevamot-74/

Today’s gem is right at the top of the daf:

It is further stated: “And the pure person shall sprinkle upon the impure” (Numbers 19:19). The verse states “pure”; this indicates by inference that he is in some way ritually impure. In other words, the verse speaks of one who is pure only in relation to one who is impure. Were this not the case, there would have been no need at all to mention his purity, as it would have been understood that since the red heifer is called a sin-offering, with regard to which purity is paramount, the one performing the ritual must be pure. Of necessity, then, this “pure” individual is not completely pure in all regards. This teaches that one who immersed himself that day is fit to perform the rites connected to the red heifer.

There are no perfect people.

I like this strange passage because it reminds us that, even if someone has it together, or is “pure” in one area of life, they may not be in others. We often look at others and think that they have it all together. Social media worsens this tendency as we only see selected, airbrushed and often staged photos. We look and think ourselves worse in comparison. Here, we see that, even the person who is elevating the “impure” person by performing the red heifer ritual for them, also has experienced some impurity. Hey, they may have just left the mikvah that same morning.

Judaism does not ask that any of us be perfect. I like this passage because sometimes we seek out perfection in those we want to help us, but often those who can be the most helpful are those who have gone through what we have experienced, those who have experienced heartbreak, screw ups, mistakes . . . impurities. Often, those who are the best at leading us are one step ahead of us in recovery.

I also like the implication that we can learn from and be lead by anyone. Maybe this person is “impure” in some other aspect of life but here, in this aspect, they can lead and guide us. The reminds us that we can learn from the work mentor with a messy home life, and the good friend with little career ambition.

Today’s gem is the lesson to let your admiration for others inspire you to improve yourself. . . instead of allowing it to make you bitter or jealous. And, if you want to be good at something, know that if all comes from work. There is no such thing as being the best solely based on God-given talent – everyone has to work and practice and study.

After Rabbi Elazar left, Rabbi Yoḥanan, who was impressed with Rabbi Elazar’s exposition, said to Reish Lakish: I saw that Rabbi Elazar, son of Pedat, was sitting and expounding the Torah as Moses had received it directly from the mouth of the Almighty. Reish Lakish said to him: Was this exposition his own? It is a baraita. Rabbi Yoḥanan inquired: Where is this baraita taught? Reish Lakish replied: It is in Torat Kohanim, otherwise known as Sifra, a work of halakhic midrash on the book of Leviticus. Rabbi Yoḥanan went out and learned the entire Torat Kohanim in three days, and reached a full understanding of it in three months.

Here, Rabbi Yohanan thought that Rabbi Elazar was so gifted that he was learning the laws from God’s lips! When he learns that the idea came from Torat Kohanim, he got motivated. He allowed Rabbi Elazar’s example inspire him to improve himself!

We can all improve and become better. Maybe we won’t be the best, but it’s also untrue to think that the best didn’t need to work to get where they are.

In college, one of my best friends had a crush on this guy who got around. She joked that, if they ever got together, she would want him to get a second circumcision.

A few years later, in rabbinical school, I learned that there were, in fact, men who required a second circumcision.

According to today’s daf, they were far from the first.

As it is stated: “At that time the Lord said to Joshua: Make yourself knives of flint, and circumcise again the children of Israel a second time” (Joshua 5:2). . .

Perhaps the verse is referring to those who had not been circumcised at all, as it is written: “For all the people who came out were circumcised; but all the people who were born in the wilderness…had not been circumcised” (Joshua 5:5)? The Gemara responds: If so, that it was only those who had never been circumcised who required circumcision, what is the meaning of “circumcise again,” which indicates that they had to be circumcised a second time? Rather, is it not referring to uncovering the corona?

So here, we learn that some circumcisions were not proper and did not take enough skin and properly uncover the corona and would need to be repeated.

Those I learned of in Rabbinical school hail from The Books of the Maccabees. Many of these Hellenized Jews chose to undergo epispasm, the ancient practice of foreskin restoration by stretching the residual skin, so that they could conform to Greek culture and take part in sports, like wrestling in the gymnasium, which would have been done naked (1 Maccabees 1:11–15).

If the stretching of the foreskin to appear as thought you have not been circumcised does not turn your stomach enough – think about after the Maccabees win and restore the Temple how these men needed a second circumcision!

Perhaps this is even grosser than that boy who got around in college.

To snip or not to snip – apparently a question for some in our modern world – and maybe in the Talmudic world as well?

We get a new Mishna (a new chapter even!) today that states:

An uncircumcised priest, e.g., one for whom circumcision was considered too dangerous, and all those who are ritually impure with any type of impurity, may not partake of teruma, the portion of produce that must be set aside for the priests. However, their wives and their slaves may partake of teruma.

What’s the issue? Well, terumah is only allowed to be eaten by priests and their households. But what do we do when the priest is not allowed to eat terumah? Can the rest o the house?

In this case, we are learning about uncircumcised priests. The obvious question is – what aren’t they circumcised. This questions is where the gem is.

The first idea would be the obvious one from previous dapim (pages) where he has had multiple brothers who died after circumcision because they have some sort of bleeding disorder. If that was the case, any subsequent boys would not be circumcised and so we find a situation where a priest may not be circumcised.

The second is more rebellious, and given to us by Rabbeinu Tam, Rashi’s grandson, who suggests that the priest in question was an apostate and has CHOSEN not to be circumcized.

While the result is the same on the daf – that they can’t eat terumah, the implications are VERY different.

One is, in every way, a part of the Jewish people and wants to be part. The other is actively rejecting Judaism.

When we adopt and observe Jewish traditions or pass them by, why are we making these choices? Is it for our own health? Is it in response to our lived experience? Or is it a rejection? Does this choice make us more a part of or more apart from community?

Boy do I love and hate this book! Today, we have a true one-line gem, a diamond in the rough:

And if she is pregnant, until forty days from conception the fetus is merely water. It is not yet considered a living being, and therefore it does not disqualify its mother from partaking of teruma.

As we watch with bated breath to see what will happen with Roe v. Wade and listen to these Supreme Court Justices who argue that life begins at conception, we see that their definition is not that of the Talmud, not that of Jewish tradition.

By the way, after 40 days the fetus has some value in that we know it can determine if a woman can eat terumah or not, but also, less value than a full life in that the woman’s health takes precedence in all cases until the majority of the (at that point) baby has emerged from it’s mother, and if that woman were to be subject to the death penalty, we do not wait for her to give birth (unless she is already standing on the birthing stool). Before 40 days, the fetus is merely water, after 40 days, it’s like a limb of the mother.

In “Can’t Buy Me Love,” Patrick Dempsey plays a high schooler, Ronald, a complete dork who lives by Cindy, the coolest girl in the school. One day she needs cash, something he has from mowing lawns, so he pays her to pretend they are together and up his “status.” It works. One of my favorite lines is a girl who observes that he went from “geek to chic” in no time.

I can’t help but think of this motif as we read today’s daf that does the exact opposite. Women who would have otherwise been suited to eat terumah and marry into the priesthood disqualify themselves by associating with the wring kind of guy. Trigger warning, the Gemara uses the absolute minimum age that a boy might hit puberty in the following passage. This is not meant to limit this ruling to only 9 year old boys, it’s all men above the age of puberty.

A nine-year-and-one-day-old boy who is an Ammonite or a Moabite convert; or who is an Egyptian or an Edomite convert; or who is either a Samaritan [kuti], a Gibeonite, a ḥalal, or a mamzer, when he engaged in intercourse with a priestess, i.e., the daughter of a priest, a Levite, or an Israelite, he thereby disqualified her from marrying a priest, and, in the case of the daughter of a priest, from partaking of teruma.

She goes from priestess to leastess.

Okay, bad joke. But I am still struck at how I read this daf and am offended, yet, as pop-culture reminds us, we are still often judged by who we choose as a partner. Those choices can still, occasionally, bar us from future relationships or being invited to dinner parties. But I am glad to be in a time and a branch of Judaism to where this no longer applies. And I am also grateful to be out of high school and live a life where cool is not the measure of quality.

When does life begin? Elsewhere in the Torah, it is very clear that life begins at birth. (In fact, infants have a special tenuous status until 30 days after birth.) On today’s daf, we struggle with the status of an embryo as it is recognized not as a full fledged life but also as potentially not just a life, but, in this case, perhaps a future priest who will enable the family and the slaves to all partake in the special food called terumah.

MISHNA: With regard to an Israelite woman who married a priest and he died and left her pregnant, her slaves of guaranteed investment may not partake of teruma during her pregnancy, due to the share of the fetus, as an inheritor of his father, in the ownership of the slaves. In the opposite case, where the Israelite husband of a priest’s daughter died and left her pregnant, the fetus disqualifies her from partaking of teruma. However, in the current case, the fetus does not enable its mother or the slaves to partake of teruma, despite the fact that it is the child of a priest. This is the statement of Rabbi Yosei.

The Rabbis said to him: Since you testified before us about the case of an Israelite woman who was married to a priest, in the case of the daughter of a priest who was married to a priest and he died and left her pregnant, her slaves should not partake of teruma either, due to the fetus’s share. The same halakha should apply whether the woman is an Israelite or the daughter of a priest.

GEMARA: A dilemma was raised before the scholars: Is the reason for the ruling of Rabbi Yosei because he holds that a fetus in the womb of a non-priest is a non-priest, or, is Rabbi Yosei perhaps of the opinion that only one who was born enables others to partake of teruma, whereas one who is not yet born does not enable others to partake, although it is considered a priest?

Today we start a new section of Yevamot. It begins by discussing whether or not a slave can eat terumah (special food only a priest and his household) if the slave belongs to the wife and the marriage, to a priest, is forbidden. It very much discusses the slave as property – I would add, the wife is also discussed as property in a lovely line where it says “his acquisition who acquired an acquisition,”- and the determination of if and when the slave can eat terumah depends on who owns the slave and their status.

Why is this my gem? 

The slavery of those on the daf we often call a more civilized form of slavery. We point out the rights the slaves had – hey, even on our daf we are reminded that Slaves of guaranteed investment go free at the loss of a tooth or an eye caused by the husband. But at the end of the day, it’s still slavery.

That’s the gem. 

Today we still have slaves, in fact, experts believe there are more people enslaved today than ever before. 

I am here in Miami. We are ranked third for the country’s most trafficked humans, also known as slaves. From our undocumented migrants in the Redlands working for wages severely under minimum wage, the underpaid tomato workers in Immokalee, the “oriental massage” offered in strip malls throughout Miami-Dade, the girls “hired” for big business deals and sporting events – slavery is alive and well. (And this is not counting the people we hire under the table to clean our homes, drive our kids, mow our lawns and do handiwork – all without insurance or benefits.)

The gem is the mirror that the daf holds up to us: How are we rationalizing slavery today? How do we continue to participate? How do we allow ourselves to believe that what we are doing is not that bad because it’s not as outwardly degrading as the definition of slavery in our heads?  

A perfect daf for today.

The Gemara relates a similar incident: A certain woman came before Rav Naḥman and requested a divorce due to her husband’s inability to father children. He said to her: You are not commanded to be fruitful and multiply. She said to him: Does this woman not require a staff for her hand and a hoe for her burial? In other words, the woman said that she wanted children so that they could care for her in her old age and bury her when she would die. Rav Naḥman said: In a case such as this, we certainly force the husband to divorce her.

The Gemara relates that Rabbi Ḥiyya’s sons, Yehuda and Ḥizkiyya, were twins, but one of them was fully developed after nine months of pregnancy and one was fully developed at the beginning of the seventh month, and they were born two months apart. Yehudit, the wife of Rabbi Ḥiyya, had acute birthing pain from these unusual deliveries. She changed her clothes to prevent Rabbi Ḥiyya from recognizing her and came before Rabbi Ḥiyya to ask him a halakhic question. She said: Is a woman commanded to be fruitful and multiply? He said to her: No. She went and drank an infertility potion.

Today’s daf discusses how a woman is not commanded to be fruitful and multiply and gives us stories to prove that the Sages rule as such. It does not mean that a woman cannot desire to have children and want to have children as much, or more than, a man. But that she is not commanded.

I love this passage as it shows a woman who knows the law and knows her body and that she does not want to suffer through any more pregnancies. It shows her taking initiative and taking birth control.

And that’s her right.