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

Today’s daf tells of the creation of the Septuagint. The Gemara continues: And this was due to the incident of King Ptolemy, as it is taught in a baraita: There was an incident involving King Ptolemy of Egypt, who assembled seventy-two Elders from the Sages of Israel, and put them into seventy-two separate rooms, and did not reveal to them for what purpose he assembled them, so that they would not coordinate their responses. He entered and approached each and every one, and said to each of them: Write for me a translation of the Torah of Moses your teacher. The Holy One, Blessed be He, placed wisdom in the heart of each and every one, and they all agreed to one common understanding. Not only did they all translate the text correctly, they all introduced the same changes into the translated text.

It continues with all the changes these Sages made to the text when they translated it:

1.“God created in the beginning (lest it sound like ‘Bereishit’ created God)”;

2.“I will make man in an image and a form”; singular instead of the Hebrew which is plural

3. “He finished on the sixth day, and rested on the seventh”; To make it clear God did not work on the 7th day

4. “Male and female He created him“; So we know there was still only one human.

5. “I will descend and confuse their language”; Instead of “let us go down”

6. “Sarah laughed amidst her relatives“; they made this change because both Abraham and Sarah laughed but only Sarah gets slack for it.

7. “In their anger they killed an ox and uprooted a feeding trough” instead of saying the truth – that Simeon and Levi slew a man – so they didn’t come off as murderers.

8. “Moses put his wife and children on the people carrier” this suggests a horse or camel, which shows dignity more than a donkey;

9. “The children of Israel were in Egypt and other lands 400 years”; Since they were not enslaved not in Egypt for a full 400 years.

10. And he sent the elect [za’atutei] of the children of Israel. was changed from “And he sent the youth of the children of Israel, who brought burnt-offerings” because it sounds undignified to say that youths were sent to welcome God’s presence;

11. “He did not stretch His hand to (strike) the dignitaries of the children of Israel” (to be consistent with the previous deviation);

12. “I did not take one desired item of theirs” (instead of just specifying donkeys lest it sound like Moses took things other than donkeys);

13. Which the Lord your God has allotted to all the nations” (Deuteronomy 4:19), they added a word to make it read: “Which the Lord your God has allotted to give light to all the nations,” to prevent the potential misinterpretation that the heavenly bodies were given to the gentiles so that they may worship them.

14. The verse: “And has gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded” (Deuteronomy 17:3), could be understood as indicating that God did not command their existence, i.e., these entities created themselves. Therefore, when these Elders translated the verse they added a word to the end of the verse to make it read: Which I have not commanded to serve them.

15. And the last, my favorite: And in the list of unclean animals they wrote for him: The short-legged beast [tze’irat haraglayim]. And they did not write for him: “And the hare [arnevet]” (Leviticus 11:6), since the name of Ptolemy’s wife was Arnevet, so that he would not say: The Jews have mocked me and inserted my wife’s name in the Torah.

Again, we are left with the question about trying to translate things, not just into different languages, but into different cultures. Here, the rabbis understood how certain passages would be misconstrued and changed them. So often the Bible has been misunderstood and people have lost faith because of it, or done horrible things in the name of faith because of it. This is why it’s “dangerous” to study Torah along. And why finding a good teacher is so important. And why it’s good to ask questions. . .

The Megillah, or Megillat Esther, means the scroll of Esther. It is a separate document than the Torah, also hand written on parchment. So, should it be treated the same as a Torah scroll? Well, before we answer that question, the daf wonders about more common used items that are also hand written on parchment, items that contain words of Torah – the Tefillin and the mezuzah. Today, we only get into the questions of what it can be written on and in what language.

MISHNA: The difference between Torah scrolls, and phylacteries and mezuzot, in terms of the manner in which they are written, is only that Torah scrolls are written in any language, whereas phylacteries and mezuzot are written only in Assyrian, i.e., in Hebrew and using the Hebrew script. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Even with regard to Torah scrolls, the Sages permitted them to be written only in Greek. Torah scrolls written in any other language do not have the sanctity of a Torah scroll.

GEMARA: The Gemara infers that with regard to the matter of stitching the sheets of parchment with sinews, and with regard to rendering the hands of one who touches them impure, both this, Torah scrolls, and that, phylacteries and mezuzot, are equal. The Sages issued a decree rendering the hands of one who touches sacred scrolls impure with second-degree ritual impurity.

The Mishnah states that the scrolls of the Tanakh may be written in any language and in any type of writing. However, mezuzot and tefillin may be written only in Assyrian, the alphabet in which Hebrew was and is still written and they may be written only in Hebrew.
However, Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel disagrees teaching that while Tanakh scrolls may indeed be written in languages other than Hebrew, they may not be written in any language, just Greek.

Why Greek? At the time of the Mishnah Greek was the international language of the intellectual elite. Plus, the Tanakh had already been translated into Greek with a powerful story behind it. In the story, 72 Sages are placed into different rooms and commanded to translate the Tanakh. They all come out with their translations and each translation is a perfect match to the 71 others! A miracle. This translation is called the Septuagint and was widely used in the period by Jews in the Greek-speaking Diaspora.

The message? It really takes a miracle to have an accurate translation. As it is, even the Septuagint makes some interesting choices in translation that later rabbinic authorities disagree with.

A great daf today! So, what’s the gem? Is it Esther arguing with the sages that they should canonize her story? Is it the amazing folk saying being said in Shmuel’s memory that, “One sharp pepper is better than a basketful of pumpkins“? Is it watching the rabbis send gifts to one another (a mitzvah on Purim)? The other folk saying, that I grew up saying as well, “Room in the stomach for sweets can always be found“?

Today’s gem is the classic teaching by Rava to get drunk on Purim being packaged with a clear illustration that this might just be Rav’s opinion because – wow, is it dangerous to get that drunk!

Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated with wine on Purim until he is so intoxicated that he does not know how to distinguish between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordecai.

The Gemara relates that Rabba and Rabbi Zeira prepared a Purim feast with each other, and they became intoxicated to the point that Rabba arose and slaughtered Rabbi Zeira. The next day, when he became sober and realized what he had done, Rabba asked God for mercy, and revived him. The next year, Rabba said to Rabbi Zeira: Let the Master come and let us prepare the Purim feast with each other. He said to him: Miracles do not happen each and every hour!

Wow! So, these two rabbis, Rabba and Rabbi Zeira, took seriously the command to get intoxicated and Rabba ends up killing his friend! God performs a miracle and brings him back to life, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, Rabbi Zeira passes when invited to celebration Purim with Rabbi the next year.

The Torah doesn’t love drunkenness. The stories of Noah and Lot demonstrate the aversion to drunkenness, let alone all the rules around not performing Temple services while intoxicated (the Nazir can’t even eat a grape!) . . . So, why do we drink on Purim? And should we really get so drunk that we can’t tell the difference between Praised be Mordecai and Cursed be Haman?

Bal HaMaor, Dapei HaRif Megillah, looks at this story and concludes, “from the story that Rabbah slaughters Rav Zeira and that on the next year he said let’s have another Purim seudah, etc – this teaches you that it is an individual opinion of Rava and that the Jewish Law does not go like him, and that it is not good to behave like this!”

So we shouldn’t drink! Just Hamantaschen, after all, there is always room in the desert drawer . . . but not so fast!

Abudraham, Hilchot Purim (mid. 14th century) grapples with the apparent contradiction between Rava saying we should drink and the great majority of Jewish law teaching we should avoid drunkenness by teaching, “The answer is that all of the miracles that happen for the Jews in the days of Ahashverosh happened during wine-feasts: Vashi resisted coming out….Esther emerged as queen…. and Haman’s downfall also happened through a wine-fest. Therefore we are obligated to drink on Purim because the miracle happened through wine, and so we too remember the miracle through drinking wine.”

Even the Shulchan Orech, the go-to Code of Jewish law teaches a contradiction in that Joseph Karo (sephardi) teaches we should drink while Moses Isserles (ashkenazi) disagrees.

So, what do we learn? A congregant once came to me who had attended a Chabad service for Purim. They were shocked to see the rabbi passed out on the floor from drinking so much. (I am, by no means, implying all Chabad rabbis take drinking on Purim this far.) He was certainly on team Rava in his Purim observance. But I think the ruling from Rava is juxtaposed to the story to teach us that, even in this unlimited celebration of joy, we need to have boundaries. The joking on Purim can go too far. The drinking on Purim can go too far. We need to know ourselves and know when we should stop drinking (or if we should even start drinking at all). When we start to blur the lines between what’s right and what’s wrong? Well, perhaps we’ve gone too far.

Funny how there are SO many rules about Purim, yet this one line, which may not actually hold the weight of Jewish law, is one most of us know.

Drink safely.

Amalek is the eternal enemy of the Jewish people. In Exodus, he wages a war trying to destroy us when we are weak and running for our lives from Egypt. In Deuteronomy, we are told to blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. In the Megillah, the villain of the story, Haman, is a descendant of Amalek. Today’s daf, points to another nation as descendants of Amalek. . .

Jacob said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, grant not to the wicked Esau the desires of his heart, as he wishes to destroy us. Further not his evil device. This is a reference to Germamya of Edom, i.e., Germany, which is near the land of Edom. As, if the Germans would go forth, they would destroy the entire world.

Wow. Remember that this was written ~ 500C.E. Was the Talmud predicting the future? What Germany would do in the Holocaust?

According to Aish, “The story is told about the great Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, the revered spiritual leader who lived in the Old City of Jerusalem at the turn of the century. When the German Kaiser Wilhelm visited Jerusalem in 1898, Rabbi Sonnenfeld refused to greet him. He explained that the Kaiser exhibited the classic signs of Amalek (a tradition passed down from the Vilna Gaon).”

There are parallels between the Nazi genocide and the story of Purim. The most obvious being that both were attempts of genocide against the Jews. Another is that Haman’s 10 sons were hanged, 10 prominent Nazi’s were hung after the Nuremberg trials (even thought firing squad was the usual mode of carrying out a death sentence. And this crazy one from Newsweek October 28 1946 which reports, “Only Julius Streicher went (to the gallows) without dignity. He had to be pushed across the floor, wild-eyed and screaming: ‘Heil Hitler!’ Mounting the steps he cried out: ‘And now I go to God.’ He stared at the witnesses facing the gallows and shouted” ‘Purimfest, 1946.’

I don’t know that the Talmud is predicting the future, or that this Nazi was a descendant of Amalek and Haman, but clearly, he thought of himself as one. May his memory – meaning his thought process, his conspiracies, his hate – be blotted out.

Today’ daf grapples with how to define a large town verse a village, which is important in terms of establishing when the Megillah is read:

MISHNA:What is considered a large city, where the Megilla is read on the fourteenth of Adar? Any city in which there are ten idlers.

GEMARA: It was taught in a baraita: The ten idlers that are mentioned here are ten idlers that are in the synagogue. Stensaltz adds “men who do not have professional responsibilities other than to sit in the synagogue and attend to communal religious needs. The presence of ten such men establishes a location as a prominent city.” Rashi explains that these are ten men that are paid to always be in the synagogue to ensure that there is a minyan.

How does this apply to today? Well, in Israel, this is a HUGE issue. Over 50% of the Ultra-Orthodox men in Israel do not work. What do they do? They sit in the yeshivah and study Talmud, and pray. How do they survive? The community pays them through taxes by the government. Do secular Israelis like this arrangement? In general – no. It’s unsustainable. According to the Times of Israel, th eUltra-Orthodox population of Israel in 2020 was “1.175 million, showing an annual growth rate of 4.2 percent over the past decade, over twice the 1.9% shown by the rest of the Israeli population and over three times that of the rest of the Israeli Jewish population (excluding the Haredi population), 1.2%. At those rates, the community will double in size every 16 years.” This is bad news if the majority of men in the community don’t work.

What does it mean to have a large city? To be able to sustain a minyan of men whose focus is purely for Torah study and prayer. But what happens when a country tries to support any man who chooses to so dedicate his life?  

Today’s gem is a little bit of an understatement:

And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi also said: Women are obligated in the reading of the Megilla, as they too were significant partners in that miracle.

Significant? Hello – it’s not called the scroll of Esther for nothing . . . the women are major players in this story, but we are in other stories as well. While Moses gets so much of the credit for Passover, Moses’ mother had Moses and hid his despite Pharaoh’s command to kill all Hebrew baby boys. Shifrah and Puah delivered and protected Moses despite Pharaoh’s decree that the midwives should kill the boys. Miriam got Moses safely to – yes, anther woman – Batya, Pharaoh’s daughter, who raised him as her own child. So, Purim is not the only holiday (I could easily discuss women’s central roles in all others) where women play a major role. So, what’s going on?

We have to remember that, in traditional Jewish law, women are usually exempt from positive time-bound commandments (someone has to be able to tend to children – hello patriarchy). So, hearing the Megillah be read might fall into this category, therefor R. Joshua b. Levi says that women are obligated to read the Megillah because they “were part of the same miracle.” The Tosafot give two potential meanings to this statement. 1) “They were part of the miracle” means that through a woman, Esther, the miracle took place. OR 2) “They were part of the miracle” means that they were miraculously saved, as were the men because Haman’s decree would have killed the women as well as the men.

Why do we care today? I think this opens up a very important conversation about spaces and celebrations where women have historically been excluded. Were women not part of that miracle? Were women not in danger? These miracles happened for women too, often through the hands of women . . . so yeah, women can, and should, celebrate.

A lot of things get lost in translation. There are certain words whose flavor just can’t be captured in any other language than the original. But, when you take the holy word of God and try and translate it, it’s very hard to capture the intended meaning, because – what is the intended meaning? The text speaks to us across the millennia, so how can we say “This, this is what it means” when the meaning has so many layers? And, we have seen throughout history how people have done horrific things in the name of God, believing that their interpretation of the text is the correct one, that they are fulfilling God’s will. And we have seen mistranslations give birth to entire religions, sects, (dare I say cults) and, less dangerously so, misunderstandings of the text’s intention. That is one of the concerns of our daf today. It focuses in on two translations, the translation of the Torah by Onkelos and the translation of the prophets by Yonatan ben Uzziel. God reluctantly allows them to translate these texts, but draws the line at the writing, citing the Book of Daniel and the fear that people will try and interpret this text as predicting the Messiah coming . . .

Rabbi Yirmeya said, and some say that it was Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba who said: The Aramaic translation of the Torah used in the synagogues was composed by Onkelos the convert based on the teachings of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. The Aramaic translation of the Prophets was composed by Yonatan ben Uzziel based on a tradition going back to the last prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

What happened when Yonatan ben Uzziel translated the prophets?

Eretz Yisrael quaked over an area of four hundred parasangs [parsa] by four hundred parasangs, and a Divine Voice emerged and said: Who is this who has revealed My secrets to mankind?

Yonatan ben Uzziel stood up on his feet and said: I am the one who has revealed Your secrets to mankind through my translation. However, it is revealed and known to You that I did this not for my own honor, and not for the honor of the house of my father, but rather it was for Your honor that I did this, so that discord not increase among the Jewish people. In the absence of an accepted translation, people will disagree about the meaning of obscure verses, but with a translation, the meaning will be clear.

And Yonatan ben Uzziel also sought to reveal a translation of the Writings, but a Divine Voice emerged and said to him: It is enough for you that you translated the Prophets! The Gemara explains: What is the reason that he was denied permission to translate the Writings? Because it has in it a revelation of the end, when the Messiah will arrive.

The Talmud asks the obvious question—why was God okay with translating the Torah but not okay with translating the Prophets? The answer is that the meaning of the Torah and its laws is usually quite apparent. People can understand it without a translation. However, as anyone who has ever read anything from the Prophets knows, it’s poetic, uses illusions, and many of the verses are difficult to understand. It was the meaning of these verses that God did not want revealed to the rest of the world.

The Gemara gives an example of a cryptic verse that is hard to understand: As it is written: “On that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon” (Zechariah 12:11).

So, how are we to understand this verse?

And with regard to that verse, Rav Yosef said: Were it not for the Aramaic translation of this verse, we would not have known what it is saying, as the Bible does not mention any incident involving Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. The Aramaic translation reads as follows: On that day, the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Ahab, son of Omri, who was slain by Hadadrimmon, son of Tavrimon, in Ramoth-Gilead, and like the mourning for Josiah, son of Amon, who was slain by Pharaoh the lame in the valley of Megiddon. The translation clarifies that the verse is referring to two separate incidents of mourning, and thereby clarifies the meaning of this verse.

How does Christianity understand this verse? Well, you need to read the verse prior, and note the difference in translation:

Onkelos: But I will fill the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with a spirit of pity and compassion; and they shall lament to Me about those who are slain, wailing over them as over a favorite son and showing bitter grief as over a first-born.

King James Version:  And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

Quite different indeed. One speaks of destruction and regret, the other quite clearly foreshadows the crucifixion of Jesus. No wonder the rabbis feared translation of the text. The original meaning can be misconstrued and manipulated, and those who cannot read the original become certain that the way the text has been presented to them, and their understanding of the text, is correct.

A lot can be lost in translation. And wars have been waged, and millions slaughtered over differences in interpretation.

It’s a new book (and it’s inspired by one of my favorite holidays)! Megillah starts off with a conversation that synagogues still have today: What do we do when Purim falls on a day when people don’t gather? Can we move it? We often want to have the Purim carnival on a Sunday, but that doesn’t happen every year. Can we move it? Do we need to read Megillah on the 14th of Adar? Or is there wiggle room?

MISHNA: The Megilla is read on the eleventh, on the twelfth, on the thirteenth, on the fourteenth, or on the fifteenth of the month of Adar, not earlier and not later.

That’s 5 days! That’s a lot of wiggle room.

Cities [kerakin] that have been surrounded by a wall since the days of Joshua, son of Nun, read the Megilla on the fifteenth of Adar, whereas villages and large towns that have not been walled since the days of Joshua, son of Nun, read it on the fourteenth. However, the Sages instituted that the villages may advance their reading to the day of assembly, i.e., Monday or Thursday, when the rabbinical courts are in session and the Torah is read publicly, and the villagers therefore come to the larger towns.

So the rabbis allowed for people to move the Megillah reading to days when everyone would be gathering in the market – high flow days! So, does this mean we can just move Purim to fit our schedules?

Rabbi Yehuda said: When is one permitted to read the Megilla from the eleventh to the fifteenth of Adar? At a time when the years are established properly and the Jewish people dwell securely in their own land. However, nowadays, since people look to the reading of the Megilla and use it to calculate when Passover begins, one may read the Megilla only in its designated time.

So, maybe the reading can’t move so easily . . . or we can follow the model of the Great Sanhedrin and say: when will people be able to come? When will the highest number of Jews be able to hear the Megillah and fulfill the mitzvah?

Today’s daf continues to discuss Tu B’Av, the 15th of Av, the good that happened on that day, and it gives more details about how the women would dress and what they would say to single men on that day. It’s a day of love, dancing, and finding your soul-mate – how perfect then that the rabbis extend this to the end of days:

Ulla of the city of Bira’a said that Rabbi Elazar said: In the future, in the end of days, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will arrange a dance of the righteous, and He will be sitting among them in the Garden of Eden, and each and every one of the righteous will point to God with his finger, as it is stated: “And it shall be said on that day: Behold, this is our God, for whom we waited, that He might save us. This is the Lord; for whom we waited. We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).

Just as the women will be able to dance and select their loved one – so too the righteous will be able to dance and point to their God. Just as we long for a partner in life, so long for that close connection with our Higher Power. It’s a love story. A story of longing. The rabbis imagine that one day we will meet God, and will will dance, and rejoice, and it will be a slice of Gan Eden.

This marks the end of our reading of Ta’anit! Mazal tov to all of you who made it through this fabulous little section of the Talmud with it’s wonderful stories.

Today’s daf largely focuses on how Yom Kippur and the 9th of Av are similar in terms of observance or mourning rituals – however the gem comes from them being similar in regards to them being days of joy:

The mishna taught that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: There were no days as happy for the Jewish people as the fifteenth of Av and as Yom Kippur. The Gemara asks: Granted, Yom Kippur is a day of joy because it has the elements of pardon and forgiveness, and moreover, it is the day on which the last pair of tablets were given. However, what is the special joy of the fifteenth of Av?

Now we get various answers:

1. Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: This was the day on which the members of different tribes were permitted to enter one another’s tribe, by intermarriage. (A bit of background, “it was initially prohibited to intermarry between tribes, so as to keep each plot of land within the portion of the tribe that originally inherited it. This halakha was instituted by the Torah in the wake of a complaint by the relatives of the daughters of Zelophehad, who were worried that if these women married men from other tribes, the inheritance of Zelophehad would be lost from his tribe (see Numbers 36:1–12).” What did they expound, in support of their conclusion that this halakha was no longer in effect? The verse states: “This is the matter that the Lord has commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, this matter shall be practiced only in this generation, when Eretz Yisrael was divided among the tribes, but afterward members of different tribes were permitted to marry.
2. Rav Yosef said that Rav Naḥman said: The fifteenth of Av was the day on which the tribe of Benjamin was permitted to enter the congregation of the Jewish people. Again, we need background, “After the tragic incident at Gibeah, for which the tribe of Benjamin was blamed, the other tribes ostracized them. They took an oath to prohibit themselves from marrying a member of the tribe of Benjamin, as it is stated: “And the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying: None of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife” (Judges 21:1).” The Gemara asks: What did they expound that enabled them to dissolve this oath? Rav said: The verse says: “None of us,” and not: None of our children, i.e., the oath applied only to the generation that took the oath, not their descendants.
3. Rabba bar bar Ḥana said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: The fifteenth of Av was the day on which the deaths of the Jews in the wilderness ceased. The entire generation that had left Egypt had passed away, as the Master said: After the sin of the spies, on account of which the Jews of that generation were sentenced to die in the wilderness, as long as the death of the Jews in the wilderness had not ceased, God’s speech did not come to Moses, as it is stated: “And it came to pass, when all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people, that the Lord spoke to me, saying” (Deuteronomy 2:16–17). This indicates that only then, after the last member of that generation had died, was God’s speech delivered to me, i.e., Moses, but not beforehand. When the Jews realized that the decree that God would not speak to Moses had been lifted, they established that day as a permanent day of rejoicing. Wow! God would not speak to Moses while this generation was still alive!
4. Ulla said: The fifteenth of Av was the day on which King Hoshea, son of Ela, canceled the guards that Jeroboam, son of Nevat, placed on the roads so that the Jews would not ascend to Jerusalem for the pilgrim Festival. And Hoshea, son of Ela, said that they may ascend to wherever they wish, i.e., they may go to Jerusalem, Bethel, or Dan.
5. Rav Mattana said: There was an additional salvation on this day, as it was the day that the slain of Beitar were brought to burial.

So, the 15th of Av was a day that the tribes were allowed to intermarry. They forgave the tribe of Benjamin. God began to speak to Moses again. We got to return to Jerusalem for pilgrimage festivals. And, we got to bury our dead. 5 blessings, just like the enumerated tragedies that befell the Jewish people on the 9th and 17th of Av.

I love the blessings: To marry, forgive, hear God’s voice, travel, and pay respect to our dead. Maybe these are all key to a good life.