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

Who wears short shorts? If you dare wear short shorts, Nair for short shorts . . .

Remember that old ad? Well, certainly the women of the Talmud did not wear short shorts, but apparently depilatory creams were an in demand item. On yesterday’s daf, the Mishnah lists specific items that one cannot have during Passover (because, although they are not food, they have leavening ingredients within them). One of those items is “Kolan of Soferim.” What is it? On the bottom of 42b we read: kolan of soferim, is considered leavened. The Gemara explains: Here, in Babylonia, they interpreted that this expression is referring to shoemakers’ glue that is made from flour. Rav Shimi from Ḥozna’a said: This is the depilatory paste of the daughters of the wealthy, of which they would leave a remnant for the daughters of the poor.

There is debate as to whether this is shoemakers’ glue or hair removal cream, but the Talmud continues today by describing what women did use to remove hair:

As Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: With regard to the Jewish women who reached physical maturity, but had not yet reached the age of majority, and women who sought to remove hair for cosmetic purposes: They would smear daughters of the poor with lime; they would smear daughters of the wealthy with fine flour; they would smear daughters of kings with shemen hamor, as it was stated: “For so were the days of their anointing filled, six months with shemen hamor” (Esther 2:12). The Gemara asks: What is shemen hamor? Rav Huna bar Ḥiyya said: Setaket. Rav Yirmeya bar Abba said: It is olive oil extracted from an olive that has not yet reached a third of its growth; the acidic oil is effective as a depilatory. It was taught in a baraita: Rabbi Yehuda says that anpiknin is olive oil from an olive that has not reached a third of its growth. And why is it spread on the body? It is due to the fact that it removes [mashir] the hair and pampers the skin.

Oy! Poor women. Lye that burns . . . the oil sounds nice until you hear it’s acidic. . .

Why is this my gem? I remember a friend getting a rash from using Nair. I remember my own palms turning orange when I, a red-head who only burns, tried to use self-tanner. I remember my friend Mindy accidentally waxing off an entire eyebrow. The shaving, waxing, creaming, and now laser treatments and threading done to remove hair – it all seems so ridiculous and unnatural. I think many women may think, as I did before reading this daf, that this desire to be unnaturally hairless is a modern phenomenon. But clearly, this has been a women’s struggle for thousands of years. Or at least, as Rabbi Yehudah said Rav said, a Jewish women’s struggle.

Today we learned that some of these creams may have leaven in them and were therefore forbidden during Pesach. At least these women got a week of respite. . . “season of our liberation” indeed.

Today’s gem requires us to read a bit of Hebrew

אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: אִשָּׁה לֹא תָּלוּשׁ אֶלָּא בְּמַיִם שֶׁלָּנוּ.

This says: Rav Yehudah said: A woman may knead matza dough only with water that rested, i.e., water that was left indoors overnight to cool. However, if you read those last two words: mayim shelanu, you may know that this can also mean “our water.”

Let hilarity ensue:

Rav Mattana taught this halakha in Paphunya. On the next day, the eve of Passover, everyone brought their jugs to him and said to him: Give us water. He said to them: I say and meant: Water that rested [devitu] in the house overnight.

As weird as it would be for a rabbi to say that the law is that they can only use his water, that’s what the people heard and so that is what they tried to do. In reality, he meant that they needed to use water that has rested since taking the water from the source might be warm (according to Rashi) and as any baker will tell you, warm water leavens bread faster than cold water. (I always make sure my water is hot when I am making challah.)

Great little gem that teaches us that when we hear something that seems strange, then we should ask qualifying questions. I have this with my kids all the time who don’t know folk expressions and often take them literally.

No, I didn’t mean that you should literally go fly a kite, nor did I mean that I literally couldn’t breathe, I just needed some space.

There are other goodies on this page too. Including ancient forms of Alka-seltzer and Nair. . . don’t worry, the hair removal recipes continue onto tomorrows page as well.

My mother hates to cook. As a child, this was a bit of an issue for the family as my dad, who loves to cook, would work nights and so the cooking of dinner often fell to her. Who can blame her for not wanting to cook when she came home after a full day of work? While we were regulars getting takeout from Lee’s Famous Recipe chicken, Pizza Hut, and Subway – she still had to figure out a couple of meals. She had one cookbook: 365 ways to prepare chicken.

I thought of this cookbook as I read today’s daf which seemed to want to explore every way you might cook lamb for Passover. Clearly, we are to roast it: “You shall not eat it partially roasted, nor boiled in any way in water, but roasted with fire; its head with its legs, and with the innards in it” (Exodus 12:9). But today’s daf wants to know – Can I partially roast it and then finish cooking it by boiling it? Can I start by boiling and then switch? Can I heat it in the springs of Tiberias (which are quite hot and are allowed to be used on Shabbat for cooking because we are not creating a fire)? Can I boil it in a different kind of liquid that’s not water? What if it’s raw? Burnt?

And I am reading this thinking of how boiled chicken falls off the bone and is quite tasteless; fried chicken that is essentially boiled in oil; the chicken my mom made by spreading Campbell’s condensed soup on it (I called it Mommy’s famous recipe); the time I bit into a raw chicken leg (thank God I didn’t get salmonella) and the many times we tried to salvage burnt chicken (I said she didn’t like to cook); and the many times the chicken wasn’t fully cooked and we threw it in the microwave. So, I relate to the debate on the page.

I haven’t eaten and chicken in a year. It was one of my 2020 New Year’s resolutions to become pescatarian (and try and limit my fish intake as well).

The daf was a resolution too.

Proud to still be going strong.

Oh, and I am sure you want to know what’s okay and what’s not. The answer is: just roast your pascal lamb. Don’t try and be fancy with it, because 41b debates how many lashes you get for cooking it in any other way (ouch).

As we continue to discuss matza making and preventing the grain from leavening, some cooking chemistry is discussed. Did you know there is a difference between the reaction of grain if it’s added to water, verses if water is added to it? That if you boil water it is again a different result? That vinegar will stop flour from becoming leavened? Well, it’s all on our page.

It might be confusing – trying to remember when you add wet to dry ingredients and dry to wet – what amounts and what kids are permitted and prohibited. With that in mind we get our gem:

Ulla said: In both of these cases, whether the vinegar is added first or afterward, its use is prohibited, as one must avoid scenarios that might lead to a prohibition, as per the well-known adage: Go around, go around, and do not approach the vineyard, they say to the nazirite.

What is this funny little rhyme saying? Since a nazirite is prohibited from drinking wine and eating grapes, it is preferable for him to avoid a vineyard entirely.

Ulla is teaching us that we would do well to apply this principle to other areas: it’s not good to dance around a prohibition. If you can, avoid the temptation all together.

Is eating healthier on your resolution list? Then this adage would teach you – better not to bring the icecream home then to think you can limit yourself to one spoonful a night. Want to drink less? Avoid the bar – yes you can order a soda, but really what’s more likely to happen?

I love the Johnny Cash song “I walk the line,” but in reality, if you want to avoid a behavior, it’s better to avoid the line all together.

So, in this New Year, may we all be better at “going round” and recognizing when we are Nazarites approaching a vineyard that we could just as easily avoid.

Can you use wasabi as the bitter herb on your Seder plate? What’s up with the lettuce leaf that some put?

Today’s daf has the answers. The Mishnah teaches: And these are the vegetables with which a person can fulfill his obligation to eat bitter herbs on Passover: One can fulfill his obligation with ḥazeret, with chervil [tamkha], and with field eryngo [ḥarḥavina], and with endives [olashin], and with maror. The Gemara goes on to discuss what these items are and what might count as alternative versions of bitter herbs, how much we need to eat and what we might prioritize even if other herbs are acceptable.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: From the statements of all these Sages, we can learn that a bitter green herb has sap and its surface is light green. Rav Huna said: The halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Aḥerim.

Ravina found Rav Aḥa, son of Rava, searching for merirata to use as bitter herbs. He was searching for the most bitter of the herbs to use. But is that what we really need? To find the most bitter? And now we debate!

He said to him: What is your opinion, that you seek this particular herb? If you are looking for that which is most bitter, you should stop because ht eMishnah said ḥazeret first, which indicates that this is the preferred choice. And likewise, a Sage of the school of Shmuel taught ḥazeret first, before the other types of bitter herbs. And Rabbi Oshaya said: The optimal fulfillment of the mitzva is with ḥazeret, and Rava said: What is ḥazeret? It is lettuce [ḥassa].

The Gemara explains: What is the meaning of lettuce [ḥassa]? It refers to the fact that God has mercy [ḥas] on us. And Rabbi Samuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Why are the Egyptians likened to bitter herbs? To tell you that just as these bitter herbs are soft at first and harsh in the end, so too, the Egyptians were soft at first, when they paid the Jews for their work, but were harsh in the end, as they enslaved them. This idea applies solely to ḥazeret, which has a bitter aftertaste, but not to other types of bitter herbs, which are bitter from the beginning. Rav Aḥa, son of Rava, said to Ravina: I retract my position and concede that it is preferable to use ḥazeret for bitter herbs.

So, the Hazeret is arguably the best bitter herb. What of horse radish you ask? Don’t worry. We learn that lots of things can be used for bitter herbs as long as they are vegetables that grow from the ground that is fit for human consumption that are fit to be purchased with second-tithe money.

In addition Abaye explained: Bitter herbs are similar to matza; just as matza can be prepared from many types of grain, so too, bitter herbs can be taken from many different types of vegetables.

So, as long as your herb fits these categories, you are good to go. By the way, Wasabi is Japanese horseradish and is a plant of the family Brassicaceae, which fits all these categories. So, yes, you can have wasabi on your seder plate.

I once had a co-worker who wrote in all capital letters. It felt like that person was yelling at me. Turns out, it just made the text easier for the writer to see. There are multiple examples, many happen every day, of how we can read a text one way, with a certain inflection, or another, with a different inflection, and get very different meanings.

That happens at the end of today’s daf. After a long debate about whether one can fulfill their obligation for eating matza with the second tithe, the loaves of the thanks-offering (because if you read lechem oni with an alef instead of an ayin, it means sad bread, so one would not be able to use thanksgiving bread), or nazarites wafers – Rabbi Ilai takes matters into his own hands to figure out what the ruling is:

It was taught in a baraita that Rabbi Ilai said: I asked Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus: What is the halakha with regard to the possibility that a person can fulfill the obligation to eat matza with the loaves of a thanks-offering or a nazirite’s wafers? He said to me: I did not hear anything about this issue.

So, originally Rabbi Eliezer, his first stop, says he does not know. The search continues:

I went and asked Rabbi Yehoshua, who said to me: They said, concerning loaves for a thanks-offering or a nazirite’s wafers that one prepared for his own offering, that a person cannot fulfill his obligation with them. However, if one baked them to sell in the market, he can fulfill his obligation with them.

so, he gets a ruling – you cannot use them if one prepared them for himself, however, is he prepared them to sell in the market, then you can. Rabbi Ilai goes to share this opinion with Eliezer:

When I returned and recited these matters to Rabbi Eliezer, he said to me in excitement: By the covenant! These are the very matters that were stated to Moses on Mount Sinai.

It appears that Rabbi Eliezer is exclaiming that this halakha had been transmitted over the generations going back to Moses on Mount Sinai. This would end the debate (and in fact it does) however, Hebrew has no punctuation (or had) and so, of course, there is a debate as to how to read Rabbi Eliezer’s responce:

Some say he spoke in astonishment: By the covenant! Are these in fact the matters that were stated to Moses on Mount Sinai?

So, according to this punctuation, it is NOT from Mt. Sinai, and we need an explanation.

Our gem? Re-read your texts and make sure your intended meaning is coming across. Punctuation matters. Emojis matter. And don’t write in all caps lock unless you want to convey that you are yelling at that person.

Today’s gem (from the bottom of 37b) places us in the classroom:

Rabba and Rav Yosef sat behind Rabbi Zeira and Rabbi Zeira sat before Ulla to hear him teach Torah. Rabba said to Rabbi Zeira: Raise the following dilemma of Ulla: If one pasted bread inside a pot and heated it from the outside, what is the halakha? Is one obligated to separate ḥalla from this bread? He said to him: Why should I say this question to Ulla? For if I say this to him, he will say to me: What is the halakha with regard to bread prepared as pot-boiled stew? In other words, he will reply that my question is effectively the same as that well-known case.

Rav Yosef further said to Rabbi Zeira: Raise the following dilemma of Ulla: If one pasted bread inside a pot and lit a torch opposite it, what is the halakha? He again said to him: Why should I say this question to Ulla? As if I say this to him, he will say to me: The majority of poor people do this when they use a pot for cooking, and therefore this too should be considered the same as bread prepared like pot-boiled stew.

I love this image. . . the two kids who sit behind the brown-nosing student in the first row trying to get him to ask questions from the teacher that they are unwilling to ask themselves.

I also love that after reading a page where it is hard to discern what is the law – that these great rabbis (who I just referred to as kids) don’t know what the law is either.

Do you separate challah from bread that is boiled (think dumplings)? Bread that is fried? Bread that is baked in an unusual way? That’s the debate. They ask a peer to ask their teacher and the peer replies with what has already been said, not helping them in the slightest.

The gem is to ask your own questions. If you don’t understand, don’t be embarrassed to ask, go to the source. Pirke Avot 2:6 teaches, A shy person cannot learn. 

Ask.

Today’s daf makes the inferences from yesterday explicit:

(1) Our Rabbis taught:…R. Akiva says: The Torah says “matzot” implying that different types of matzot can be used. If so, why does the Torah say “lehem oni“? To exclude dough that has been kneaded with wine, oil or honey…

(2) But does R. Akiva hold that one cannot use dough mixed with wine, oil or honey? But does it not teach: “One does not knead dough on Pesah with wine, oil or honey…And R. Akiva stated: I was sitting with R. Eliezer and R. Joshua and I kneaded dough with wine, oil and honey and they didn’t say anything to me…..

(3) This is not a difficulty: One refers to the first night and one refers to the second night.

This seems to make it clear that enhanced matzah cannot be used at the Seder but can be consumed on other nights of the festival. To know what we really do, however, we need to look to another type of literature: Codes of Law.

Reading Talmud is tough. As you have seen, you can go through an argument that lasts pages and pages and then ends in a “teiku” leaving us with no idea what the ruling really is. This is where codes come is. Wise rabbis have combed the Talmud and other sources to determine what the everyday person should do in these situations. Rambam has the Mishneh Torah (also known as the Yad haHazakah) but it was hundreds of years later that the Code of law most popularly used to day was written: the Shulchan Aruch.

Shulchan Aruch means the “prepared table” and that’s what it is, like finding a table all set for you to know where everything is and what to do. It was written by Joseph Karo and was composed in Safed (1563 CE). However, this gave the laws in accordance to the practice of Sephardi Jews. Moses Isserlis, an Ashkenazi authority, came along and wrote a critique with each place that Karo’s ruling differed from what they do in Ashkenaz. Instead of Isserlis’ comments serving as a repudiation of the work, printers printed both together, calling Isserlis’ comments the mappa, the “table cloth.” Now, Jews in both Sephardic and Ashkenaz had one work to refer to in order to see what is the law.

So, here is how the Shulchan Aruch interprets these pages:

Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim 462:1-4

(1) THE LAWS OF WETHER FRUIT JUICES LEAVEN; 7 SECTIONS Fruit juice without water does not leaven at all and is permitted to eat on Pesach Matzah which was kneaded with fruit juice, even if [the dough] was idle all the day. However, one may not fulfill his obligation with it, because of its Matzah Ashirah, and the verse states “lechem onee”. (So, yes you can eat it but not at the Seder)

(2) Fruit juice with water accelerates leavening more than other dough, therefore one should not knead with them and if kneads with them he should bake it immediately.

(3) It is permitted to knead with wine even though it’s impossible that there wasn’t a drop of water which fell into it at the time of pressing. Even initially, it is normal to put water at the time of pressing in order to permit [impurities] via connecting flow. Nevertheless, we are not concerned about this since afterward, the water is neutralized in the [proprotion to the] wine prior to kneading the dough.

(4) Egg liquid and all other liquids are generalized with fruit juice.

So, it looks like we are good for Sephardi Jews. But Ashkenaz? Let’s look to the mappa, always introduced with “REMA.”

REMA: and in these countries [Ashkenaz] it is not practiced to knead in fruit juice and even to batter the Matzot is only practiced after they are baked and still hot. One should not deviate from this when not a time of need. The needs of the sick or elderly are [examples] of this.

Just another illustration of why, when my husband converted to Judaism, he insisted on converting to Sephardi Judaism. . . It’s okay, I prefer the plain wheat matzah anyway. Plus, we learn on today’s page that we can spread whatever we want (that’s kosher of course) onto the matzah: And although one may not knead dough with these ingredients, one may spread these substances on the surface of the dough.

Or is that not right? Have to check the Shulchan Aruch . . . .

Today’s gem comes amidst a discussion of the 5 prohibited grains on Passover. These grains, as the Mishnah states: With wheat, with barley, with spelt [kusmin], with rye [shifon], and with oats [shibbolet shu’al], are the grains that matzah must be made out of, but that we are not to consume in their levened form. But we get an interesting statement from Reish Lakish:

Rabba bar bar Ḥana said that Reish Lakish said: With regard to dough that was kneaded with wine, oil, or honey, one is not liable to receive karet for eating it in its leaven.

What? Why not? Now, we have to figure out why, since this seems to contradict what we know of Passover.

Rav Pappa and Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, were sitting before Rav Idi bar Avin, and Rav Idi bar Avin was sitting and dozing as his students conversed. Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, said to Rav Pappa: What is the reason of Reish Lakish, who maintains that one is not liable to receive karet for this type of leavening?

Rav Pappa said to him: . . . with regard to this dough, which was kneaded with wine, oil, or honey, since a person does not fulfill his obligation to eat matza with it, as it is called rich, i.e., enhanced, matza, one is not liable to receive karet for eating it in its leavened state on Passover.

Love this! First, I love that these students are sitting around talking law while their teacher dozes off (I had a teacher like that freshman year of high school which is largely why I am not a surgeon today). Second, what a fabulous lesson. Matzah is a poor man’s bread, the bread of affliction. We are all equal on the night of PAssover, all eating the same required foods and telling the same story. If the dough was prepared with wine, oil, or honey – it’s no longer poor man’s bread. It doesn’t count. So – can you eat everything bagel matzah on passover? Egg matzah? Yes, but it doesn’t count towards the obligation of eating matzah. What does that mean? This means that you can eat enhanced matzah during the holiday of Passover, but at the Seder itself, the matzah is supposed to be plain (or, as some might say, cardboard flavored).

All of the above is true in terms of halakhah. But this is a page of Talmud, so of course we need a difference of opinion. Enter the sleeping teacher:

Rav Idi bar Avin woke up, due to their discussion, and said to them: Children, this is the reasoning of Reish Lakish: One is not liable to receive karet for eating dough kneaded with oil or honey, because oil and honey are considered fruit juices, and fruit juice does not cause dough to be leavened. Therefore, dough prepared with these liquids is not considered full-fledged leavened bread.

Even with this explanation, the rule applies. So, at your Seder, take a bite of the plain matzah made from one of the 5 species. But, during the rest of the week – have at it.

Two gems on today’s page. The first began on the bottom of 33b and is answered on the top of 34a. This is the question of, how can we use bread (or wheat) that is forbidden to be eaten but would still be valuable for another purpose (like warming us in the fire or being fed to an animal). Here, we are taught to make it gross so we don’t accidentally eat it: Where was Rav Ashi’s explanation stated? It was stated with regard to this: As Rabbi Avin bar Rav Aḥa said that Rabbi Yitzḥak said: Abba Shaul was the dough kneader of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s house, and they would heat water for him, to make dough, with wheat of ritually impure teruma, which was purchased from priests at a low price, in order to knead dough in ritual purity. The Gemara asks: Why did they do this? Let us be concerned lest they encounter a stumbling block by accidentally eating this wheat. With regard to this Rav Ashi said that it was only done when the wheat was boiled and repulsive and could only be used for lighting a fire.

I love this gem because it teaches us a way to avoid unwanted behaviors. For example, if you are a nail biter, one way to stop is to paint your nails as the nail polish tastes disgusting while also serving as a visible reminder to modify your behavior.

My other gem is just the way Rabbi Yireya responds to a teaching brought from Babylonia that he finds ridiculous:

When Ravin ascended to Eretz Yisrael, he stated this halakha of Rav Sheshet before Rabbi Yirmeya. And Rabbi Yirmeya said: Foolish Babylonians! Because you dwell in a dark land, you state halakhot that are dim. Have you not heard this statement of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish in the name of Rabbi Oshaya?

Love this line: Because you dwell in a dark land, you state halakhot that are dim. How true is this! We see the world through our own myopia. We are influenced by what is around us and it’s hard for us to imagine other possibilities. That’s why learning about how other people do things (other rabbis, other schools of thought, other political groups, other families, other countries, other species) is so important – it helps us see beyond what we might have thought possible.

Two examples: In Florida, once someone was convicted of a felony, they lost their right to vote (as well as other things including scholarships, public housing and more, but for now let’s just focus on the vote). People in Florida thought that this is just the way justice works. However, when Floridians learned that we are the outliers, that nearly every other state gives individuals the right to vote back after they have served time, while some states never take the right away in the first place, and that there are countries around the world that have voting booths in prisons – well, that convinced people to vote for those who couldn’t to get their voting rights reinstated.

That’s an example of a success that has happened. One more example that has not yet happened. The United States is not set up for parental leave of family leave (when taking time off after having a baby or when needing to take time off to care for a loved one). While some institutions provide one or both, others don’t. There is a HUGE discrepancy on when these leaves are paid for and how long they are. People often do not take as much time as they want to or even as much time as they are permitted to take because our culture is one in which often the institutions resent their workers when they are tending to anything other than their work. This is completely unhealthy and has held women back in the workforce and punished entire family units. One thing I have done for other rabbis is to share my contract with my maternity leave negotiations with them so that they can bring that into negotiations for their congregations to see what is possible (you would be shocked to see how many congregations don’t give leave). But my contract is pretty pathetic when you compare it to what all our neighbors in Canada receive, or parents in Estonia (who receive the most of the world’s wealthy countries). Maybe this is a situation where we need to say to our elected officials: Because you dwell in a dark land, you state halakhot that are dim and show them other possibilites.