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

I remember reading 17 magazine as a younger-than-17 year old and the advice it would give on how to win over your crush as I read Rav Hisda’s advice on today’s daf. This is 3rd century we are talking about, but it seems some of this advice is still doled out today to young women wanting to entice their men.

Rav Ḥisda said to his daughters: Be modest before your husbands; do not eat bread before your husbands, lest you eat too much and be demeaned in their eyes.

Is this why so many women don’t really eat their food on first dates? Why at so many meetings there is food put out but the women don’t touch it? That always confused me as I am one to clean my plate and then clean my husbands if he doesn’t . . .

Similarly, he advised: Do not eat vegetables at night, as vegetables cause bad breath (or I would guess – give you gas). Do not eat dates at night and do not drink beer at night, as these loosen the bowels. And do not relieve yourself in the place where your husbands relieve themselves, so that they will not be revolted by you.

Yep. Add to the myth that girls don’t fart and don’t poop. But as the popular childhood book says, “Everybody Poops.”

And when a person calls at the door seeking to enter, do not say: Who is it, in the masculine form, but rather: Who is it, in the feminine form. Avoid creating the impression that you have dealings with other men.

Don’t let him get jealous! Protect his ego ladies.

Here’s my favorite little slice of advice:

In order to demonstrate the value of modesty to his daughters, Rav Ḥisda held a pearl in one hand and a clod of earth in the other. The pearl he showed them immediately, and the clod of earth, he did not show them until they were upset due to their curiosity, and then he showed it to them. This taught them that a concealed object is more attractive than one on display, even if it is less valuable.

Rashi reads and interprets this passage completely differently from the gloss given above (as interpreted by the Ritva and conveyed by Steinsaltz in the translation). Rashi reads it as if Rav Hisda is giving pretty graphic sex advice. He reads it as Rav Hisda telling his daughters to let the husband hold the breast in one hand (that’s the pearl) and then wait until the husband is in agony to let him put his hand in “that other place.”

Both understandings speak to the value of yearning and how yearning increases our pleasure.

While I will refrain from going into my own sex-talk, I think about how our society is in general – we demand instant gratification. We want to see our photos immediately, to eat when we are hungry, to do everything when we feel. There is something to waiting, to anticipation, that we are missing. When the house smells delicious and your mouth waters but you won’t be able to enjoy the food for another hour . . . the food tastes even better. When we have to work for things, we value them more. When we have time to yearn, we can appreciate more.

Oh, Rav Hisda. I don’t know who read you correctly, Rashi or Ritva, but maybe this is a piece of good advice.

Wow, today’s daf has a lot to say about corrupt courts. I will definitely be referring to this in later dapim. What is interesting to me today is that there is this discussion about judges and justice and not using your knowledge of the law to bend the law to your will (instead of God’s will) and then we get this story:

the Rabbis said to Rav Ashi: Master, observe this Torah scholar, and Rav Huna ben Rabbi Ḥayon is his name, and some say that his name is Rav Huna, son of Rabbi Ḥalvan, who took a slice of garlic and placed it in the spout of a barrel, and said: I intend to store it. He thereby stopped the spout on Shabbat. And similarly, he went and slept in a ferry on the river, and the ferryman sailed the ferry across the river, and he thereby crossed to the other side and inspected the fruit of his vineyard. He said: I intend to sleep. In this way, he crosses the river by boat on Shabbat, which is a prohibited activity. Rav Ashi said to them: Are you speaking of artifice? This is artifice employed to circumvent a rabbinic prohibition, and a Torah scholar will not come to perform the action ab initio without artifice. Therefore, there is no reason to prohibit him from doing so.

To add fodder to the fire, they also explain that you do not tell common people about certain leniencies in the law, because they will not understand the nuance and may accidentally break the law.

But what is a regular Jew to think when they see a Rabbi riding a boat on Shabbat and then checking on his vineyard? If, like the rabbis suggest, they do not know the ins and outs of the law, I am pretty sure they will not assume he was sleeping, which is permitted, and the boat just happened to cross the water.

I am a little stumped, a little amused, and a little uncomfortable with this page. It seems that the rabbis are making one law for those in the know, and one law for everyone else. That would violate a biblical law as there is supposed to be one law for everyone (even the stranger who sojourns among you).

But this too is true – how often do we teach one thing, preach one thing, for everyone else, but not hold ourselves to that standard because we think we are somehow in the know and therefore not bound?

Will the Torah be forgotten? Well, actually, it has . . . on multiple occasions. But this daf we are reading? It’s the result of trying to prevent Torah from being forgotten in a way we could not recover from. As long as the chain of tradition is there, as long as we have the Torah itself and generations of conversation about what it might mean to live a life of Torah, we will always be able to recover.

With regard to Torah, Rav Huna related that Rav said: The Torah is destined to be forgotten from the Jewish people. It is stated at the conclusion of the curses in the Torah’s reproof: “And the Lord will make your plagues astonishing, and the plagues of your seed, great plagues of long continuance, and evil diseases of long continuance” (Deuteronomy 28:59). This term of astonishment, mentioned in the verse in addition to the explicit punishments, I do not know what it is. But when the verse states elsewhere: “Therefore, behold, I will continue to astonish this people with wondrous astonishment, and the wisdom of its wise will be lost, and the understanding of its men of understanding shall be hidden” (Isaiah 29:14), you must say: This astonishment is referring to forgetting the Torah.

The Sages taught a similar idea in the Tosefta: When our Sages entered the vineyard in Yavne, they said: The Torah is destined to be forgotten from the Jewish people . . .

“The word of the Lord” in this context bears many meanings. “The word of the Lord”; that is halakha. “The word of the Lord”; that is the end of days. “The word of the Lord”; that is prophecy. All these will be lost from the Jewish people.

There are many times in the recorded history of the Jews, that we have said, of ourselves, that Torah was forgotten (this article outlines many of them: http://daatemet.org.il/en/question/was-there-an-era-in-which-the-torah-was-forgotten/).

What’s amazing is that there have been just as many (if not more) moment of renewal. The daf represents one of those moments. When it says, “When our Sages entered the vineyard at Yavne” it’s talking about a moment of upheaval that might have resulted in the Torah being lost.

After the destruction of The Temple in Jerusalem and our exile, our form of Judaism that revolved around Temple service would no longer be able to be practiced. Is that it? Is that the end of Judaism?

Enter the rabbis. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi asked for Yavne. He brought other rabbis and great minds and they rethought what Judaism could look like outside of Temple worship. They recorded what the Temple service looked like so that would not be forgotten and then re-formed what it meant to keep the mitzvot, re-formed what worship would look like. They wrote down their conversations. Those conversations spurred more conversations. That’s what we are reading. Pages on the re-formation of Judaism.

We are in a Yavne moment now. We cannot do Judaism that way we always have. We need to re-form to make this work, so it won’t be lost. Each time new energy was brought to our faith.

How do you see Judaism re-forming in order to work in you life today? How would you like it to?

Okay, so today’s gem is a line that I want to pull out of the context from which it is given (when do we circumcise a child if they are ill) and just appreciate as a gem on it’s own:

Come and hear the Sage Luda taught: The day of his healing is like the day of his birth.

As a child I had severe asthma and was hospitalized regularly with asthma attacks. Every cold turned into bronchitis. Too often, running on the playground would turn into an attack. And then one day, I tried this new medicine, a combination of steroid and anti-inflamatory that worked on both my small and large airways and I was running on the playground and I was fine. I could just keep running. It was a miracle. Everythign changed for me.

It was like being born into a new life.

I think about that when I read this line. I think about how other cancer survivors and I celebrate our “free and clear” dates . . . kind of like a birthday.

Healing births us into a new reality.

So does healing from emotional pain. I think of this scene from a Bronte book (alas, I think it’s a Bronte book, one who is better read may remember which) where the heroine is in a depression from a broken heart and then she writes about waking up one morning and her heart having mended. How beautiful the sky is, how rich the tastes. How people don’t talk about after the heartbreak, how the heart can mend itself. She is reborn.

May we all find healing and moments of discovering life anew – as if our day of healing is lie the day of our birth.

We ended yesterday’s daf with a baraita where :it was taught that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: With regard to people, any child that remains alive thirty days after birth is no longer suspected of being a stillborn.”

One of the most awe inspiring times of life is that of pregnancy. Of a human growing inside the womb. When I was pregnant, I got an email every week from “the bump” that told me how big the fetus was by comparing it to a piece of fruit. (In the first sonogram I thought he looked like a chicken nugget, and that’s what I called him until birth – my chicken nugget.) What a miracle, to be part of making a life.

With that spark of life, our own lives begin to change – women’s brain chemistry actually changes! (Pregnancy brain is a verifiable fact.) We begin to make room for the new life within our life, our homes, our time. . .

So, when that potential does not make it to term, to breathe the breath of life, when a beautiful baby is stillborn, when a baby dies shortly after it was born. . . it is heart wrenching, painful . . .

I have had congregants who have asked what to do in these moments. Some want nothing but privacy and find comfort in the custom not to mourn. Others want to mourn, want a funeral, want it all and are offended by the halakhah not to consider this as a true loss of a full life.

They’re not alone. On today’s daf we see that rabbis of the Talmud also wanted, and did, mourn.

A baby was born to the son of Rav Dimi bar Yosef. Within thirty days the baby died. He sat and mourned over him. His father, Rav Dimi bar Yosef, said to him: Are you mourning because you wish to partake of the delicacies fed to mourners? The halakha deems a child that dies before thirty days stillborn, and one does not mourn over it. He said to him: I am certain that its months of gestation were completed.

OH! How heartbreaking is this moment! Not only is this man experiencing loss, his father seems cruel and fixated on the rules in his reply, instead of being a father to his son he serves only as posek. But this is not the only example:

The Gemara similarly relates that Rav Ashi happened to come to Rav Kahana’s house. A matter befell him, i.e., his child died within thirty days of its birth. Rav Ashi saw him and observed that he was sitting and mourning over him. He said to him: Doesn’t the Master hold in accordance with that which Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: The halakha is in accordance with Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, that only a child who lived for thirty days is not considered stillborn? He said to him: I am certain that its months of gestation were completed and he is not to be considered a stillborn.

Here, we see a rabbi, a respected sage, sitting shivah for a child that did not live past 30 days. While later codes of law reinforce the rule of not mourning for a child that does not live 30 days, we are shown that those “in the know” sometimes chose to sit shiva and mourn fully.

This is why studying Talmud as a progressive is such a gift. Instead of seeing what can be a callous law as the only choice, we see that there is precedent for both public and private mourning.

Living a Jewish life is supposed to be life affirming. It’s supposed to speak to our emotions, and help us feel connected to The One in our joy, our pain, and mundanity. It speaks to our needs, and when we think it doesn’t maybe we need to re-read, go back to the sources, or even back to The Source.

Who knew there was so much to know about foreskin?! In general, I feel as though today’s gem is one of awe for how much was known about anatomy, and yet, how far we had to come.

Today I learned that foreskins vary widely, it is possible to be born with no foreskin, hidden foreskin, little foreskin, or so much that it doubles back on itself (here called two foreskins).

Depending on when a child is born, how much foreskin they have, if the mother gave birth vaginally or via cesarean section, if the mother was Jewish or not, you will of won’t be able to circumcise on Shabbat.

And amidst the this conversation where the reader may be (or at least I was) impressed with the medical knowledge of the time, we get a weird asside about how babies born at 7 months are viable but those born at 8 months “is like a stone with regard to the halakhot of set-aside [muktze].”

What’s happening here?

A couple of things might be going on. One has to do with how long a woman has to wait between a husband dying/divorce and remarrying. 2.5 months. The rule was to wait 2.5-3 months so that she would know if she were with child or not before remarrying so the paternity would be known. If the new borns at the time of the Talmud were more likely to live if they were born in the 7th month than if they were born in the 8th, maybe this is why? Maybe that 7 month old is really a full term baby?

Rashi comments that an 8th month new born is not viable. This seems really strange, but in reading, it seems that Jews were not alone in this belief.

Hippocrates (c. 460-370 BCE, or some 500 years before Shmuel on this daf) records the idea that a fetus of eight months’ gestation cannot survive, while a seventh month fetus (and certainly one of nine month gestation) can.  His Peri Eptamenou (On the Seventh Month Embryo) and Peri Oktamenou (On the Eight-Month Embryo) date from the end of the fifth century BCE.

Of course, today we know that the longer a fetus has time to gestate, the more likely to have a live healthy baby. But the mortality rate was around 26.9% (according to Our World in Data this percentage of newborns died in their first year of life in the year 400CE). Perhaps there was a desire to not get too attached, to be aware that life was not guaranteed, even for a live birth. On this same daf we get “Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: With regard to people, any child that remains alive thirty days after birth is no longer suspected of being a stillborn.”

There is a Jewish ceremony for a first born child (must be first time opening the womb, vaginal birth, and be born to an Israelite, no Levites or Cohanim) on their 30th day of life called the Redemption of the First Born, pidyon haben. While this ceremony recalls the Levites serving the Temple in place of the first born of the entire tribe of Israel, and God allowing our first born to live when the first born of Egypt were slew, it’s also this magical moment of affirming life. Before 30 days, the parent is scared that this child will not make it. And while the life of a parent is one of fearing for your child, there is something about passing this milestone where we can relax a little. They’re making it. What a time to celebrate, to say that after 30 days of sleeping poorly, painful nursing, the mother’s body recuperating, that yes – I want this child – let’s celebrate this child.

Today’s gem comes from Abaye . . . or should I say his mom? Oh, and it’s really either his nurse or his adoptive mom as he was an orphan. It’s one of many Talmudic examples of medical knowledge, and here, we are seeing that the women who delivered the babies knew much more about issues surrounding the health of infants. I also learned of a birth defect I had not known of previously.

And Abaye also said: My mother told me: In the case of a baby the location of whose exit, i.e., anus, is unknown, as it is obscured by skin, let one rub it with oil and stand it before the light of the day. And where it appears transparent, let one tear it with a barley grain widthwise and lengthwise. However, one may not tear it with a metal implement because it causes infection and swelling.

So here we are introduced to an anorectal malformation called the imperforate anus, a very early recorded surgery (circumcision being even earlier), how to correct the issue, and even how it was done in the past and how the surgery has been improved!

In addition to this knowledge, Abaye’s mother/nurse she offers other medical advice, all of it to do with the period immediately following childbirth. (I think about my first days in the hospital with my first child and how I needed the nurse to show me how to do everything.) We were introduced to her because of her advice as to which bandage should be used after circumcision. She teaches how to encourage a newborn to suckle, how to resuscitate a baby that has stopped breathing, and under what medical conditions a circumcision must be postponed. These are proven later in the daf by Rabbi Natan who subsequently has two children named for him because of his ruling along the nurses teaching.

As it was taught in a baraita, Rabbi Natan said: On one occasion, I went to the coastal cities, and one woman came before me who circumcised her first son and he died, and she circumcised her second son and he died, and since she feared circumcising the third due to concern that he might die as well, she brought him before me. I saw that he was red. I said to her: Wait until his blood is absorbed into him. She waited until his blood was absorbed into him and then circumcised him, and he lived. And they would call him Natan the Babylonian after my name.

Rabbi Natan further related: On another occasion I went to the state of Cappadocia, and a woman came before me who circumcised her first son and he died, and she circumcised her second son and he died. Since she feared circumcising the third due to concern that he might die as well, she brought him before me. I saw that he was pale. I looked at him and I could not see in him the blood of the covenant, i.e., he had a blood deficiency. I said to her: Wait until blood enters him. And she waited and then circumcised him, and he lived. And they would call his name Natan the Babylonian after my name.

The gem is that nurses are still on the front lines and often know more about the birthing and neonate process than even doctors. They should be honored and respected for their expertise and how they make their lives about saving lives and helping others.

Right now, many of us have out signs thanking doctors and nurses for working and putting their lives on the line in the time of Covid. But they deserve the signs all the time. Just ask Abaye.

Today’s gem consists of two beautiful interpretations of a word related to beautiful:

As it was taught in a baraita with regard to the verse: “This is my God and I will glorify Him [anveihu], the Lord of my father and I will raise Him up.” The Sages interpreted anveihu homiletically as linguistically related to noi, beauty, and interpreted the verse: Beautify yourself before Him in mitzvot. Even if one fulfills the mitzva by performing it simply, it is nonetheless proper to perform the mitzva as beautifully as possible. Make before Him a beautiful sukka, a beautiful lulav, a beautiful shofar, beautiful ritual fringes, beautiful parchment for a Torah scroll, and write in it in His name in beautiful ink, with a beautiful quill by an expert scribe, and wrap the scroll in beautiful silk fabric.

Abba Shaul says: Ve’anveihu should be interpreted as if it were written in two words: Ani vaHu, me and Him [God]. Be similar, as it were, to Him, the Almighty: Just as He is compassionate and merciful, so too should you be compassionate and merciful.

What beautiful concepts that we hold as mitzvot. The first, Hiddur Mitzvah, the value of beautifying a mitzvah. I love it for so many reasons. One is that it elevates the mitzvah to make it truly special. Take Shabbat. We can simply light candles, make kiddush eat our meal and it can look like every other day of the week with the addition of candle sticks. But when we take out a tablecloth and dress for the occasion, we elevate the sanctity of the day for us as observers. A second reason is that often when we give to others, we give our throwaways, or do it without thought to making it “beautiful.” This reminds us to give our best. Why I love it the most is that it reminds me of a value I am always working towards – if you’re going to do something, really do it! Give it your best. As a child I was often scared of giving anything my all, because what if my all wasn’t good enough? But I have grown to realize that everything in life is more worthwhile if I am fully present (hello mindfulness).

The second derivation is striving to live into our designation as created B’Tzelem Elohim by imitating God’s compassion and mercy in the world. We will return to this idea later in the Talmud, but I love it hear as a derivation of what is real beauty – living into your Divinity.

A secular New York Jew who has begun a serious spiritual quest, Penny Kegan, has taken on daf yomi. She writes on her website the following about today’s daf https://brokentabletsfrompennycagan.me/shabbos/shabbos-131:

“I have learned from my more than six months of reading daily passages from the Talmud that it has a unique logic all its own. Frequent a fortiori inferences appear in the text between two seemingly unrelated concepts. Today’s text extends yesterday’s discussion of conducting circumcision on Shabbat to an analogy that compares the rite with saving a life. The circumcision ceremony represents the saving of a spiritual life through the original covenant between Moses and God, although it should be noted that the bond is with the men of the chosen people. We are told that circumcision “pertains to only one of a person’s limbs” and because it is permissible to perform the ceremony on Shabbat, it is also permissible to save a life on Shabbat. This is because while circumcision “fulfills only one mitzva with just one of his limbs,” saving a life involves all of a person’s limbs.”

I found her reading and understanding (and her backstory) quite beautiful. What does it mean to save a spiritual life?

Here you have a woman on a spiritual quest (who had considered herself secular) who has chosen to study daf yomi and reflect on it every day talking about saving a spiritual life. It’s like an echo of her own story.

It also makes me think of the goals of all these rules we have around Shabbat. The goal is vayinafash – to be re-ensouled. To save our spiritual lives.

While here we have been studying for months how the rabbis of the Talmud suggest we might do this, what works for us? In this current reality and this time?

Remember how yesterday there was one rabbi who allowed for chicken parm? Well, today’s daf is full of examples of how Rabbi Eliezer rules differently than his colleagues and we get to tune into a conversation where they defend his positions – while at the same time not holding those positions. Would that we could all do this for those with which we disagree!

The gem I want to include is their defence of Rabbi Eliezer allowing for the shofar to be blown on Rosh haShana when the holiday falls on Shabbat.

It’s a gem to me as a Reform Rabbi, because this year, Rosh haShanah falls on Shabbat. But this year is such a strange a painful year, and I believe, as do many colleagues, that it will be very important to hear the shofar blast this year.

It was also taught in the baraita: The mitzva of shofar and all its facilitators override Shabbat; this is the statement of Rabbi Eliezer. The Gemara asks: From where does Rabbi Eliezer derive this matter? If you say he derives it from the halakha with regard to the omer and the two loaves, this can be refuted, as these are the necessities of Temple service to God on High. If you say he derives it from the halakha with regard to lulav, this too can be refuted, as it requires four species. If you say he derives it from the precedent of sukka, this too can be refuted, as it applies during the nights just as it applies during the days. If you say he derives it from matza, this too can be refuted, as it applies to women just as it applies to men. Rather, Rabbi Eliezer derives it from the fact that the verse stated: “And in the seventh month, on the first of the month, a holy calling it shall be to you; any prohibited labor of work you shall not perform; a day of sounding the shofar it shall be for you” (Numbers 29:1). The verse’s emphasis that the shofar must be sounded on that day teaches us that it applies even on Shabbat.

And for what purpose was this emphasized? If you say it is in order to permit sounding the shofar, this has already been taught by one of the Sages of the school of Shmuel with regard to the verse that prohibits performing prohibited labor on Festivals: “Any prohibited labor of work you shall not perform” (Numbers 29:1), which comes to exclude from the category of prohibited labors the sounding of the shofar and the removal of bread from the oven, which are skills and not labors. Rather, it is necessary to teach with regard to actions that facilitate the performance of the mitzva.

Whatever the excuse, it’s nice to know that the Talmud has a recorded position (that even the rabbis who disagreed would defend) that would permit the sounding of the shofar on Shabbat.

We need the wake up call. We need the connection to community. We need the normalcy because nothing is normal.