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

Today’s gem has to do with how to motivate people to behave. Do we respond more to the threat of punishment? Or to the enticement of reward?

Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says: At first, he explained the punishment and the hardship involved in receiving the Torah, as it is written: “And Moses reported [vayashev],” which is interpreted homiletically as: Matters that shatter [meshabbevin] (Rav Hai Gaon) a person’s mind; and, ultimately, he explained its reward, as it is written: “And Moses told [vayagged],” which is interpreted homiletically as: Matters that draw a person’s heart like aggada. And some say that at first, he explained its reward, as it is written: “And Moses reported,” which is interpreted homiletically as: Matters that restore [meshivin] and calm a person’s mind; and ultimately, he explained its punishment, as it is written: “And Moses told,” matters that are as difficult for a person as wormwood [gidin].

According to the Harvard Business review: Neuroscience suggests that when it comes to motivating action (for example, getting people to work longer hours or producing star reports), rewards may be more effective than punishments. And the inverse is true when trying to deter people from acting (for example, discouraging people from sharing privileged information or using the organization’s resources for private purposes) — in this case, punishments are more effective.

So, next time you want your kid to DO something – offer them a reward. If you want them to NOT DO something, offer a punishment.

I will now try that with my kids.

Today’s daf is all about gardening. That, in and of itself, is a gem.

I had wanted to plant an organic garden for years. But time seemed to not be on my side. Until this time of quarantine. Finally, I built my garden, planted plants . . .

Gardens are miracles. Just watching the plants grow and flourish is so nourishing for the soul. They are also a motivation to go and spend time outside.

According to many studies (just give it a google), gardening is good for your mental health. It adds years to your life and helps you to enjoy life. It lowers anxiety, reduces stress – and, if it’s a vegetable garden, it’s delicious.

So, if you are blessed to have green space, I would encourage you to plant. It connects you to the earth and yourself.

Today’s gem: you can plant 5 different kinds of seeds in a 6 handbreadth garden. Why do I like it? Because on any day I love a good text about how variety makes us healthier, about how differences are valuable, should be protected, and are necessary. On any day, i love a text that talks about different kinds all coming together.

But today, more than most days, I need a text to remind me that we can grow beautifully in the same garden with those very different than us. I hope society learns it too.

MISHNA: The Gemara continues to discuss an additional halakha based on a biblical allusion. From where is it derived that in a garden bed that is six by six handbreadths, that one may plant five different types of seeds in it? He may do so without violating the prohibition of sowing a mixture of diverse kinds of seeds in the following manner. One sows four types of plants on each of the four sides of the garden bed and one in the middle. There is an allusion to this in the text, as it is stated: “For as the earth brings forth its growth, and as a garden causes its seeds to grow, so will the Lord God cause justice and praise to spring forth before all the nations” (Isaiah 61:11). Its seed, in the singular, is not stated; rather, its seeds, written in the plural. Apparently, it is possible that several seeds may be planted in a small garden.

GEMARA: The Gemara questions this allusion: From where is it inferred that the verse refers to five types of seeds? Rav Yehuda said that it is derived as follows: “For as the earth brings forth its growth” indicates five types of seeds because “brings forth” represents one and “its vegetation” represents one, and that totals two. “Its seeds,” written in the plural, represents at least two, and that totals four. “Cause to grow” is one more. This verse includes terms connoting planting and seeds in a single garden bed that total five species of seeds.

Rabbi Yonatan said: One should never prevent himself from attending the study hall or from engaging in matters of Torah, even at the moment of death, as it is stated: “This is the Torah: A person who dies in a tent” (Numbers 19:14). That is an allusion to the fact that even at the moment of death, one should engage in the study of Torah. Reish Lakish said: Matters of Torah only endure in a person who kills himself over the Torah, one who is ready to devote all his efforts to it, as it is stated: “This is the Torah: A person who dies in a tent.”

We have to kill ourselves over Torah? What does this mean?

Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin shared an uplifting interpretation, for Tablet Magazine. He said his teacher once said that this verse is hear to teach us that we can’t really learn Torah, until we learn who we are. We need to find ourselves, our gifts, our talents. Only then can we dedicate our Torah study to something higher. His message is that true growth and sacrifice can only begin once we’ve had a chance to know ourselves as individuals.  And Torah is best understood through the eyes of those who do not come to learn empty handed but instead bring themselves to the text.

pretty killer

On a page full of bowel movements, we get this little gem which 1) reminds us why we should read Talmud even when it goes pages just talking about bowel movements, 2) even if you don’t like someone, you can still recognize their talents and finally, 3) the Torah’s focus is how we live our day to day lives.

Rav Huna said to his son Rabba: What is the reason that you are not to be found among those who study before Rav Ḥisda, whose halakhot are incisive? Rabba said to him: For what purpose should I go to him? When I go to him, he sits me down and occupies me in mundane matters not related to Torah. For example, he said to me: One who enters a bathroom should not sit down immediately and should not exert himself excessively because the rectum rests upon three teeth, the muscles that hold it in place, and there is concern lest the teeth of the rectum dislocate through exertion and he come to danger. Rav Huna said to his son Rabba: He is dealing with matters crucial to human life, and you say that he is dealing with mundane matters? Now that I know what you meant, all the more so go before him.

Rav Huna notoriously did not like Rav Hisda. However, he recognizes that Rav Hisda is incredibly sharp and the best teacher of certain laws. So, he wants his son to go and study with him. His son, Rabba, doesn’t want to go. Why? Because when he did try and go to him, he was talking about bowel movements. Rabba seems to be saying – this is your Torah? There are so many more important things to be learning about! Let’s talk about lofty things, not the basest of things. (If you’ve been reading, you can probably relate to Rabba). But his father insists -no, all the more so you need to go and learn from him.

Torah can uplift, it can inspire, it can elevate our souls. But above all, Torah is meant to be lived, not just admired.

Everybody eats. Everybody dresses. Everybody sleeps. And, yes, everybody poops.

How we live is (related to but perhaps) more important than what we think.

Remember when people were hoarding toilet paper? As if the worst thing that could happen is we run out of two-plie? Well, today’s daf is almost entirely about what you can wipe your butt with: What size rock is acceptable? What if it’s already been used? What about wood chips? Earthenware shards? How does this change on Shabbat?

Grossed out yet? Enjoy your reading.

At the end of today’s page and the top of 82 we get a strange little gem:

What is the witchcraft involved with wiping with an earthenware shard? The Gemara explains: It is as that which transpired when Rav Ḥisda and Rabba bar Rav Huna were going on a boat. A certain matron [matronita] said to them: Let me sit with you, and they did not let her sit. She said something, an incantation of witchcraft, and stopped the boat. They said something, the Holy Name, and freed it. She said to them: What will I do to you, to enable me to harm you with witchcraft, as you do not clean yourselves with an earthenware shard, and you do not kill lice on your garments, and you do not pull out a vegetable and eat it before you untie the bundle that was tied by the gardener?

This story implies that all these actions carry with them the danger of witchcraft. But it also implies that if you just follow the rules and do the right thing – the way the rabbis have so nicely outlined in the Talmud – you will be protected from witchcraft.

It’s like to many stories that involve witches from folklore. They all teach us to mind the rules and that you’ll be safe. Sometimes superstition can be used to motivate people to do the right thing. Part of me is offended by this as that argument is often used against religion. But people believed in witchcraft at the time. The rabbis are assuring them that, if you do the right things, you need not worry.

Just, in this case, doing the right thing means not wiping your butt with a pottery shard on Shabbat.

That’s certainly one I can keep.

I wondered a few pages ago if lime really worked as a hair remover. Well, today was my lucky day because our daf discusses the use of lime as a hair remover. It includes a story of how one father, Rav Beivai, had a daughter, and he spread lime over her skin slowly, one limb one day, another the next, and about how beautiful it made hair – she was hairless with soft skin! So, beautiful she got 400 zuz over the normal asking price for her ketubah (the normal price for a virgin is 200 zuz, but we will get there)! A neighbor was so impressed he decided to slap some lime on his daughter as well, but did the whole girl in one go, and she died. He blames Rabbi Beivai for killing his daughter.

Why is this my gem? Besides it being another interesting and crazy story? Because it’s themes are still here today: 1) keeping up with the Joneses, and 2) beauty at any cost.

There is a Dr. Seuss book, Gertrude McFuzz. It’s about a bird named Gertrude who has a small, plain tail feather and envies Lolla Lee Lou, who has two feathers. She find this fruit that she can eat to grow another feather, which she does. Sh eis really happy but thinks, why stop there? Soon she has so many feathers she cannot fly, cannot stand up straight, and needs others to help her. She ends up having to get defeathered and wishes she could have just been happy with herself how she was before.

Back when I was nursing my child, and therefore, up at crazy hours of the night needed entertainment that didn’t get my brain too fired up in the hopes I would be able to return to sleep – I caught a few episodes of a show called, “Botched.” It was about plastic surgery gone bad. Typically, it features someone who was typical looking, who wanted some sort of enhancement – which went terribly wrong. A new set of surgeons, from the show, would try and fix the problems. It never ceased to amaze me how the individuals, before having surgery, didn’t look bad at all. But they looked bad in their own eyes.

They were like Gertrude. And like Gertrude, they paid a hefty price for their attempt at a higher beauty.

I was curious about if this was a known reamedy for body hair and read about how lime baths were used in prepping leather to help loosen the hair and soften the skin.

Lime burn, for people, is also a real thing. Apparently, lime burn results as an allergic reaction to chromium, which is naturally occurring in limestone. Therefore, lime burn is actually a form of contact dermatitis. It can be extremely painful and may cause horrific sores on the skin. In the case of this poor girl, it cost her her life.

It makes me kind of sad to see that the even back in the day of the Talmud, women would risk their lives for beauty . . . or should I say, their dads would risk their lives for beauty?

Amidst a discussion of what parts of the hide are kosher to use for writing sacred items (Torah, tefillin, and mezuzah) we get this gem:

Phylacteries that became tattered and a Torah scroll that became tattered, one may not make them into a mezuza, despite the fact that identical Torah portions appear in all three. This is prohibited because one does not downgrade from a level of greater sanctity, i.e., a Torah scroll or phylacteries, to a level of lesser sanctity, i.e., a mezuza.

All three items have the text of the shema within it. You might think that, if a Torah scroll was getting worn out, say in the Genesis area (beginning of the scroll), maybe you could take the shema from the Torah and transform it into a mezuza before burying the rest of the scroll (which is the proper way to dispose of a scroll that is too worn out to be repaired). But here we get a rule – you don’t down grade in terms of sanctity.

Think about where these items are. The mezuza is on the doorpost of the house. It is in public. We do not physically interact with it except for touching it as we walk in and out of the house. It is holy, yet also subject to weather. Tefilin however, are worn on the body. We put them on our arm, between our eyes. We have an intimate experience with them. They are personal. They are subject to our sweat and oils from our skin. The Torah is the most protected. We keep it within an ark within a sanctuary (or home on occasion). We do not touch it, we dress it and protect it.

We don’t downgrade in holiness.

This rule is why, once you start lighting three candles on Shabbat, you’re never supposed to go back to two.

But I wonder what it can teach us about how we treat other people? I think about doctors in elder care facilities. About judges who have retired from the bench. About ex-Presidents. I think about how important it is to honor that part of the identity of the other person, even if they are not actively using that degree any more.

I think about the parents who have tragically lost children – and how important it is to recognize that they are still a mother and father to that deceased child.

We don’t downgrade.

And I also think of this aspirationally. Like a never turning back. We always aspire to greater holiness.

May this be God’s will.

The gemara continues to discuss the requisite amount needed for carrying items such as liquids, paper, ropes, reeds, etc. And, besides a comment about how much lime you can carry and learning it was an ancient hair remover (anyone know if that actually works?) we get another gem in terms of learning a general principle of the Talmud.

Abaye said: Now, with regard to any substance that is utilized for both common and uncommon uses, the Sages, in their ruling, followed the common usage even as a leniency, i.e., one is liable only for carrying out the larger measure. However, when a substance has different uses and one is common and the other is common as well, the Sages, in their ruling, followed the common use that leads to a stringency, i.e., one is liable for carrying out even the smaller amount.

Don’t let the rare thing set the rule – make the rules for what’s common, what’s the norm. . . even if it means being more lenient. This is the rule for Talmudic law.

We can’t make rules only based on the outliers – it has to be for what’s typical. Which, one the one hand is wonderful. It might make us more inclusive, more progressive . . .

I think there is room here for further conversations as well – in terms of, what happens when the uncommon becomes the common? When does shaping things around the “common” become exclusive instead of inclusive?

I love the gem on today’s page so much I referenced it in the chapter I wrote, The Planet In Peril in the book Moral Audacity and Spiritual Authority:

Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: Everything that the Holy One, Blessed be He, created in His world, He did not create anything for naught. He created a snail as a remedy for a sore; He created a fly to be crushed and spread as a remedy on a wasp sting; He created a mosquito as a remedy for a snake bite; and He created the snake itself as a remedy for a skin rash; and He created a gecko as a remedy for a scorpion bite.

God created everything for a reason. Everything.

When I read this text, I think of the destruction of the rainforest and all the cures for disease that are being wiped away, largely to make grazing land and soy for pork and cattle. When I read it I think of the extinction rate for flora and fauna which is currently hundreds if not thousands of times higher than the natural rate. We have an expression that something “went the way of the dodo;” but there are so many species that we have already lost, so many lost every day, that we don’t even bother to learn their names.

In Midrash Rabba, Bereshit 10:6, we read “Said Rabbi Simon: ‘Every single blade of grass has a corresponding ‘mazal‘ in the sky which hits it and tells it to grow.”

God created everyone, and everything for a purpose. God has sent angels rooting for all of us – human, plant, animal. Let’s do a better job of taking care of one another. Who knows? Maybe that annoying fly has within it healing properties yet to be discovered.