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

Among the discussion of prohibited behaviors on today’s daf is tying and untying a knot.

One who ties and one who unties. The Gemara asks: Where was there tying in the Tabernacle? Rava said: They tied the tents of the Tabernacle to the pegs. The Gemara rejects this: And is that considered performance of the labor of tying? That was tying a knot in order to untie it. When the children of Israel departed from an encampment, they dismantled the Tabernacle, which involved untying all of the knots. One is not liable for tying a temporary knot on Shabbat. Rather, Abaye said: As the weavers of curtains for the Tabernacle, when a thread would rip, they would tie it. Rava said to him: You have resolved the problem with regard to the labor of tying; however, with regard to the labor of untying, what can be said? Where, in the construction of the Tabernacle, was the labor of untying performed? And if you say that it was performed if one found two threads with knots tied next to each other, he untied one and left one tied; now, before a king of flesh and blood one would not do so, as the curtain would look flawed, in the Tabernacle, before the King of kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He, would one do so? Rather, Rava said, and some say that Rav Elai said: The trappers of ḥilazon, whose blood was used in the Tabernacle as a dye, tie and untie their nets. As, when a curtain had a worm which made a tear in it, they would tear the curtain further to lengthen the tear, and that enabled them to then sew it in a manner that obscured the tear.

What is interesting to me is that I never really thought of what the repercussions would be if we could not make tie and untie knots until today. We wouldn’t be able to tie and untie our shoes. Men (and women) couldn’t wear neckties on Shabbat…

There is so much tying we do in life – but most of it is impermanent.

Here, the tying is something that is not meant to be undone. And there is something very beautiful in that.

What have you tied together that is only meant to last a little while – and what are the ties that will last a lifetime?

Today’s daf gives us a crib sheet for the forbidden labors on Shabbat. There are primary categories called: av melachot, which translates to “father” labors. Then, beneath those are toladot, or “children,” which are subgroups under the primary categories. There are 39 av melachot in total.

The good thing (or bad depending how you look at it) about these broader categories is that they can encompass things we have not yet thought of or invented. I like this because it’s a small reflection of a broader idea in Judaism – to quote Ben Bag Bag, “turn it and turn it again, for everything is contained within.” While the Torah can’t talk directly about everything that ever will be, it can give us guidelines that we can apply to any situation.

Ugh. I am so uncomfortable. Our daf begins:
[in the case of one] who engaged in physical intimacy with a slave-woman designated had relations with a designated maidservant five times is only liable to bring one guilt-offering

Then the debate continues. No, they need 5 sacrifices. Well, what if he had sex with her, then bought the animal for sacrifice, then said – hey, I’m about to go offer this up so let me get in another quickie – does the animal atone for sex acts before and after the designation of the animal?

And the whole time it ignores the blaring injustice. Had she been an engaged Israelite, this act would have been adultery and he would have suffered repercussions – but since she is not, his wanting to continue to have relations with her is a matter of if he would need to bring an additional offering – and even that is debatable.

It’s the venn diagram of racism, sexism, chauvinism, imperialism, and xenophobia.

The Talmud really does have it all.

I could have writen about something nice – like the notrikim (scholars who travel from Israel to Babylonia to share learning) or the b side where we see that accidental behaviors can be treated as accidents – but how can I ignore this?

We need to call it out where we see it, especially when it’s within our own text. And if we pretend it’s not terrible – than what does that make us?

The issue at hand on both dapim (that’s the plural for daf) is a question about if you violate Shabbat multiple times, or in multiple ways, do you need to bring multiple sacrifices?

These pages introduce a concept called:yediah, or knowing. Are we responsible for the sins we commit if we don’t really know that we’ve committed them?

Not knowing it’s Shabbat but knowing the laws you are supposed to follow when it is Shabbat; knowing it’s Shabbat but not knowing what the prohibited behaviors are; knowing some but not all of the rules – they all may end with, what to an outside observer, as the same behavior. But everything changes once you know.

I was thinking about this earlier today when I was talking to a colleague about different times others have corrected us – and how grateful we were to receive it, because the bad behavior wasn’t malicious – we just didn’t know. I told him about a microaggression I unwittingly committed. He told me about a time when he man-splained a woman and she pointed it out to him.

yediah- once you know you can do better. Or as they said at the end of every episode of GI Joe, “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle” . . . the other half is changing the behavior.

Does every day kind of blend into the day before . . . do you sometimes forget what day it is? then the b side of today’s daf is a good one for you:

Rav Huna said: If someone was walking on the road, or in the desert, and he does not know when Shabbat is, he counts six days, and then keeps Shabbat for one day. Hiya the son of Rav said: He keeps one day, and counts six. What is this dispute really about? One bases his opinion on the creation of the world, and one bases his opinion on Adam.

The idea that this person has lost all track of the days, and does not know when Shabbat is, is one that many of us can relate to. The days are blending together for many of us.

In Hebrew, the days of the week are numbered: Yom Rishon (first day), Yom Shenei (second day) and so on until we get to Shabbat. Their identity is in relation to this special, holy day. Our daf captures this idea by saying that one should count, either back six days or forward six days.

What I love so much about it is that marking Shabbat on Saturday, while important, is not the only way to do it. Here, on the daf, every day seems the same (he doesn’t know if it’s Monday or Friday morning). So, the important thing is to work, to create, for six days and to make the seventh different – holy, separate, a day of rest.

It shows Shabbat is necessary even when we are not in community, even when we don’t know what day it is, even when the days blend one into the other. We need a change in the week. A day we work towards so we won’t have to work.

Muslims mark the Sabbath on Friday. Jews Saturday. Christians Sunday.

Today’s gem – just keep it, every 7th day.

There is a concept on today’s page that looks like a rare occurrence, but is one that most Jews, both those born in, and who choose to join, have all experienced.

Within a discussion of how someone might “forget” Shabbat, we are introduced to a person who falls into this category: a child who was taken captive among the gentiles.

Okay. If you’re still reading, thank you – just hold on for a second, because you must be wondering – how do most Jews fall into this category?

The rabbis in the Talmud are trying to think of a way that a Jewish person would not know about Shabbat and therefore, not know that what they are doing is a violation of Shabbat. They conclude – it must be that this is a person who was taken as a child and raised as a non-Jew – so they don’t know!

However, today, there are many times when those of us who were born Jews are introduced to a Jewish practice or even a Jewish law that we’ve never heard of. There are some poseks (law givers within the Jewish community) who say that anyone who did not have an adequate Jewish education would fall into this category – a child who was taken captive among the gentiles. Are we captives? No. But, the norm for many of us is as our society does and we largely live amongst non-JEws.

Now, even Jews with wonderful Jewish educations have these moments – where you are corrected in a behavior or hear a “law” for the first time and think – what? That’s a thing? How did I not know that?

One example for me was during my first year of rabbinical school when my classmates threw salt on their challah before ripping a piece off. I had no idea what they were doing – we never slated Challah at my house. So, I asked. That’s when I learned that the dinner table replaced the sacrificial table, and like the priests used to salt the sacrifices, we salt our challah.

I thought this was strange so I asked my parents, both of whom were raised orthodox, why we never did this growing up. They both admitted that their parents used to salt the challah,but they never knew why an thought it was just for taste. So, since my dad had high blood pressure and needed a low-sodium diet, they would have never thought to add salt.

Now, I like to add everything bagel seasoning to my challah. The priests didn’t use it in the anceint temple. But if they had it back then, I am sure they would have loved it.

Today’s gem: Weird is fine, as long as it works.

From saying incantations to protect from toilet demons, to curing and ear-ache with a locust egg, to using a tooth from a dead fox to help sleep, or a live fox to wake from sleep – we have a lot of weird remedies to illnesses on this pages daf. At times, it appears to encourage OCD behaviors: (e.g. For tertian fever, let one bring seven thorns from seven palm trees, and seven slivers from seven beams, and seven pegs from seven bridges, and seven types of ashes from seven ovens, and seven types of dust from seven door sockets, and seven types of tar from seven boats, and seven cumin seeds, and seven hairs from the beard of an old dog, and let him bind it to the opening of the neckline of his garment with a thread of hair.) At times, it appears to be magical (like putting your burdens onto a large ant after shaking it 60 times in a tube).

The strangest piece of all of this is their declaration that you can do all of these things . . . (wait for it) . . . because they have been proven to work. But those weird practices ,like repeating yourself twice – well, those are like the ways of the Amorite and are forbidden!

Besides loving a page of weirdness where different demons and angels are called by names, where spinning in a circle 7 times after dumping river water on your head is used to cure your ailments – it’s a beautiful demonstration of the lengths we will go to to try and cure what afflicts us and those we love. It reflects how, what was once thought of as the leading medical practices are often looked at later as barbaric, superstitious, and plain silly.

It’s not hard to imagine someone in the future looking back on us – perhaps on how we treat cancer by cutting off parts of our bodies, radiating and poisoning ourselves, stopping hormones (and those are the medical treatments, there are plenty who swearby green teas and coffee enimas as a cure)- and thinking how barbaric and superstitious we were.

I look forward to that time. I hope we amuse them as much as this page amused me.

Today’s Daf, beginning with the last line of 65, discusses various rules pertaining to people with disabilities: “MISHNA: One with an amputated leg may go out on Shabbat with his wooden leg this is the statement of Rabbi Meir. And Rabbi Yosei prohibits.” It discusses a prosthetic, a special shoe, and a wheel chair. Why, we have to wonder, would anyone say someone can’t wear their prostetic?

Rashi, explains that the disagreement between Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yossi seems to be that Rabbi Meir regards this prosthetic wooden “foot” as close enough to a shoe to be considered a shoe, whereas Rabbi Yossi is of the opinion that it is not considered a shoe, perhaps because shoes are not generally wooden.

But Rabbeinu Tam (Tosafot ibid.) says the point of disagreement cannot be the shoe-status of the wooden foot, because elsewhere in the Gemara (Yoma 78b), it is apparent that Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yossi agree that this wooden “foot” may not be worn on Yom Kippur, as it is considered a (comfortable) shoe! He therefore explains that both Rabbis agree that it is considered a shoe, and according to Torah law it may be worn outside on Shabbat. Rabbi Yossi, however, is of the opinion that the Sages enacted a rabbinical prohibition because they were concerned that the wooden foot, being only loosely attached, might become detached and a person might then pick it up while outside and carry it four cubits, which would definitely be forbidden.

According to this explanation of Rabbeinu Tam, Rabbi Yossi’s rationale for forbidding wearing the rudimentary, wooden prosthetic “foot” outside is as a safeguard, lest someone be tempted to pick it up and carry it should it become disconnected. But, as Rabbi Moshe Isserles writes in his addenda to the Code of Jewish Law (201:15)

…it is permissible to wear a wooden shoe into which the foot is inserted and one need not be concerned that it may fall off.

So, while you may have been offended by Rabbi Yossi when reading this daf (and then offended by the codes who agreed with him – as I was), today, when prosthetics are much higher quality, when they really do help the wearer to walk and to function, and where they are not in danger of falling off, they are completely permissable.

One lesson in halakhah – always look at the why behind why something was forbidden. If you can solve the why, something once forbidden might be permitted.

One lesson for life – we should be as inclusive as possible. The more we learn about disability, the more we are able to understand and be inclusive. It’s amazing how bad the Jewish community is (and most communities), at times, at being inclusive for those with disability – especially considering it’s something we will likely all have one day.

Today’s gem is a term we call ma’arat ayin. It’s the idea that even if your not doing anything wrong, you should still make sure you do t appear to be doing something wrong. The example from today is someone putting a coat out to dry on Shabbat that they accidentally got wet. The issue is, if you put it out people might think you were doing laundry, a prohibited act of Shabbat.
This is a real issue. While we should assume the best out of others, that’s not human nature. More often than not we will jump to negative conclusions and so we shouldn’t give others fodder for assuming the worst of us.
a fun example is – you see an orthodox rabbi eating a cheese burger. How could you?! You ask. The rabbi explains that the cheese is non-dairy substitute. The meat as well is not meat but an Incredible burger. So really, the meal is not only kosher, but parve (neither dairy nor meat). Still feels wrong though, right?

That’s this law.

Today’s gem is a throw back to Berakhot 24: And Moses was angry with the officers of the host, the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, who came from the battle” (Numbers 31:14); Rav Naḥman said that Rabba bar Avuh said that Moses said to Israel: Perhaps you have returned to your original sinful behavior, when you sinned with the daughters of Moab and Midian at Shittim? They said to him: “Not one man of us is missing” (Numbers 31:49), we remain as wholesome in deed as we were. He said to them: If so, why do you need atonement? The princes brought these ornaments to atone for their souls. They said to him: If we have emerged from the grasps of actual transgression, we have not emerged from the grasps of thoughts of transgression. Immediately, they decided: “And we have brought an offering before the Lord.”

The Sage of the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: For what reason did Israel in that generation require atonement? Because they nourished their eyes from nakedness.

Rav Sheshet said: For what reason did the verse list outer ornaments, i.e., a bracelet, with inner ornaments, i.e., a kumaz? To tell you that anyone who gazes upon a woman’s little finger is considered as if he gazed upon her naked genitals.

Here we are shown that a true transgression is not the only thing we have to repent for – but thoughts as well. This connects to the sin of coveting. Is coveting really so bad? Does it hurt anyone?

Thoughts can merely be just thoughts. But if we dwell on them, return to them, obsess about them – they can become dangerous. Thoughts, in and of themselves, in Judaism, don’t equate to an action (unlike some Christian theology), but thoughts can lead to action. The more we think about some transgression, the more our mind begins to think that it’s not so bad. Over time, we may come to convince ourselves that maybe just this once, we deserve it, others are doing it . . .

Thoughts are powerful. They are not action, but still, they change our perception of the world and of ourselves. So, we should probably spend them wisely.