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

One gem for Shabbat: “Any item from which one derives benefit requires blessing.”

Today’s daf discusses what blessings we say over certain foods, and if we are to say blessings before, after, or both before and after eating that item. And then this gem comes – that anytime we derive benefit from an item, we should make a blessing.

Mindfulness is very popular these days. Well, here is an ancient mindfulness practice. Notice what you are eating, taste it, make a blessing on this gift. Look for what beings you joy – even the little things, and make a blessing.

It reminds me of one of my favorite stories about this week’s Torah portion, B’shallach.

Rabbi Eddie Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom tells the tale of two men so stuck in their ways that they proved to be both physically and metaphorically unable to witness the amazing miracles that shaped us as a people. The story goes something like this:

Among the many Israelites who left Egypt were two men: Shlomo and Buz. Slaves never look up, they only look down. And as slaves for their entire lives, Shlomo and Buz had grown so accustomed to looking down they could no longer lift their eyes.

When Moses brought us across the Red Sea, we all witnessed a great miracle: the sea parted and we escaped from slavery. We came to know that God has a purpose in our history. But not Shlomo and Buz.

Shlomo asked Buz, “What do you see?”

“I see mud,” Buz responded.

“I see mud too. What’s all this about freedom? We had mud in Egypt; we have mud here!”

They missed the miracle of their escape. The sea split before them, but they didn’t see it. They saw only mud.

Then we stood at Mount Sinai in the presence of God and heard God’s voice proclaiming the commandments. We accepted God’s Covenant and pledged ourselves to become a holy people, God’s partners in healing the world. But not Shlomo and Buz.

Shlomo asked Buz, “What do you hear?”

“I hear someone shouting commandments,” Buz answered.

“I hear commands too. What’s all this about Torah? They shouted commands in Egypt; they shout commands here.”

They missed the miracle of hearing God’s voice. God spoke to every Israelite, but Shlomo and Buz didn’t hear God’s voice. They had heard enough commandments.

Finally, after 40 years of wandering in the desert, we arrived at the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey, the land promised our ancestors. We rejoiced as we arrived in the place of our fondest dreams. But not Shlomo and Buz.

Buz asked Shlomo, “How do you feel?”

“My feet hurt, “Shlomo replied.

“My feet hurt too! What’s all this about a Promised Land? My feet hurt in Egypt; my feet hurt here!”

They missed the miracle of entering our own land, Eretz Yisrael. The Israelites returned to the land promised them by the Covenant. The promise to our ancestors was fulfilled, but Shlomo and Buz didn’t know it – they knew none of it. Their feet hurt too much. So what did they do? Shlomo and Buz turned around and began walking back toward Egypt.

Some say that Shlomo and Buz are still wandering in the wilderness, looking down at the desert sand and rocks and complaining to each other. Others say they went back to Egypt. Back to Pharaoh. Back to slavery. Back to the place they knew best. Back to the place where they began.

Still others say they’ve seen Shlomo and Buz – or perhaps their descendants – walking among us, living right here and now, wandering about with their eyes cast down, missing all the miracles that are taking place around them all the time.

We can do better. We can notice the miracles. Today’s gem will help us: “Any item from which one derives benefit requires blessing.”

Three gems for today:

1. “One may only pray in a house with windows.” What a powerful requirement. Windows show us the outside world and remind us of the needs of the world around us. We should not pray without an eye towards the world outside. (this reminds me of a wonderful story about a rich man who didn’t give to those in need. The rabbi came to talk to him and saw a beautiful mirror. He asked the man: what do you see when you look in the mirror? He said, “myself, my beautiful house, my wealth.” Then the rabbi asked him to look out the window. The rabbi asked: “what do you see?” The man said: “I see people in the cold. I see couples cuddled together. I see a beggar. I see a child who seems lost. I see life.” “That’s right,” said the rabbi. “When you look in a mirror you only see yourself and what you have. But when you look through a window, you see life, you see others. The only difference between a mirror and a window is that a mirror is glass with silver behind it. Our silver can block us from seeing others, seeing their needs, and being part of the world.” The man then scrapes of a little bit of silver from his beautiful mirror so that he will always remember to look out into the world and see how his gifts can help others.)
2. Rabbi Abbahu said: In the place where penitents stand, even the full-fledged righteous do not stand. People can change. They can transform into better people. When we do overcome our shortcomings, change our ways, and become better people, we become closer to God. One way I have heard this described is to imagine that each of us has a rope tying us to God. When we sever the rope we lose our connection. But when we tie the two pieces of rope back together again, we have shortened it. So, even if we mess up, we can still get close to God if we’re willing to try.

And 3. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai asks Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa to pray for his son when he falls ill. His wife asks him: If Hanina greater than you? (Her husband is the greatest rabbi. Hanina does not have his status. So, why would God listen to Hanina and not Yohanan ben Zakkai?) He goes on to tell her that Hanina is like a servant to God. Servants come and go, where as ministers have to request an audience.

What I like about this one is the idea that no matter how great and capable we are, there are still people, maybe even people of lower station, that are better for certain tasks. I love that this great rabbi knew that his colleague was better at praying for healing he. That his prayers had a better chance of reaching God.

We all need and rely on one another. If we are sick we depend on a doctor to heal us. That doctor depends on her car to drive to work, and thereby the mechanic who takes care of her car. The mechanic depends on the supplier, their staff. Everyone depends on the farmer, the grocer, the police officer. We all depend on one another. So, this teaches two thing – we should not let our egos get in the way of asking the best person for the job to help us AND every person deserves our gratitude and respect. Even if it’s not obvious, we all rely on one another.

There are two gems I love on today’s daf.

The first: Someone goes to lead prayer while Rabbi Ḥanina is in attendance. He extended his prayer and said: “God, the great, mighty, awesome, powerful, mighty, awe-inspiring, strong, fearless, steadfast and honored.”

The Talmud says that Rabbi Ḥanina waited for him to finish his prayer and then said, rhetorically, “Have you concluded all of the praises of your Master? Why do I need all of this? Even these three praises that we recite: The great, mighty and awesome, had Moses our teacher not said them in the Torah and had the members of the Great Assembly not come and incorporated them into the Amida prayer, we would not be permitted to recite them. And you went on and recited all of these. It is comparable to a king who possessed many thousands of golden dinars, yet they were praising him for silver ones. Isn’t that deprecatory?“

No words are sufficient to describe God. In fact, our words tend to falsely limit God. The most familiar words we use to describe God lead to the common picture of God as an old man on a cloud keeping lists of our sins and merits. I call this the “Santa Clause” image of God. But this passage teaches that God is so much more than what are words can describe. In other places we call God: Yuval, a spring of life. Tzur, a rock. HaMakom, the place. HaShem, the name. We call God words that connect to mother, father, lover, king, warrior, protector – none are enough.

When I was sick and going through cancer treatment, I remember how upset I was when I was introduced as a breast cancer patient. How upset I would get when that was all people asked me about . No, I thought to myself, don’t limit me. I am a mother. Daughter. Wife. Sister. Rabbi. Dancer. Artist. Singer. And if I thought that my description was wanting – all the more so God must feel this way.

Our language is limited.

Here, Rabbi Hanina is offended because the person, saying so many descriptive words about God, seems to be indicating by this show – that he believes he is capturing God in his description, or at least doing a better job than the prayer calls for.

Hanina says, no – you could spend all day listing God’s attributes and you would be no closer to capturing God.

For those of you, like me, who love math – this is comparable to infinity – 3 verses infinity -10. They both equal infinity. God is infinite, our descriptions do not even begin to capture what that truly means.

Which brings me to my second gem: And Rabbi Ḥanina said: Everything is in the hands of Heaven, except for fear of Heaven.

We would do well to live our lives (if not in earnest, than) as if God were watching all we do. As my dear friend and colleague Rabbi Young once joked – you know how you can tell someone is about to tell a racist joke? They look around to see whose within listening distance. God is always within listening distance. How much better would we be if we truly feared heaven. And for those who don’t believe – how much better might we be if we imagined a High Being listening ad watching.

There are a few lines on this daf that indicate that we are often more powerful than we think we are. That sometimes, we are in the place we are supposed to be – even if we don’t like being there. That perhaps, even if things don’t come easy, we need to try again, because we might be the one person who can make a difference.

After discussing the chutzpah with which Hannah spoke to God on page 31, page 32 discusses the chutzpah with which Moses speaks to God after the building of the Golden Calf. God, after the incident, wants to kill the people and start over with Moses. Moses gives many excuses on this page. He doesn’t know if any of them will work, until he hears, as we read: God said to Moses: “Leave Me be, that I may destroy them” (Deuteronomy 9:14), Moses said to himself: If God is telling me to let Him be, it must be because this matter is dependent upon me. Immediately Moses stood and was strengthened in prayer, and asked that God have mercy on the nation of Israel and forgive them for their transgression.

Because God said, “leave Me be” to Moses, it was a hint that Moses was, in fact, preventing God from this terrible action that God may later regret.

When I was a kid, when I would get hurt my instinctive reaction was to yell at whoever came to help or comfort me to “leave me alone!” Then, when they walked away, I would get mad at them, because they could have helped me but they didn’t (thank God I have, mostly, grown out of this). Ever notice that, when we’re upset, we don’t want to see the person we are upset with, even though they are the one person who could actually make the situation better? So, maybe when we are being told to leave, or being treated poorly by someone who is hurt, we should pause to evaulate if their pushing away is an indication that we have power to change the situation.

In the case of Moses and God, God was hurt and angry. But God didn’t need to tell Moses God’s intention to wipe out the Hebrews. God did, and so we have to ask – why? The Talmud seems to be hinting that God wanted Moses to talk God out of it, to calm God down, to defend the people. God wanted Moses to step up.

I often wonder this about people who act out. Is this person acting this way because they want someone to intervene? I look at kids making bad choices but in ways that will lead to getting caught and wonder if that’s what they subconsciously want.

Maybe God wanted Moses to fight for the people. Maybe God wants us all to fight.

Later in the daf it says that if God doesn’t answer your prayer – pray it again.

Real relationship involves disagreement, listening, respect; messing up and forgiveness, tests, and hope. Even with God.

Today’s daf gives some good advice such as: when you end a class, leave them with a little teaching. Then, every time they use that teaching, they will think of you. this reminds me of Rick Warren’s advice, “Give them something Sunday that they’ll use on Monday.” It also reminds me of backwards design in education. Before you start a lesson you think of what you want the end results to be: What do I want the learner to know, think, feel, and do differently?

But most of what touched my soul today had to do with the biblical Hannah.

In the biblical narrative, Hannah is one of two wives of Elkanah. The other wife was able to have children, but Hannah remained barren. Nevertheless, Elkanah preferred Hannah.

One day Hannah went up to the temple, and prayed with great weeping (I Samuel 1:10). Eli, the High Priest, thought she was drunk. When she explained herself, he blessed her and sent her home. Hannah conceived and bore a son, and named him Samuel, literally Heard by God, “since she had asked the Lord for him” (1 Samuel 1:20 NAB).

In the Talmud on today’s daf, the conversation turns to all that we learn about prayer (the Amidah) from Hannah. 1) that it should be silent 2) that our lips should move 3) our hearts should be focused 4) never pray while drunk

But what I love about the conversation is the way they describe Hannah and her wisdom. They paint her as a woman who knows her calling in life – to be a mother – and is willing to do anything to make it happen. She says, God, you can do anything – you can certainly give me a child! It’s like a king with a banquet overflowing with food who refuses to give his servant a piece of bread.

She points out that she is a righteous woman who has never failed to do the mitzvot asked of her.

She argued that God created every part of the body for a purpose and asks – what are my breasts for if I am never to nurse!

And then, finally, she uses her knowledge of Jewish law. See, there is a law that when a woman is accused of being unfaithful to her husband, a divine test is given where she drinks a concoction that includes the name of God written on parchment. If she has had an affair, her thigh will sag. But if she is innocent, she will be rewarded with a child. So, the rabbis of the Talmud imagine Hannah saying to God – give me my child, or I will seclude myself with another man and my husband will accuse me of being unfaithful. When it is proven I was innocent, then I will become pregnant.

Hannah knows who she is, who she is meant to be. She has a goal, a calling, and she is going to make it happen. Not even God will stand in her way.

We read Hannah’s story on the High Holidays. A time when we are evaluating our actions, who we are, where we are, where we want to be, who we want to become. And we take steps towards that goal.

We pray, everyday, in a style inspired by Hannah.

May she inspire us every day to know who we are, what we were made for, and not fear challenging those in power who may stand in our way.

Today’s daf introduces an interesting discussion around psalm 2:11 that says, “Serve the Lord in fear and rejoice with trembling.” The rabbis ask: what does it mean to rejoice with trembling?

“Rav Adda bar Mattana said that Rabba said: One may not experience unbridled joy; even where there is rejoicing, there should be trembling.“

This is where the smashing of the glass at the Jewish wedding comes from: “Mar, son of Ravina, made a wedding feast for his son and he saw the Sages, who were excessively joyous.He brought a valuable cup worth four hundred zuz and broke it before them and they became sad.“

The idea is that even in our highest joys, we need to remember the brokenness in our world. There is much to unpack with this idea.

1. How precious and fleeting moments of joy are. They are so delicate, so easy to break. We need to nurture our joy because there is so much pain in the world.
2. That just because we have found a moment of happiness does not mean that there are not others who are suffering. Those who have privilege have a responsibility to remember that the world is still broken for so many others. Those with privilege have a responsibility to work towards healing that brokenness.
3. That sometimes the right thing, meaning the righteous thing, to do is socially uncomfortable. I am sure that the Sages thought Mar was a real party pooper. (He was.) But I think of him as an example for those of us who let off color remarks slide. It might ruin the fun to point out the brokenness of the world. But if we don’t see it, then we can’t fix it. It’s not only glasses we need to break, but silences about issues that need to be addressed.

Three gems from today’s daf:

1. Jews recite the same prayers from the prayer book each time we go to pray. “Rabbi Eliezer says: ‘One whose prayer is fixed, his prayer is not supplication (it’s as if he hasn’t prayed).’ What is fixed? Rabbi Ya’akov bar Idi said Rabbi Oshaya said, ‘anyone who prayer is a burden upon him.'” When we go through the service as quickly as possible, running through the lines without letting them sink in. When we feel burdened by prayer – it’s not true prayer. This invites us to ask ourselves about what can we bring to prayer to make it a true expression of the heart? What might we try to help us feel? To look forward to a conversation instead of trying to just tick off an obligation?
2. In a discussion as to what we should pray if we’re in a dangerous situation and don’t have time for a full prayer we get this gem: Aherim say [that he prays], “The needs of Your nation, Israel, are many and their intelligence is limited. So, may it be your will, Lord our God, to provide each and every one with his necessary sustenance, and to each and every body all that it lacks. Blessed are you Lord, who listens to prayer.” I love this. I don’t necessarily agree with those who say that this is what happens, but it’s a good thing to pray for – that God gives us what we need even if our understanding is limited.
3. Elijah the prophet said to Rav Yehuda brother of Rav Sala Hisda, “Do not get angry and you will not sin.” Anger is a masking emotion, it tells us that something beneath the surface is wrong. Do we truly want to lash out at this person? Or are we angry because we want to be closer to this person? Has our ego been bruised? Do we feel we haven’t been heard? When we lash out in anger against another, we further a divide when a kinder word, the asking of a question, might bring us closer together. My husband and I used to fight and the arguments would escalate. Often, we couldn’t remember what had started the fight the next day. So, we made a rule. If we are starting to argue, we take a time out and write down what we think we are fighting over. Often one of us has misheard, or something was taken in a way the speaker did not intend. Often, when I go to write down what I think we’re fighting about I realize that I have nothing to write down! I am angry over nothing. It’s healthy to remember that your partner (and this is true for friends as well) has chosen you. They are on your team. They love you. So, maybe give them the benefit of explaining what you think you heard, if they meant it be be unkind. In healthy relationships, the answer is often no.

So many gems on one page!

1. A rabbi gets the opportunity for a promotion, but his wife is scared that they won’t let him keep this new position. He says: Let a person use an expensive goblet one day and let it break tomorrow. Meaning, we can’t go through life not taking chances! Enjoy what you can when you can. Fall in love- even though you risk having your heart broken. Wear the expensive dress, even if you risk staining it. Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed.
2. The story goes: “When Rabbi Eliezer fell very ill, his students surrounded his death bed. “Rebbe,” they pleaded, “please teach us the secret to a fulfilling life, so that we may merit to enter Olam Habba.” Rabbi Eliezer responded, “Be sure to always respect your colleagues; protect your children from rationalizing and place them at the feet of scohlars; and when you pray, know before Whom you stand.” I used this in an invocation for a judge. I said: “Now, we are not in synagogue, but don’t ever doubt for a minute that the courtroom is a holy place. It is here that two incredible values are balanced, justice and mercy. It is here that the problems of the people are brought, here that they are listened to and dealt with. Here where the holy work of mending brokenness is done. This work is hard, it is often heartbreaking, and it is holy. The first thing Moses did after Mt. Sinai was set up courts. So this advice, given 2000 years ago applies here as well. So I will repeat the three pieces of advice from Rabbi Eliezer:  respect your colleagues, they more than anyone, appreciate the difficultly of the task you have before you. Respect them, lean on them, and they will be there for you. Aviod rationalizations and find opportunities to teach. Those who come before you may be very good at rationalizing bad behavior, it’s your job to put us at the feet of scholars – when you can, give lessons, share your wisdom, find paths for people to get he help they need to grow and improve themselves and their situations.And last: know before Whom you stand. Judge, you are now a conduit of justice and a symbol of the law. Remember that with this great power comes great responsibility. Remember that you stand for the highest ideals of our nation and that you come from a people that descends from Abraham, a man who called out God demanding that the Author of Justice do Justice.And know before whom you stand. I pray that you are able to see the people who come before you, see them as complete people, the good and the bad, and be able to see what they really need and how you can help them. I would like to ask for God’s blessing upon you. God, please be with XXXXXX today and everyday as he takes on the mantel of being a judge over your people. Help him to find good colleagues, to help those who come seeking his help, give him wisdom and discernment. Be with him, hold him when it feels like it’s too much. Give him strength to stand up for what is right. And bless his family too. . .
3. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai cries because he is scared of facing God in judgement. He blesses his students that they will fear God at least as much as they fear others. He notes that we worry about others seeing our behaviors, but we forget that God is always watching. Believing in God helps to remind us that our actions matter even when no one is around to see.

A student asked the same question to both Rabbi Yehoshua and then Rabban Gamliel with the same question. (Which reminds me of my kids who ask my husband and if he says no come to me thinking I might contradict him- foolish boys.) Long story short, Rabban Gamliel feels slighted by Rabbi Yehoshua and so does petty things to punish him – like not telling him to sit in lectures so Rabbi Yehoshua stands in deference and apparently other slights. The people see this and say – how long will Rabban Gamliel punish this guy? The new year has passed (when we are supposed to forgive everyone) and he still hasn’t dropped it! Then this master of Torah loses his job because he can’t forgive Rabbi Yehoshua.
The lesson? When we don’t forgive, we think we are punishing the other person, but we only end up hurting ourselves.

Today was the first day that a Talmudic rabbi admitted that he simply didn’t know. Someone asked him why he made one choice when an easier choice was also acceptable and he said – I didn’t know that, thanks for teaching me.
If only we could all be so humble and admit when we don’t know, and learn from others who (in this case) may not have titles as lofty as our own.