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

Today’s gem comes in a bathhouse. In a bathhouse? Why are we learning there? you may ask. Well, so does the gemara: How did Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi do this? How did he teach his student halakha in the bathhouse? Didn’t Rabba bar bar Ḥana say Rabbi Yoḥanan said: In all places, it is permitted to contemplate Torah matters except for the bathhouse and the bathroom? … The Gemara answers: It was permitted because he was preventing an individual from violating a prohibition, which is different.

We then get another example of another rabbi teaching a student by stopping them from doing a prohibited act in the bathhouse.

Besides being totally weirded out (again) by the image of a rabbi and his students being together in the bathhouse, I think this has something to teach. 1) The rule that you don’t share words of Torah in a bathroom or bathhouse (meaning, on the toilet or in the tub) seems to set up a good boundary in terms of what teachers require of their students. I am imagining that if this rule were not there, that perhaps teachers would want to expound Torah while sitting on the toilet, or while singing in the shower. These are places where we should not invite our students to join us.

But we have public places as well. Public bathrooms where a teacher and student might be in side by side stalls. Even public changing rooms or saunas. And while (please God) a teacher should never invite a student to come to these places with them. Rabbis still have the right to use these spaces. And if they do, then while they are there, if they see some kind of behavior that should be corrected, then they not just are permitted, but are called upon to speak up.

Super weird. Uncomfortable page. But still, this is Torah.

Today’s gem: Compromise.

“As Rav Tanḥum said Rabbi Yoḥanan said Rabbi Yannai said Rav said: Every place that you find two who disagree, and one, a third one, adopts a compromise, the halakha is in accordance with the compromiser.“

After two pages of disagreements about stoves, ovens, and a new technology called a kufa – we get, not a clear cut law, but this gem which establishes a general rule. If you have two people with a lot of wisdom who can give many reasons for why they believe something should be a certain way – then if a third party can come up with a compromise that brings into account the two different positions, the law goes with the compromise.

Sometimes a compromise is two people losing. But more often than not it shows respect for both parties.

The mezuzah is the perfect example.

Rashi, taught that the mezuzah should be placed vertically, as we should be upright in our actions. Rashi’s grandson, Rabbeinu Tam, taught that it should be horizontal (sending blessings into the room). Rabbi Jacob ben Asher made the law on it – a compromise! This is why our mezuzot hang at a slant.

May we remember the importance of compromise when we go in and out of our gates.

Today’s gem comes amidst a discussion of how to heat food on Shabbat since we cannot ignite a fire on Shabbat. There are many disagreements, first between Hillel and Shammai, then we go into those disagreements between Rav and Shmuel and Rabbi Yohanan. That’s where our gem steps in: “Rav Ukva from Meishan said to Rav Ashi: You, who are close to Rav and Shmuel, act in accordance with t Rav and Shmuel; we will act in accordance with Rabbi Yoḥanan.“

Do you stand or sit during the shema? I remember the first time I was in a synagogue where they didn’t stand, I felt as though I had disrespected God. I was in shock. How could they be so disrespectful? But, guess what? The rule is just that whatever position you are in, you don’t move to say the shema. Mostly, standing or sitting had to do with the customs of the place. That seems to be what the ruling is above – you guys do it your way, and we will do it our way.

This is really hitting home as it’s currently Passover, and the rules about what we can, and cannot eat, vary widely from community to community. I remember visiting a friends synagogue my 5th year of rabbinical school and being shocked that they were serving humus. As an Ashkenazi Jew, I never would have eaten chickpeas as they were part of a 13th century ruling that we don’t eat corn, legumes, or rice. I grew up not eating anything with corn syrup or soy in it (that’s hard!). But, as I studied Judaism and learned about other cultures, I learned that Sephardi Jews eat rice and beans during Passover. I learned that there was no reason corn was prohibited besides a misunderstanding by early european rabbis who were unfamiliar with corn about it’s properties (and I grew up n Indiana where I was very familiar with its properties) and that other prohibitions had to do with crop rotations.

Today, the conservative movement has ruled that beans, rice, and corn are now permitted, not just on Passover, but at the Seder. This jives with my experience living in Jerusalem. When I lived there, shopping for Passover was easy – they literally put sheets over the areas that sold food that was prohibited on Passover. So, the only thing you could reach fit the guides, including kitniyot, corn, and rice products. I wondered: why are they more lax about Passover in the Jewish homeland than I am?

We keep traditions largely based on how we grew up, in keeping with our traditions – and, usually, halakic argument has little to do with it. We follow, as our gem says, the rule of those we are close to.

But maybe for Passover this Ashkenazi Jew will read and study and go with Spharad.

When my sister first told me she was moving to Chennai, I had no idea where she was talking about. But when she said,”It used to be called Madras” then some of my world history came back to me.

When I first started at Temple Beth Am, they had just completed a huge building campaign. I was new, so I had trouble finding where I needed to go. Often I would ask: Where is the theater? and would hear: Where the sanctuary used to be. I, of course,had no idea where the sanctuary once was – but this happened for my first two years. I soon learned, not only where things where, but what those spaces used to be.

I was thinking about that when reading today’s daf – the way places change names. Items change names. And terms change their meaning as well.

Today’s daf begins with a discussion about the permissibility of moving items that are  may not be touched or used on Shabbat (mukzeh). Then it gives exceptions to the rule. One is the shofar. “A shofar belonging to the community is also suitable to feed water to a poor infant whose sustenance is provided by the community.” Because the shofar can be used as a funnel to feed or give water to a child, it’s an acception.

Next comes a confusing conversaiton about if it is halakhically permissable to move a trumpet or not. The confusion apparently comes becasue of a name change: Rav Hisda explains, their names changed since the Temple was destroyed. That which was called trumpet was called shofar in later generations, and that which was called shofar was called trumpet in later generations. The earlier teaching that was cited employed the style that switches trumpet and shofar, and they were mentioned in that order. 

Other things are added to this list whose names have flipped and changed over time.

So, when I asked where the library was and was told to head toward the old basketball court, there was a bit of Talmud going on. (It also reminds me of a great song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo0X77OBJUg)

On a more serious note. I think about how this applies to gender identity and what we choose to be called; the names we give ourselves or take on later in life.

Today’s gem comes with a beautiful Passover connection. Many of us not only put a kiddish cup of wine out for Elijah, but a glass with water in it for Miriam the Prophetess (Moses’ sister). It comes from this daf! “Rabbi Ḥiyya said: One who wants to see Miriam’s well, which accompanied the Jewish people throughout their sojourn in the desert, should do the following: He should climb to the top of Mount Carmel and look out, and see a rock that looks like a sieve in the sea, and that is Miriam’s well. Rav said: A spring that is portable, ritually pure: It is Miriam’s well.“

Where did this come from?

We read about the death of Moses’ sister, Miriam in Numbers 20:1. Immediately, it’s followed with a note that our ancestors had run out of water to drink (Numbers 20:2). The approximation of these two events provided the foundation upon which the sages of the Talmud built this beautiful legend about the abundant well of fresh water that followed Miriam as she wandered with her people throughout the wilderness. So long as she lived, the well was a fountain of living water that sustained the people. This source of strength and sustenance, however, dried up upon her death.

This legend emphasizes the importance of Miriam in the forty years our people spent in the desert and shows her to be a full partner with her brothers, Moses and Aaron. Her courage and enthusiasm sustained our people. (She even brought the timbrels! Ready to sing and dance!) Her death was a great loss for our ancestors and her two brothers. The Torah underscores this point by telling us that almost immediately after her death, Moses and Aaron are almost overwhelmed by the challenge to provide water for our people. 

Today, at many Seders there is a new ritual of placing a cup of water on the table to represent Miriam’s well. Its presence on the table provides an opportunity to talk about the significance of Miriam and the role women play in the Passover story and in the life of the Jewish people.

Today’s gem is part two of the lazerbeam saga. There is a scene where the people are saying, they don’t know enough about the place where this plaza is to know if there might have once been bodies buried there. If an area was used as a grave, then people from the priestly class, kohenim, cannot walk there. Since they didn’t know, they didn’t know if the priests should walk there or not, and it was a pain in the tuchas! So Shimon Ben Yohai asks around. No one seems to have an answer, but he knows from what they tell him, that the place was once pure. So, he walks around poking the ground. When it’s firm, he says it’s pure and priests can walk there. When it’s not firm, he marks the spot so priests will avoid it. It seems Shimon Ben Yohai has saved the day and made life easier for everyone when:

“A certain Elder said in ridicule and surprise: Ben Yoḥai purified the cemetery! Rabbi Shimon got angry and said to him: Had you not been with us, and even had you been with us and were not counted with us in rendering this ruling, what you say is fine. (Meaning, had you not been there and known what I was doing, then you coming later and laughing would have been acceptable, or even if you were with me and didn’t know what I was doing! But you knew!) Now that you were with us and were counted with us they (others) will say: Competing prostitutes still apply makeup to each other to help one another look beautiful, all the more so that Torah scholars should cooperate with each other and try and make each other look good. He directed his eyes toward him and the Elder died. Rabbi Shimon went out to the marketplace and he saw Yehuda, son of converts,who was the cause of this entire incident. Rabbi Shimon, said: This one still has a place in the world? He directed his eyes toward him and turned him into a pile of bones.“

Wow! Don’t mess with Rabbi Shimon. So we get day two of his lazerbeam eyed adventures.

The reason this is my gem, besides the X-men Cyclops parallel, is Rabbi Shimon’s reasoning behind what he does. He basically says: even prostitutes who compete with one another for business, still do one anothers makeup and help the other to look good. Why can’t rabbis be like that? Why can’t we all try and make one another look good? Instead, we stand by passively and try and make eachother look like fools? Rabbis are supposed to be the height of morality. Prostitution is . . . not. Yet, they’re better to each other than we are! ZZZZZeeeer-boooom (that’s what lazer’s sound like)!

Why do we cut one another down? Rabbis do it to one another. Women do it to one another. So many do it to so many others. When will we learn, when we help others to look good, we will look better too?

Phenomenal story today – with Talmudic lazer beams shooting from the eyes, and a message that – even if you’re steeped in Torah, if you can’t see the beauty in nature and how the common person appreciates the world – then you haven’t learned enough (retelling thanks to Jewish Virtual Library):

Once, when Rabbi Shimon was together with Rabbi Yehudah ben Ilai and Rabbi Yose ben Chalafta, Rabbi Yehudah praised the Romans for their construction of markets, bridges and bathhouses. Rabbi Yose remained silent. But Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said that all those engineering marvels were made for their own self-interest. When the Romans heard this, they rewarded Yehudah by appointing him to a position in government. Rabbi Yose, for not supporting him, was punished by exile. For his disparagement of the Romans, Rabbi Shimon was condemned to death.

To escape this punishment, Rabbi Shimon fled with his son to a cave. There they remained for thirteen years, studying Torah together, both the Revealed and the Hidden Torah. Rabbi Shimon wrote down the latter material for the first time in a book called the “Zohar,” Splendor, or Radiance.

The first time Rabbi Shimon came out of the cave, he was completely “out of tune” with the people of his generation. He observed Jews farming the land, and engaged in other normal pursuits, and made known his disapproval, “How can people engage themselves in matters of this world and neglect matters of the next world?” Whereupon a Heavenly Voice was heard, which said “Bar Yochai, go back to the cave! You are no longer fit for the company of other human beings.” Rabbi Shimon went back to the cave, reoriented his perspective, and emerged again. This time, he was able to interact with the people of his generation, and become a great teacher of Torah, the Revealed and the Hidden.

Today’s gem sounds like Hip Hop lyrics, and not just because it’s from Rav Papa: “Rav Pappa said: At the entrance to the stores, during a time of prosperity, brothers and loved ones abound. However, at the gate of disgrace, during a time of loss and poverty, he has no brothers and no loved ones; everyone abandons him.”

Everyone likes to celebrate with the winner. But who is there for you when you’re down? When you’ve messed up, who stays by your side?

Rav Papa gives us a true test of friendship – your real friends are the people who will be with you through, not just the good, but the bad. And I think of the words, “gate of disgrace” and can’t help but read that the bad is also when we are bad, when we mess up, when we fall short. It doesn’t mean it’s okay, it isn’t approval, a good friend also reprimands, but when we love we don’t abandon.

As Brittany Addams points out in her medium article – real love, even for friends, shouldn’t be fragile.

And a quick second gem – just showing how much we imagine God wants to forgive us: “And with regard to divine judgment, these are a person’s advocates: Repentance and good deeds. The Gemara comments: And even if there are nine hundred ninety-nine asserting his guilt and only one asserting his innocence, he is spared, as it is stated: “If there be for him an angel, an advocate, one among a thousand, to vouch for a man’s uprightness; then He is gracious unto him, and says: Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom” (Job 33:23–24). Rabbi Eliezer, son of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, says: Even if there are nine hundred ninety-nine portions within that same angel accusing him, and one portion asserting his innocence, he is spared, as it stated: “An advocate, one among a thousand.”

Today’s page recounts the tremendous patience of Hillel. It discusses how Hillel was so able to keep his cool that one guy bet another that he couldn’t get Hillel to be aggravated with him. What follows on the page are a series of situations in which any normal person would have lost their cool, but Hillel holds it together, assumes the best out of people, and even converts some to Judaism because of his audacious patience and acceptance.

Perhaps the most famous story about Hillel is on this daf: A gentile who came before Shammai and said: Convert me on condition that you teach me the entire Torah while I am standing on one foot. Shammai pushed him away with the builder’s cubit in his hand. He then came before Hillel. Hillel converted him and said to him: That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.

Other similar stories follow. And reading this, I know I should be writing about patience, but instead, I keep thinking about Hillel’s approach to conversion. Because it’s not just this incident, but two others where Hillel also might have (and Shammai did) push people away who weren’t taking Judaism seriously, but Hillel brought them in and helped them to fall in love with Judaism.

And I wonder, what if, instead of the tradition of turning someone away three times, requiring a year of study, sitting them before a panel of judges and all that we require – what if we said, yes! Thank you for wanting to be part of us! Now, let’s map out a meaningful spiritual path?

What if, when a couple came before any rabbi, wanting to get married, where one identified as Jewish and the other did not, the rabbi embraced them? What if the rabbi, instead of showing judgement, celebrated that they came to a rabbi for the most important day in their life? What if we invited them in? Taught them how to make a Jewish home? invited them to get blessed on the bima? Without judgement or coercion, asked them how we can help them create the kind of spiritual home they envision?

I have never been as boldly welcoming as Hillel. I have never converted someone while they stood on one foot. It usually takes a year or more. But he is inspiring me to think about how I can be more patient and more radically welcoming.

Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: What is the meaning of that verse which David said: “Lord, make me to know my end, and the measure of my days, what it is; let me know how short-lived I am” (Psalms 39:5)? It means that David said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, Lord, make me to know my end; in how long will I die? God said to him: It is decreed before Me that I do not reveal the end of the life of flesh and blood. He asked further: And the measure of my days; on what day of the year will I die? He said to him: It is decreed before Me not to reveal the measure of a person’s days. So David asked: Let me know how short-lived I am; on what day of the week will I die? He said to him: You will die on Shabbat. David asked: Let me die on the first day of the week so that the honor of Shabbat will not be tarnished by the pain of death. God said to him: On that day the time of the kingdom of your son Solomon has already arrived, and one kingdom does not overlap with another even a hairbreadth. David said to God: I will cede a day of my life and die on Shabbat eve. God said to him: “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand” (Psalms 84:11); a single day in which you sit and engage in Torah is preferable to Me than the thousand burnt-offerings that your son Solomon will offer before Me on the altar (see I Kings 3:4). 30b

What did David do? Every Shabbat he would sit and learn all day long to protect himself from the Angel of Death. On that day on which the Angel of Death was supposed to put his soul to rest, the Angel of Death stood before him and was unable to take his soul because his mouth did not pause from study. The Angel of Death said: What shall I do to him? David had a garden [bustana] behind his house; the Angel of Death came, climbed, and shook the trees. David went out to see. As he climbed the stair, the stair broke beneath him. He was startled and was silent, interrupted his studies for a moment, and died.

I just finished a book by Etgar Keret, a fabulously funny Israeli writer. In it, he talks about making shivah for his father. A religious Jew is there that Etgar does not know, but he shares a story with Etgar. There was a man named Avraham who was part of the religious community. But one day, he decided he had had enough. He packed his things and got ready to leave. But before he left he visits the rabbi. The rabbi looks him in the eye and says, “Before you die, you will return to Torah.” The religious man goes on to tell stories about what happened next to Avraham. How during the Lebanon war, bombs were falling, people all around were lying on the ground, trying to protect themselves from the incoming fire. Avraham saw a woman, called her over to him and said – you will be safe by me, I can’t die since I have not returned to the religious life. Another time he found himself almost drowning in the ocean. When the rescue team pulled him from the water, he was yelling, “I still don’t believe you rabbi!”

And then it was that he became old and was suffering from a terrible illness. Etgar’s father, a secular man, came to visit Avraham in the hospital. He put on his tefillin and tallis and prayed the service for Avraham. It was then that his soul was taken.

Ironic how in the Talmudic tale, David embraces religion to prolong life whereas in Etgar Keret’s story, Avraham’s fleeing from religion prolongs his. Perhaps the two together can highlight what faith can do for us. Faith can help us make meaning fo our days. And, when the time comes, faith can help us go willingly into the World to Come.