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

On the B side we get a new mishnah: “A person may not sit before the barber adjacent to the time of minḥa until he recites the afternoon prayer. And a person may not enter the bathhouse and may not to a tannery [burseki]. And he may neither begin to eat a meal nor to sit in judgment.”

What do all of these things have in common? Once you start you don’t stop. I cut my boys’ hair, and there are times when they want to stop. A friend will knock on the door and suddenly they want to run out of the house with half their head trimmed and the other half shaggy.

But the real question is – why would you start something right before prayer time?

One reason might be because you are trying to squeeze one more thing into your day. And so you are hoping that this little spot of “me time” won’t really last that long because you have things to do. If that’s the case, we can learn a lesson about savoring our “me time” and our prayer time and not trying to cut either of them short.

Another reason might be because we are being somewhat disrespectful of when prayers time starts. Maybe prayer hasn’t been working for us lately. Maybe we find it boring and don’t mind rolling in a few minutes late. (If you’re a regular service goer, you will know that this is a common practice.) Maybe we do it, but with a bit of reluctance.

I think sometimes we do this in relationships too. We squeeze it in and don’t really make time to connect. We call that person back knowing we only have 5 minutes so that we are fulfilling our responsibility but making sure we have an out.

As a working mom, I have to make a conscious effort to talk to my husband at the end of the day. It’s hard! I’ve worked like crazy, have been driving my kids around, trying to get everything done and them into bed. And then it’s about 9:00 (if I’m not still at work) and finally we have some alone time and what do I want to do? “Me time.” I want to watch the Bachelor or some other TV version of beach reading – but guess what? This is also the only time I have to be just with my husband. He is more important, but if I put my own TV first, I might miss out on time with him.

So, yeah. If you care about Mincha, and building your relationship with God, maybe don’t sit down in the barber chair right before it’s time to pray.

And if you have other relationships in your life that matter to you – make time for them. Fully present time. But don’t totally neglect the me time either. 😉

“One who intended to establish his Shabbat abode in the public domain at a specific site must place food sufficient for two meals for that site to be considered his legal residence. And if he placed the food used for his eiruv in a pit above ten handbreadths, i.e., less than ten handbreadths below ground level, his eiruv is an eiruv. If he placed the eiruv below ten handbreadths from ground level, his eiruv is not an eiruv.“

I read this daf at the beginning of the day and was not sure what it was talking about. Then, because we are not having live services at temple because we want to be responsible in protecting our congregants from coronavirus, my family and I decided to spend Shabbat at the beach.

We went to the beach, established our space, dug a hole for our umbrella (way less than 10 handbreadths) and brought our food – enough for two meals. And as I sat under the umbrella, I realized – oh! We are living out today’s daf!

In listing the exceptions to the normal laws of carrying, we get this little gem – that if you want to celebrate Shabbat in what would normally be a public place, you can make it your own, and we can count it as your abode for the day. So, enjoy the parks, enjoy picnics, enjoy the beach – make your Shabbat beautiful.

A Gem for today: So far, in Shabbat, we have been discussing private and public domains. Which already is interesting for us to think about – how it’s hard to keep Shabbat when the public domain violates our private domain (like work emails, for example) or when the private domain violates the public (like social media lets say). A public domain is understood by the rabbis as a place that is open to the public AND is frequented by the public. So, these leaves a few spaces as in between spaces. A plaza or a market square is clearly a public domain. However, a sea, a river, a swamp and a steep valley, if infrequently used, are not considered public domains, but karmelits — something not quite public and not quite private (although probably closer to the public definition).

As a nature lover I think that we can lose the beauty of this categorization by getting caught up in trying to understand the minutiae of the page. But I know that feeling. The feeling of being in nature – and it’s totally a public place, but you seem to be alone. Alone with just the waves, the fish; alone with just the view. For me, this space is highly spiritual. I remember finding it in a cornfield that used to grow behind my house in Indiana. The field was between my house, neighbors homes, and an elementary school. I would sometimes walk out into it. After a few yards, I could no longer see my house, or the school. I was in a public place – but I was completely alone – my own private little oasis.

Mikvah in the ocean is like this as well. It’s a public space, but for that moment, that ritual, it transforms into a space that is utterly personal, holey, transcendent.

I found it on top of a sand dune with my (then) new husband on our honeymoon. Open space, looking down at a hostel/hotel – and yet the only people in the world for that moment.

A bit of magic. What are some of your karmelits in nature?

Today’s daf has an interesting gem towards the end. Rav finds a hidden scroll in the house of Rav Hiyya. In this scroll, we learn that of the 39 prohibited acts on Shabbat (melachot), that there is one that if you break it, you are not liable for stoning. But it remains a mystery which of the 39 forbidden acts is the one for which you will not be punished.

There is something to this – that it’s possible that if you mess up, you will be forgiven, but you don’t know for sure. And so, the safe bet is to follow the rules. Don’t bet on somehow being the exception to the rule.

Also, I love that he found this scroll and it gave an entirely new rule. It shows that, no matter how much you know, there may be mysteries to discover at any time. And that, perhaps, no matter how much you know, there will always be something that you’ve never seen, or considered before.

I have to say, this book has been tougher than berakhot so far. The questions of private verses personal domains stretched into, what I imagine to be, sports today as the page was full of discussions of if it counts as carrying (a forbidden act) if we throw and catch items instead of lifting and placing them – what about if we throw into a basket? What about if the person catching has to run to catch? And then there is a question about if your reading a scroll and part of it rolls away from you from your private domain into the public domain.

So, my gem would be, instead of getting lost in all these picayune details, a pulling back on the picture here. What do we see? People wanting to create a shabbat experience and wondering how to connect with each other, share with each other, play with each other, and spend time with good books on Shabbat. That part I can relate to. And that’s really what Shabbat is all about: sharing food, playing, interacting, and having time for one another and good reading.

The discussion of how many handbreadths define a domain is not immediately relatable- but books, play, food and connection – I am all about it.

Today’s gem: There is a question raised about bread baking on Shabbat. The question is, if someone puts bread in the oven on Shabbat, can you take it out?

You need to understand a few things about the rules of Shabbat to even understand the question. First, you need to know that you cannot bake bread on Shabbat and that this prohibition is considered a law that derives from the Torah. Second, you need to know that it would be a prohibited act to remove the dough from the oven – but that the removal is a law derived from the rabbis.

So, the question is: Can you break a rabbinic law in order to prevent your friend from having broken a Torah law?

“Rav Sheshet strongly objected to this. And does one tell another person: Sin so that another will benefit?“

I don’t know that I fully agree with the rabbis in where they land on this one (which is that you don’t break a rabbinic law to prevent your friend from being punished for breaking a Torah law). But I definitely value the struggle. I think this speaks to a real truth about the struggle of wanting to protect and prevent others from making mistakes and the truth that you can’t live someone else’s life for them.

As a friend, there have been many times when I have struggled with wondering what my role is when a friend is going down the wrong path. I have wanted to do this from time to time – martyr myself to protect someone I love … but the Rav Sheshet clearly says, we shouldn’t sin so that someone else will benefit.

Judaism is very clear about rebuke, about correcting others, about how standing idly by renders us liable. Maybe this is an important line – do your part, warn them, stand in their way – but don’t go so far in trying to alter another person’s behavior that you end up sinning yourself.

Good lesson for those who want to be good friends. Good lesson for parents as well . . .

Today’s gem is found right between sides a and b where Rav asks Yehudah haNasi a question that is totally off topic. So, “Rabbi Ḥiyya said to Rav: Son of great men! Didn’t I tell you that when Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi is involved in this tractate do not ask him about another tractate, as perhaps it will not be on his mind?! Had Rabbi not been such a great man, you would have shamed him, as he would have been forced to give you an answer that is not an appropriate answer.“

As a rabbi and teacher, I have to say that this happens to me all the time. I am teaching a lesson that I worked hard to prepare when, boom, out of left field comes a question that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, a question I am not in the right frame of mind to answer. Sometimes I can answer and get back to what I was saying, but sometimes it throws me off and I give an answer that I wouldn’t have given had I had time to prepare, and sometimes I answer and then can’t remember what I was talking about.

I love questions. Our rabbis do too. There is some humor in the fact that Rabbi Hiyya corrects Rav by calling him ” Son of great men!” (especially since Rav is his nephew). There is something loving in the critique being made. I think it’s there because we DO want questions and to be challenged, but there is a way of doing it that furthers learning, and a way of doing it that totally derails learning. (And sometimes a way of doing it that makes it clear you are just trying to make the teacher look bad.) The rabbis highly value Kavod, showing respect, especially to their teachers. I like the idea of asking quetions, but making an extra effort to try not to throw off the lesson and to make sure you help your teacher to look good.

Now if only we could teach this to all our middle school students . . .

Welcome to a whole new book of the Talmud! And it begins with a lovely gem:

The first Mishnah deals with the prohibition of moving an object from a private property to the public domain or vice-versa on Shabbat (one of the forbidden activities). Sounds boring, I know, but keep reading. The page talks about a the home owner being in the house, and a poor person being at the doorway outside of the house and how they might interact.

In the first case, a poor person is pictured as taking something from outside the house, and lifting his hand and placing the item inside the house. If he does this, he has broken Shabbat. Likewise, if the home owner takes something from within the house and places it outside the house, the home owner has broken Shabbat. Then it talks about how, if one of them lifts their hands from their domain into the other, and then the other person then either places or takes something from the hand of the other person – then neither has violated Shabbat.

Okay, so here is why I think it’s a gem. 1) The Mishnah specifically uses the example of a poor person, I don’t think it’s an accident but it there to teach us a higher lesson. 2) In half the cases, the poor person is giving somthing to the home owner.

So, why a “poor” person? While the Rambam explains that the Mishnah simply uses pauper and householder as shorthand to distinguish between ‘the fellow standing inside the private domain’ versus ‘the fellow standing in the public domain’, I think it’s there for a bigger reason. In general, the Talmud has terms for so-and-so such as “ploney” and using the names of the sons of Jacob as “Joe and Jane Dough”. So, I highly doubt “pauper” is used flippantly. According to Rabbi Ovadiah Bartenura also thinks it’s purposeful. He says, lest you think that the obligation of charity might override the mitzvah of Shabbat, our Sages make it clear that Shabbat must still be the guiding principle. But does it?

When I read this, what I see is an attempt to honor Shabbat, make it holy, special, and different – while still making sure that if a person in need is standing before us we open our hands to them. When I read this I see a scene whee one wants to keep Shabbat AND keep the laws of tzedakah.

And what is the poor person giving the home owner?

I don’t know – just as I don’t know what the homeowner is giving the pauper. But I do know that a person is a person and everyone has something to give.

I remember being in 8th grade when my sister brought home these older kids to have dinner with our family (they must have been late teens and early 20s). They were squatters, having drove into town just that week. They were an oddity to me, and I had been leery of them. I pulled my sister to the side, asking her how she could bring them into our house – saying our parents were going to flip out.

We sat down to eat. My dad asked the most obvious question, “Where are you from?”

And so immediately, my parents learned that these young people were wandering from town to town, with no jobs, no home, squatting and trying to find work where they could to get them to the next town.

To my utter amazement, instead of my parents giving my sister as much as a warning look, they proceeded to talk to these kids about all the places they had been. They compared notes with their own travels. They laughed at their stories, refilled their plates, and invited them to stay in our house for the next few days.

They had given my parents the gift of reminiscing, of travel, of a bit of freedom that those with jobs, children, and mortgage don’t have.

They gave me a gift too. I learned that my prejudices are just that – prejudices. And everyone has something to give whether they are on one side of the doorway or the other.

Today’s gem, and the last for this masekhet (tractate)! Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Ashi said that Rav said: Torah scholars have rest neither in this world nor in the World-to-Come, as in both worlds they are constantly progressing, as it is stated: “They go from strength to strength, every one of them appears before God in Zion.”

Rashi adds, “From Yeshiva to Yeshiva, from [Beit] Midrash to Midrash.”

We are expected to work hard in this world. We are expected to work and grow all the days of our life. There is little enjoyment for us when we are not contributing. But what about in the world to come? Heaven?

Have you ever actually imagined heaven? Living in the heaven we see in movies? No responsibilities, all fun, gorging yourself, resting on clouds, always comfortable, always getting whatever you want?

When I think of it I think of the Twilight Zone episode: A Nice Place to Visit, in which a man dies and goes to a place full of gorgeous women, all who are interested in him, and he gambles, something he loved in life, and wins every time. He assumes he is in heaven, but after a while, he starts to go crazy, he is bored out of his mind. That’s when he learns he is not in heaven, but hell.

Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, wrote: “The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”

A life of meaning is a life of responsibility, of weight. We value what we work for, and we work for what we value. You want heaven on earth? Try and grow every day. Do everything you do to the best of your ability. Push yourself.

You want heaven in the world to come? I imagine it would be similar to this world at its most ideal moments, and yet more balanced and fair. But it couldn’t be heavenly if there wasn’t room to grow, to work, to make meaning, to be tied to things that matter, to love, to learn, to yearn and to accomplish.

Today’s gem: “Bar Kappara taught . . . and where there is no man, there be a man; Abaye said: Infer from this that where there is a man, there do not be a man.“

I like this for many reasons. One is that I am practicing humility this week, and one of the meditations that mussar practice offers is: “No more than my space, no less than my place.” Usually, we think of humility as a kind of shrinking, but in reality, it’s taking up the proper amount of space. So, one way of looking at this daf is: In a place where no one else can fill a particular role – fill it! Lean in! And then Abaye adds that if there is someone else who can fill that role – let them! Make space!

But there are other ways of reading this. Such as, when other people are acting in an indifferent or cowardly fashion, stand up and be a brave human being. Don’t give in to peer pressure. Do the right thing even if others aren’t.

It could also mean that one should act as a decent person even when there are no others around . . . in a place where there literally are no men. God may be always watching but, as we have seen on previous dapim (pages) many of us care less for God’s opinion than for that of our neighbors. One of my previous co-workers, Rabbi Judy Kempler, used to have a sign in her office that read, “I’m watching – God.” If you believe it or not, it is true that it matters how we behave, even if others are not watching, because it shapes our character – who we are and how we feel about who we are.