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

“And Rabba bar Ḥinnana Sava said in the name of Rav: Anyone who can ask for mercy on behalf of another, and does not ask is called a sinner.” In a world where we are more and more isolated, it’s always good to have reminders that we are responsible for one another. And in a world with so much brokenness, where it’s overwhelming and the instinct is to tune it out and distract and tell ourselves that we are innocent since we are not actively contributing to injustice – this is a good reminder that those who do nothing to fight against injustice are, in fact, supporting injustice.
1500 years old and still, some woke rabbis.

Two gems. 1) Both Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai give opinions, both are valid, but we follow Hillel because students of Bet Hillel are able to explain and understand the opinions of both their house of study and Bet Shammai and teach both positions. What a powerful lesson in a time where we like to stay in our own echo chambers – not only should you hear from those you disagree with, you shoudl be able to teach the reasoning behind their positions.
2) There is a discussion of the Yotzeir Or prayer, which says God creates light AND dark, and there is an argument made that we should avoid saying God creates dark. But the rabbis agree that we need to see that light and dark all come from the same source. This prayer almost made me drop out of Rabbinical School. When I had cancer, it gave me solace. I talked about it in my TEDx talk. The sound is terrible, but if you would like to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2lp0RLHY8s

We meet Bruryah! Our female sage who comes to teach the men how to properly interpret Torah verse by reminding them not to take things out of context. And she reminds her husband something we say on the high holidays – that we should not pray for the death of sinners, but just that they should repent and change their ways. AKA Hate the sin and not the sinner. God knows not a one of us has ever made it through life without a sin.
Nice to have a woman so respected in a text written by men for men.

In a weird tangent on the story of the Passover, there is a whole discussion of the timing of things on that final day. But one gem – redemption comes after the darkest moment. For anyone feeling darkness, there is always hope. Let’s make tomorrow brighter.

One gem from today’s daf – “respect scholars in their old age even when they forget, they are like the broken tablets in the ark.” LOVE THIS. I am not sure if it needs further explanation. But let’s respect the elderly. I know my goal in life is to reach “old age”. Yet, our modern society tends to shun the elderly and think that only youth bring real wisdom. But, as it says, even when the elderly forget, they are like the broken tablets. Background: There is an idea that after Moses saw the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf and Moses broke the original tablets, that we carried both the whole and broken tablets with us in the ark of the covenant. So, if our elderly(or forgetful/sick/mentally declining) are the broken tablets, it reminds us that they are still sacred. And they should be precious to us.

Out of a page of so much, two pieces I will comment on for Shabbat: 1) When Rav Nachum is sick and not showing up to services, Rabbi Yitzhak tries to convince him to come. Rav Nachum says, no I am not strong enough. It’s suggested he allow a minyan to come to him house. This he refuses as well. It ends by saying he should pray at the same time as the community. . . I know that some people are overwhelmed by crowds, or are sick themselves, or out of town and so they watch services on-line – here is your Talmudic support, you are one of the community and SO valued!
2) The daf discusses that God gets angry. Holy anger. But only for a moment (to be precise: One fifty-eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eighth or a second). This reminded me of a recent study of the minds of Buddhist monks. They found that the monks, who seem the most unflustered people on the planet, actually feel anger deeper than others. The trick is, they feel it deeply, and then immediately let it go. In fact, only by letting ourselves fully feel things can we walk through them, can we let them go.
Which reminds me of a favorite story about Buddhist monks:

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side.

The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to touch a woman.

Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and continued on his 
journey.

The younger monk couldn’t believe what had just happened. After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them.

Two more hours passed, then three, finally the younger monk could contain himself any longer, and blurted out “As monks, we are not permitted to touch a woman, how could you carry that woman on your shoulders?”

The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river hours ago, why are you still carrying her?”

Again, lots covered on today’s page. I want to focus on two ideas: 1) that just as people pray to be close to God and place verses about God in our tefillin (traditional morning head and arm pieces worn during prayer); God prays to be close to us, and even wears tefillin with verses about us! God wants a relationship, and perhaps feels the same love, longing and loneliness we feel towards Her. And 2) the page ends with a comment that if you don’t greet a pauper, you have stolen from them, because you have stolen their dignity. So, even if you don’t have money to give, give the dignity of a smile, a kind word, of humanity.

Can our prayers protect us? Do we suffer because we have done something wrong? What about when bad happens to the righteous? Or children?

Today’s daf points out that sometimes we hold on to pain, it’s precious to us, when we don’t need to suffer. It also reminds us that everyone needs friend to pull us out of sickness, depression, and to cry with over the fact that beauty fades.
A last gem from today’s page isvthat if you pray but then leave your friend alone in prayer – your prayers are worthless. (I think it means that we are hypocrites if we stand around in ritual righteousness but then don’t DO the righteous thing towards others)

Today, I noticed that the rabbis picture King David as bragging to God about how pious he is (he wakes up at midnight to study Torah!), but by the end of the page, King David seems unsure if he will merit the world to come (a.k.a. heaven). How true! How do we act when we are insecure? Often we – brag, compare ourselves to and put down others – when we are just trying to cover up our own doubts and insecurities. And yet, he was also humble enough to seek out the opinions of others who were well below his station, and admits that often they are right, and he is wrong.
May we learn to seek counsel and allow ourselves to be corrected by others. And may we not feel the need to inflate our achievements or put others down in order to feel good about ourselves.

#dafyomi thought for the day. Rabbi Yosei leaves the main road, going into a ruin where no one would see him, in order to pray. Elijah comes to him and asks him why he didn’t pray in the road, and tells him he shouldn’t pray in ruins. Rabbi Yosei says he was scared of being interrupted. There is a lot of metaphor to unpack (I like to think about ruins as a metaphor for prayer spaces and styles that no longer work)- but, in honor of today being #JewishANDproud, a day to fight antisemitism, I want to share thought about Rabbi Yosei’s fear of praying loud and proud in public. Was he just scared of losing his concentration if he got interrupted? Or was he scared of being so visibly Jewish in a public space?
Today, a lot of Jews are feeling fear of displaying their faith in public. So, today a lot of us are changing our profile pictures and wearing kippot. I hope Elijah is proud of us. And I hope that anyone who runs into us, will be allies.