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

What is the difference between people and animals. We used to think it was thought. We were wrong. Then we thought it was language. Again we were wrong. Then, laughter. That was wrong as well. So, what is it? In the Netziv’s commentary to our daf, we get an interesting answer.

Our tractate opened by describing 4 categories of damages: Trampling, Goring, Fire and something called “Maveh.”

And as for Shmuel, what is the reason that he did not say that Maveh refers to Man, as does Rav? . . .Rather, Rava said that according to Shmuel, the tanna teaches Ox specifically with regard to actions that cause damage with its foot and it teaches Maveh with regard to actions that cause damage with its tooth.

So, we see that Shmuel thinks Maveh refers to an ox eating and Rav thinks it refers to man (and not an ox).

Now, the Netziv makes this interesting. He asks, why doesn’t the Mishna use the word adam, man, but instead uses this weird word “maveh”? His hiddish (conclusion) is that this word means “to ask” and it’s referring to calling out in prayer. So, what is a man? What sets humanity apart from animals? That we pray.

Today we pray that the hostages will be released. That the soldiers will return home alive and successful. That there be an end to terror. That the Palestinian people and all who support them rise up against Hamas. That antisemitism ends.

Amen.

Today’s gem: We are always responsible for our actions.

The legal status of a person is always that of one forewarned, and he is liable for any damage that he causes, both when he is awake and when he is asleep.

So, the Talmud holds you as guilty, even if you did the crime in your sleep. But that’s not always the case in the US. According to the southern California defense blog, “The earliest use of the sleepwalking defense dates back to 1846 in the case of Massachusetts v. Tirrell, where Albert Tirrell murdered a prostitute and then set fire to the brothel. At his trial, his lawyer asserted that Tirrell was a chronic sleepwalker and committed the crime while he was asleep. Surprisingly, the jury agreed with his lawyer’s conclusion and acquitted Tirrell of all charges.”

On April 30, 2019, the following announcement was made, “The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is advising that rare but serious injuries have happened with certain common prescription insomnia medicines because of sleep behaviors, including sleepwalking, sleep driving, and engaging in other activities while not fully awake. These complex sleep behaviors have also resulted in deaths. These behaviors appear to be more common with eszopiclone (Lunesta), zaleplon (Sonata), and zolpidem (Ambien, Ambien CR, Edluar, Intermezzo, Zolpimist) than other prescription medicines used for sleep.”

So, people do, in fact, commit crimes in their sleep.

(Which is too bad for many reasons, but one is that I haven’t been able to sleep well for a while and would love to try ambien – but I used to sleep walk as a child so I am convinced I would be one of those people who sleep drive or worse.)

Welcome, not just to a new tractate (Bava Kamma) but to a new order of the Talmud called Nezikin or “Damages.” By the name, you can guess that we will be dealing with civil law and torts in Jewish legal tradition. It covers various scenarios where one person may cause harm or damage to another person’s property. (Don’t let your eyes glaze over quite yet.)

It all kicks off with the following: There are four primary categories of damage: The category of Ox; and the category of Pit; and the category of Maveh, which, based on a discussion in the Gemara refers either to the tooth of an animal that causes damage or to a person who causes damage; and the category of Fire.

So, here we get the 4 primary categories of damages. But the Chassidic rabbis, (thanks to Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld) say that these categories are symbolic of ways that we need to improve ourselves.

The sin of the ox reminds us of the Golden Calf. The sin of the pit reminds us of the sale of Joseph by his brothers. The Maveh is a reference to the sin of Adam who used his teeth to bite into the forbidden fruit. The fire, according to Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz (1690  – 1764) refers to the sin of the spies who spoke badly about the land of Israel.

In our own ways, we all need to fight our tendency towards idolatry; our jealousy of others; our pull towards temptation (and then blaming others for our own faults); and we all need to work both on our tendency to spread rumors as well as our relationship with the land of Israel.

Not bad for a passage about damages.

This is it. The last page of Kiddushin! Mazal tov and Kol haKavod on making it through another tractate.

And it ends with a passage that reminds me of both a joke and a story.

(The joke it a terrible one along the lines of a Priest and a Prostitute are at the gates of heaven and are told only one of you will get let in to heaven. They tell the priest to decide the criteria and he says who ever led more people to cry out to God in prayer should get let in. And so the prostitute gets lead through the pearly gates and takes her spot.)

Abba Guryan of Tzadyan says in the name of Abba Gurya: A person may not teach his son the trades of a donkey driver, a camel driver, a pot maker, a sailor, a shepherd, or a storekeeper. The reason for all these is the same, as their trades are the trades of robbers; all of these professions involve a measure of dishonesty and are likely to lead to robbery. Rabbi Yehuda says in Abba Gurya’s name: Most donkey drivers are wicked, since they engage in deceit, and most camel drivers, who traverse dangerous places such as deserts, are of fit character, as they pray to God to protect them on their journeys. Most sailors are pious, since the great danger of the seas instills in them the fear of Heaven. The best of doctors is to Gehenna, and even the fittest of butchers is a partner of Amalek. Rabbi Nehorai says: I set aside all the trades in the world, and I teach my son only Torah, as a person partakes of its reward in this world and the principal reward remains for him in the World-to-Come, which is not true of other professions, whose rewards are only in this world. Furthermore, if a person comes to be ill, or old, or undergoes suffering, and is unable to be involved in his trade, behold, he dies in hunger. But with regard to the Torah it is not so, since one can study it under all circumstances. Rather, it preserves him from all evil and sin in his youth, and provides him with a future and hope in his old age.

So, the jobs are judged based upon how they help (or hinder) someone from connecting to God through prayer . . .even if motivated by fear.

I told you the bad joke. Here’s the story. OR a short version of it.

Three men were traveling to another country on a boat; a banker, a carpenter, and a scholar. The banker bragged about all the money he had sown into his coat and how he would be able to make a new life. The carpenter was wearing his heavy toolbelt and talked about how he had the best equipment and would make a great living. they both laughed at the scholar who had nothing. Well, a few hundred feet off shore, the boat capsized. The banker had to take off his coat to not drown. Likewise, the carpenter had to unclip his toolbelt that was holding him under the water. The scholar simply swam for the shore. They all made it. The banker cried that he was ruined. The carpenter cried over his lost tools. The scholar was celebrated and invited to come and teach in the study hall and stay with the mayor.

Wow, what a daf. Todays daf explores how hard it is for men to overcome their evil inclination (also called Satan on the daf). We see men losing control over a glimpse of ankle. We see men yelling “fire” to get others to come and stop them before they act on their temptation, men almost drowning to get to forbidden women on the other side of a body of water… and all of them rabbis! But the following story was, for me, the most interesting.

The Gemara relates: Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Ashi was accustomed to say, whenever he would fall on his face in prayer: May the Merciful One save us from the evil inclination. One day his wife heard him saying this prayer. She said: After all, it has been several years since he has withdrawn from engaging in intercourse with me due to his advanced years. What is the reason that he says this prayer, as there is no concern that he will engage in sinful sexual behavior? One day, while he was studying in his garden, she adorned herself and repeatedly walked past him. He said: Who are you? She said: I am Ḥaruta, a well-known prostitute, returning from my day at work. He propositioned her. She said to him: Give me that pomegranate from the top of the tree as payment. He leapt up, went, and brought it to her, and they engaged in intercourse. When he came home, his wife was lighting a fire in the oven. He went and sat inside it. She said to him: What is this? He said to her: Such and such an incident occurred; he told her that he engaged in intercourse with a prostitute. She said to him: It was I. He paid no attention to her, thinking she was merely trying to comfort him, until she gave him signs that it was indeed she. He said to her: I, in any event, intended to transgress.The Gemara relates: All the days of that righteous man he would fast for the transgression he intended to commit, until he died by that death in his misery.

So much in this story! From the pain this woman must have felt by her husband showing no interest in her to the relief/anger she must have felt when he paid to sleep with her (girl, you still got it), to this man’s guilt – there is a lot to unpack. One of the lessons is that even if we don’t actually sun, wanting to can still let guilt eat us up. Another lesson might be to role play in old age… but not 100% sure that’s what the daf is trying to teach 🙂

So, I am sure you too have been watching the news and seeing horrific acts of antisemitism. Groups of anti-Israel protesters physically attacking the lone Jew walking by. If they were alone, it would be called a hate crime. But alone, they might not have attacked someone. They would have just been two people walking past one another on the street. But, since they are part of a group, it’s something else. Hive mind. Group think. Pack mentality. Mob mentality. It has a lot of names. And it’s identified on our daf today when discussing seclusion of men and women. Women are not allowed to be secluded alone with men to whom they are not related (by blood or marriage). So, they should be safe in groups. The daf says that’s not necessarily so.

The mishna teaches: But one woman may be secluded with two men. Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: They taught this halakha only with regard to men of fit morals, but with regard to those steeped in sexual immorality, she may not be secluded even with ten men. There was an incident where ten men carried out a woman on a bier, as though she were dead, and engaged in intercourse with her. Rav Yosef says: Know that this is so, since ten people will join together and steal a heavy beam without being ashamed before one another. Similarly, several men can join together for a licentious act without shame.

There is something about being in a group who is all doing something that makes us think that whatever they are doing is okay. When we are part of a group, we sometimes do things we would never do on our own. And sometimes that’s beautiful – like standing up for justice or singing at the top of our lungs or dancing with abandon . . . and sometimes it’s a crime.

I was recently talking to a woman who had married in South Africa. She was describing how the rabbis there did not care that her husband’s name was Jewish, that he had his Bat Mitzvah certificates or even that he had a copy of this parent’s ketubah – they needed witnesses to swear he was Jewish. Don’t worry, they got married, but only after a whole ordeal. Those rabbinic authorities must have been studying this section of Kiddushin. On our daf we read:

MISHNA: With regard to one who went overseas with his wife, and returned with his wife and children, and said: This is the woman who went overseas with me and these are her children, he is not required to bring proof with regard to the lineage of the woman, since her lineage was already investigated at the time of their marriage, nor with regard to the lineage of the children. If he returned without the woman and said: My wife died and these are her children, he must bring proof that the children were born to his wife, but he does not need to bring proof with regard to the lineage of the woman. If he left when he was unmarried and said upon his return: I married a woman overseas, and this is she, and these are her children, he must bring proof with regard to the lineage of the woman, but he is not required to bring proof with regard to the lineage of the children. If he said: I married a woman overseas and she died, and these are her children, he is required to bring proof with regard to both the lineage of the woman and the children.

Now, we live in a world where it is much easier to get and receive records but it’s still often hard to “prove” Jewish status. I can only imagine how hard this would have been for this world traveler.

A mamzer is a child produced by a forbidden sexual union (like incest or as a result of adultery). A mamzer cannot marry another Jew and so it’s a terrible title to have. That’s why the new Mishnah on our daf is the gem:

MISHNA:One who says: This son of mine is a mamzer, e.g., if he claims that the son was born to one forbidden to him by a prohibition that carries the punishment of karet, he is not deemed credible to render him a mamzer. And even if both of them, the father and the mother, admit that a fetus in her womb is a mamzer, they are not deemed credible.

Being deemed a mamzer is something the rabbis try to avoid. They want everyone to be part of the community. They want to avoid it so much that they won’t even accept testimony from the child’s parents! (They require two witnesses who are not related.) this shows how important community is.

When someone has an affair, there is always the question of if it was only the one time or if it happened more than once. (Then you have to debate which is worse, that they cheated even though they don’t care about the other person or because they care about the other person.)

Today’s daf discusses/debates if a man is lashed once or multiple times for having sex with the same forbidden woman.

The Sages taught: If a High Priest engages in sexual intercourse with a widow, a widow, a widow, he is liable to receive only one set of lashes. Similarly, if a priest engages in intercourse with a divorcée, a divorcée, a divorcée, he is liable to receive only one set of lashes. If a High Priest engages in sexual intercourse with a woman who was a widow, and then was a divorcée, and then was a ḥalala, and then was a zona, when the changes to her status occurred in that order, that she was first widowed, then remarried and was divorced, and subsequently engaged in intercourse with a priest, thereby becoming a ḥalala, and then she engaged in intercourse with a gentile or a forbidden relative, thereby becoming a zona, the High Priest is liable to receive lashes for each and every one of these transgressions each time he engages in intercourse with her.

Here we see a forbidden love affair. They are forbidden to be together but keep coming back together. They rabbis imagine a woman who is widowed three times and each time has sex with this priest who she is forbidden to be with (again, great fodder for a movie); likewise a divorcee; and then a woman who’s status keeps changing – yet his desire for her doesn’t seem to fade!

What do we learn? Some people are drawn to one another. If they lived in a different society, maybe they would have been allowed to marry and wouldn’t have to continue to seek each other out in the shadows. And, we also learn how much drama can be on a page of Talmud.

The daf has been discussing who can marry who. Today, it goes into the need to check lineage before marrying. But then we get a lot of exceptions (you don’t need to check past an ancestor who served in the Temple or on the Sanhedrin, or whose ancestors held public post). And the gem is this exception:

The mishna teaches that Rabbi Ḥanina ben Antigonus says: Even the descendants of one who was written in the army list of the Jewish king does not have their lineage investigated.

I will paste below all the arguments made to say that not everyone in the army was born from “unflawed” lineage – but the point, I think, is more beautiful. What more proof is there that you are committed to the Jewish people than risking your life to defend us? And, of course, I think of our brothers and sisters in the IDF defending our people right now, risking their lives so that we can have a place to call home. May God protect them. May they return home successful and whole.

(If you want to see the arguments made they’re below)

Rav Yehuda says that Shmuel says: The reference is to one who was written in the list of the military troops of the House of David, who were all of pure lineage. Rav Yosef said: What is the verse from which it is derived? The phrase is: “Reckoned by lineage for service in war” (I Chronicles 7:40). The Gemara asks: And what is the reason for this requirement that they be of unflawed lineage? Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: It is in order that their merit and the merit of their ancestors will help them in battle. The Gemara asks: But isn’t there Zelek the Ammonite, one of David’s warriors (II Samuel 23:37); what, is it not indicated that he was a convert who came from Ammon? The Gemara rejects this: No, his name indicates only that he dwelled in Ammon, but he was born a Jew. The Gemara asks: But isn’t there Uriah the Hittite (II Samuel 23:39); what, is it not indicated that he came from Heth? The Gemara rejects this: No, his name indicates only that he dwelled in Heth. The Gemara further asks: But isn’t there Ittai the Gittite (II Samuel 15:19)? And if you would say that so too his name indicates that he dwelled in Gath but was born a Jew, but doesn’t Rav Naḥman say, to explain how David could make use of the crown of the idol of Ammon in apparent violation of the prohibition against deriving benefit from idolatry: Ittai the Gittite came and nullified its status of an idol. The halakha is that only a gentile can nullify an idol, by doing something degrading to it. This indicates that Ittai the Gittite must have been a gentile. The Gemara again questions the statement that all of the soldiers in David’s army were of unflawed lineage. And further, Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: David had four hundred youths in his camp, all sons of beautiful women, i.e., born to women captured in war, who were therefore gentiles, all of whom had their hair cut in the komei style or who grew their hair in a gentile hairstyle [belorit] on the back of their heads, and all of them sat in gold carts [bikroniyyot] and would march at the head of troops in David’s army; and these very ones were the strong men of the House of David, i.e., David would rely on their strength. This states that David’s army included men of flawed lineage. The Gemara answers: These four hundred youths did not fight in the battles, but rather they would go forth in front of the troops in order to frighten everyone.