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

Today’s gem is that, not everything in Talmud is law, some of it is just good advice.

הָתָם עֵצָה טוֹבָה קָא מַשְׁמַע לַן

There the verse teaches us good advice, but it is not a halakhic requirement.

I would translate this line more as, “Here is good advice. Learn from it.”

There are so many gems in life that are not laws and we don’t have to follow them – but they’re good advice and ignoring it can be to our own detriment.

Picture this: You’re beautiful spouse gives you a gift – a big box, or a jewelry box, or a car, or house – and as you gleefully take the item, you soon realize what’s in the box/car/house is . . . a get! That’s right, you just got divorced! Sound messed up to you? Well, welcome to the daf where your divorce can come in all guises.

And Rava also says: If he wrote her a bill of divorce and placed it in his courtyard, and he wrote a deed of gift with regard to the courtyard, then she has acquired the courtyard and is divorced immediately by the bill of divorce in the courtyard.

Hey honey thank you SO much for this beautiful courtyard, you must really lo – wait a minute, is that, is that a divorce document!?

The rabbis don’t get into how messed up this scenario is – they just debate the finer points of the law. But I love this. It’s so incredibly messed up. It’s shocking, terrible, hilarious, and just a reminder that this book of law could be made into the most ridiculous soap opera.

Yesterday, the daf ended with a very strange situation. While trying to see just how absurd an item could be while still being considered a kosher get (divorce document) we are told that: There was a certain man who entered the synagogue, took a Torah scroll, and gave it to his wife. And he said to her: This is your bill of divorce.

That would be a very expensive get! But seriously – who is going to do that? What do the rabbis focus on? Well, they ask – was the intention of the scribe for the Torah to serve as her divorce document? Intention is always important – as our gem highlights with a funny kind of scenario. . .

As it is taught in a baraita: If a scribe writing a Torah scroll was at a point in the text that he needed to write the name of God, spelled yod, heh, vav, heh; and he erred and intended to write Yehuda, spelled yod, heh, vav, dalet, heh, but he made a mistake when writing Yehuda and did not place a dalet in the word, thereby unintentionally writing the name of God in the correct place, then he should pass over it with a reed pen. He writes over what was written and sanctifies it with the intention that he is writing the name of God. This is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda. And the Rabbis say: Even if he adds a second layer of ink, the name has not been written in the optimal manner. According to Rabbi Yehuda, one can supply the intention of writing the name of God for its own sake even when adding a second layer of writing over the first, while according to the Rabbis one cannot.

Okay, so I am writing a Torah scroll and mean to write “Yehudah” and mess up omitting the daled – but wait! It was supposed to say God’s name anyway! Is the scroll kosher? Rabbi Yehudah says yes, as long as he goes over the text again with the proper intention. The rabbis disagree and don’t like the way it looks when someone goes over text twice.

Notice who is asking by the way – Rabbi Yehudah. Is he confusing his name with the name of God? What kind of Freudian mistake is this? Has anyone else ever made this mistake before? Anyone not named Yehudah? And what’s up with making a bill of divorce equivalent to a Torah? Didn’t we just say you can write a bill of divorce on an olive leaf? On a cow? Why so picky all the sudden?

The same dispute would presumably apply in the case of a bill of divorce. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: Perhaps that is not so, and the Rabbis say only there, in the case of a Torah scroll, that one may not write the name of God in this manner, because it is required that one perform anything sacred, including the writing of a Torah scroll, in accordance with the verse: “This is my God, and I will glorify Him” (Exodus 15:2). This verse requires that mitzvot be performed in a way that is glorious and aesthetically pleasing, and rewriting in this manner is not considered beautiful. But here, with regard to a bill of divorce, there is no requirement that the bill of divorce be written beautifully, and therefore writing over the bill of divorce is acceptable according to the Rabbis as well.

So, for a Torah scroll, things need to be beautiful, but for a divorce document we can be lenient … just don’t give her an entire Torah please.

Today’s daf has some amusing scenarios – a man divorcing his wife by writing is on a leaf, on a cow (that gets some pushback), with different kinds of ink. It has a husband throw a mezuzah and say it’s a get (divorce document). But this was my favorite, because it reminded me of a favorite movie of mine as a child – Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Shmuel says: If a man gave his wife a blank piece of paper and said to her: This is hereby your bill of divorce, then she is divorced. Why? We are concerned that perhaps he wrote it with gall water, rendering it a valid bill of divorce, and the writing was subsequently absorbed into the paper so that it was no longer visible. . . The Gemara answers: When Shmuel said that the woman was divorced with a blank piece of paper, it was in a case where we check the paper with a colored liquid [maya denara].

You may remember the scene as well:

The real gem is just how far the rabbis will go to prevent women from being agunot (chained women) and being stuck in relationships.

I am posting late as I had a bar mitzvah and then a wedding! So I am reading and writing well after havdallah. Why am I telling you this? Because the daf is concerned about taking too long to write and witness a legal document and the sun setting and it technically being a different day! Also, because I just had two witnesses sign the ketubah. Originally, this couple wanted their adult children to sign the ketubah (from previous marriages to other people). But they are not “kosher” witnesses, so they used Jewish friends. But if they did have two kosher witneses, what would it hurt to have some extras? That’s a question our daf may answer:

It was stated that Rabbi Yoḥanan and Reish Lakish disagreed with regard to the following case: If the husband says to ten men: Write a bill of divorce for my wife, Rabbi Yoḥanan says: He means that all of them should sign the bill of divorce. Two of them function as witnesses, and all the rest of them sign the bill of divorce only due to the stipulation that the husband had stated. He made the bill of divorce dependent upon all of them signing, but he did not mean that ten men need to actually function as witnesses. And Reish Lakish says: All of them function as witnesses.

So, according to the understanding of Rabbi Yohanan – two are valid witnesses and everyone else is just bonus. Whereas Reish Lakish is reading it that, since he asked them all, each of their signatures count and therefore they all need to be kosher witnesses!

So, who is right? Let’s turn to a rabbi smarter than me at sussing this stuff our, Maimonides in his code of law:

Mishneh Torah, Divorce 9:27

[If a man] tells ten people: “Write a get, sign it and give it to my wife,” one of them should write it, two should sign it, and one should give it to her. It is acceptable even if one person writes it, he serves as one of the two witnesses who signs it, and he serves as the agent who gives it to her.
If [the husband] tells them: “All of you sign it,” they must all sign it. If the husband counted the people – whether he counted all of them or merely some of them – and told them to sign it, it is considered as if he told all of them to sign it. The two who sign it at the outset act as witnesses, while the others [should sign it to complete] the stipulation [the husband] made.
Accordingly, if the remaining witnesses were unacceptable, or one signed it on the day the get was written and the others on subsequent days – even several days after [the get was written], the get is acceptable.

So, maybe you can add some extra signature lines on the ketubah . . . as long as the first tow witnesses to sign are kosher.

Today’s gem is a glimpse into the world of the rabbis at the time, them and their surrounding culture:

The Gemara relates: Rabba bar bar Ḥana was weak, and Rav Yehuda and Rabba entered to visit him and to inquire about his well-being. While they were there, they raised a dilemma before him: With regard to two people who brought a bill of divorce from a country overseas, are they required to say: It was written in our presence and it was signed in our presence, or are they not required to issue this declaration?

First pause for a real gem – notice they are doing the mitzvah of visiting the sick. do they go and ask him about his illness and what medications he is taking? It doesn’t look that way, it looks like they are engaging him in intellectual study and asking for his wisdom. I love this. As a cancer survivor, I know I didn’t always want to talk about my illness or meds, I wanted to remember that I was more than a patient. Kol haKavod (all the respect) to Rabbi and Rav Yehuda for reminding Rabba bar bar Hana that he is still brilliant and still has wisdom to share.

Back to the story.

He said to them: They are not required to say it, for the following reason: What if they said: She was divorced in our presence, wouldn’t they be deemed credible? Therefore, they do not have to state the declaration. In the meantime, while they were sitting there, in came a certain Persian priest [ḥabbara] and took the lamp [sheragga] from before them. It was a Persian holiday on which the Persians prohibited the public from maintaining light outside their temple.

Second pause for another gem. I love this. Why? Well, we are learning about the culture that the rabbis were living in at the time. Did you know before reading this page that the Persians had a holiday where they carried lamps and everyone else was prohibited from displaying lamps? Me neither! By the way, Persia is modern day Iran. A little googling and I learned that “Iran, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tajikestan, and Turkey celebrate this ancient festival, dating back to at least 1700 BCE. Iranians celebrate an old tradition known as “Chahar Shanbeh Suri.”The celebration of Chahar Shanbeh Suri usually begins in the evening, with people creating bonfires in the streets and leaping over them. Some believe that jumping over bonfires is a way to eliminate negative energy, sickness, and problems and to receive fulfillment, warmth, and energy in return. (https://surfiran.com/chaharshanbe-suri/)” Is this what the daf is referring to? I don’t know, but now I know of a whole holiday because the rabbis mentioned it on the daf!

Today’s daf begins with a conversation that began on yesterday’s daf. Ilfa raised a dilemma: With regard to ritual washing, can one’s hands be ritually pure in halves, or can they not be ritually pure in halves? . . .But rather, Ilfa’s dilemma refers to a case where he washes his hand in two halves, i.e., he first washes one half of his hand and next washes the second half of that same hand. The Gemara asks: But didn’t the Sages from the school of Rabbi Yannai say: Hands cannot be rendered ritually pure in halves?

Today’s daf continues to grapple with the idea that, if the first half of the hand is still moist when you go to clean the second half, maybe that counts as fully clean – but the answer is unresolved. So, why is it my gem?

We need to know, who is this Ilfa? Why would he ask such a question?

Turns out Ilfa may be asking a question in a question. So, let’s find out in Taanit 21:

Ilfa and Rabbi Yoḥanan studied Torah together, and as a result they became very hard-pressed for money. They said: Let us get up and go and engage in commerce, and we will fulfill, with regard to ourselves, the verse: “Although there should be no needy among you” (Deuteronomy 15:4), as we will no longer be complete paupers. They went and sat under a dilapidated wall and were eating bread, when two ministering angels arrived¹.Rabbi Yoḥanan heard that one angel said to the other: Let us knock this wall down upon them and kill them, as they abandon eternal life of Torah study and engage in temporal life for their own sustenance. The other angel said to him: Leave them, as there is one of them whose time of achievement stands before him, i.e., his time has yet to come. Rabbi Yoḥanan heard all this, but Ilfa did not hear the angels’ conversation. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to Ilfa: Did the Master hear anything? Ilfa said to him: No. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to himself: Since I heard the angels and Ilfa did not hear, I can learn from this that it is I whose time of achievement stands before me. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to Ilfa: I will return home and fulfill with regard to myself the contrary verse: “For the poor shall never cease out of the land” (Deuteronomy 15:11). Rabbi Yoḥanan returned to the study hall, and Ilfa did not return, but went to engage in business instead.

So, Ilfa is a man who engages both in Torah study AND business. Why? Doing only one was leaving him a pauper. Is it possible then that he is asking, not, do I have to wash my whole hand at once, but a question about only spending half his time in pursuit of Torah? Maybe. However, the end of the story doesn’t look good for him.

By the time that Ilfa came back from his business travels, Rabbi Yoḥanan had been appointed head of the academy, and his financial situation had improved². His colleagues said to Ilfa: If the Master had sat and studied, instead of going off to his business ventures, wouldn’t the Master have been appointed head of the academy?

What happens next? You’ll have to wait until we get to Taanit.

One of the biggest gifts we can leave behind when we die is specific instructions for what we want to happen. It prevents family from not knowing if they should take extraordinary measures to keep a loved one alive, and lets them know that they are not making the decisions, they are simply fulfilling the wishes of the deceased. It’s this way too with our wills. It’s helpful to know exactly what a person wants and then there is less fighting amongst the living after they depart.

But, sometimes, people make statements right before they die that are in contradiction to what they’ve said previously. And, it’s been known to happen, that sometimes people try and take advantage of those who are eminently passing. So, what do we do when someone says they want to give an item to so-and-so on their deathbed? That’s the topic of our daf. Here, they are talking about if a person who is about to die says “give X to so-and-so” and then dies before X is given. Who gets X? So-and-so? X’s heirs?

The Gemara states: The first tanna holds in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Elazar, who holds that there must be an actual act of acquisition or the money still belongs to the giver. So, it would belong to the heirs. And Rabbi Natan and Rabbi Ya’akov also hold in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Elazar. However, they add that even though the giver died one does not say: It is a mitzva to fulfill the statement of the dead. And the Sages in the clause beginning: Some say, hold in accordance with the opinion of the Rabbis, who say that the statement of a person on his deathbed effects acquisition through mere speech. so it would belong to so-and-so. And Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, who said his opinion in the name of Rabbi Meir, holds in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Elazar. However, he maintains that where the giver died we say: It is a mitzva to fulfill the statement of the dead. And the Rabbis say: They should divide it, because they are uncertain about the halakha in this situation.

So, Elazar says give it to the heirs. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi seems to say it belongs to so-and-so. What’s the ruling? The rabbis say – split it.

What do we learn? Just how important it is to make our wishes clear and make sure our wills and medical proxies are up to date. And how, once we are dead, we have no control of what happens anymore.

So today’s daf gives us a scene out of a mobster movie. It all begins with a ruling:

“The borrower is a slave to the lender,” i.e., the merchants who borrowed from someone must bear responsibility to ensure that the money will reach the person they borrowed from.

Now, I am sure you can think of lots of situations where people borrow and then aren’t able to pay back, but our daf paints a bit of a strange picture of two middle men (or should I say middle rabbis) who get put in a strange situation. . .

The Gemara further relates: Rabbi Aḥai, son of Rabbi Yoshiya, had a silver vessel [ispeka] in the city of Neharde’a. Rabbi Aḥai said to Rabbi Dostai bar Rabbi Yannai and to Rabbi Yosei bar Keifar: When you come from Neharde’a bring the vessel to me. They went to Neharde’a and the people who were in possession of the vessel gave it to them. After handing over the vessel, those people said to them: Let us perform an act of acquisition with you, so that you will be responsible for the vessel until you reach Rabbi Aḥai. The agents said to them: No; we do not want to do this. They said to them: If so, return the vessel to us, as we do not wish to transfer it in such a manner that we retain responsibility. Rabbi Dostai, son of Rabbi Yannai, said to them: Yes, I am willing to return it. However, Rabbi Yosei bar Keifar said to them: No, as you do not have the right to retract in this situation. They tormented Rabbi Yosei bar Keifar to force him to agree to return the vessel. Rabbi Yosei bar Keifar said to Rabbi Dostai: See, my Master, what they are doing to me. Rabbi Dostai said to them: You are acting well; hit him.

What! Why is Rabbi Dostai telling these guys to hit Rabbi Yosei bar Keifar. Well, he tells us why next:

When these two agents came before Rabbi Aḥai, Rabbi Yosei bar Keifar said to him: See, my Master, not only did Rabbi Dostai not support me; rather, he even said to them: You are acting well; hit him. Rabbi Aḥai said to Rabbi Dostai: Why did you do this? Rabbi Dostai said to him: Those people who were in possession of the vessel, they are the size of a cubit, and their hats were a cubit, and they spoke from their midpoints, and their names were frightening: Arda and Arta and Pili Bereish. If one were to say to them: Restrain this person, they would restrain him. If one were to say to them: Kill him, they would kill. Had they killed Dostai, i.e., me, who would give Yannai, my father, another son like me? Rabbi Aḥai said to him: Are these people close to the government? Rabbi Dostai said to him: Yes. Rabbi Aḥai asked him: Do they have horses and mules that run after them, i.e., do they have servants to perform their bidding? Rabbi Dostai said to them: Yes. Rabbi Aḥai said to him: If so, you acted well, as the situation was entirely out of your control.

So, these guys were scary looking thugs who could have killed them, or at least that’s the picture Rabbi Dostai painted. Was Rabbi Yosei bar Keifar to much of a square to understand that he was putting them in danger? Was his big rabbinic brian blocking his street smarts? I am not sure, but it’s certainly an entertaining story.

Today’s gem is definitely not a gem, but I wanted to share it because one should know that such things are in the Talmud, yes, the Talmud that dusty pile of book soften thought to be boring.

Yesterday, we heard rabbis argue that emancipation was bad for a slave that would have to give up terumah. Today, we hear it may be bad for them . . . sexually.

Rabbi Shmuel bar Rav Yitzḥak says: Emancipation is even to the detriment of a slave of an Israelite, because by freeing him his master causes him to lose the option of engaging in sexual intercourse with a Canaanite maidservant. Until this point it was permitted for him to engage in sexual intercourse with a Canaanite maidservant, but once he is emancipated these women are forbidden to him.

Oy. So, he wants to stay a slave so he can have sex with other slaves? Don’t worry, the Gemara doesn’t get it either.

The Gemara raises a difficulty: On the contrary, by emancipating him the master renders it permitted for him to engage in sexual intercourse with a free woman.

So, one door closes and another door opens?

The Gemara answers: In the case of a slave, a life of licentiousness is preferable for him. Therefore, he would rather have the right to engage in sexual intercourse with a Canaanite maidservant, as she is lowly to him, she is available for him, she is unrestricted for him. None of these descriptions apply to a Jewish woman, and therefore he loses out on the benefit he could have received from being permitted to engage in sexual intercourse with a Canaanite maidservant. Consequently, Rabbi Meir maintains that his emancipation is to his detriment.

Gem? I think not. Boring? Far from it.