Off the Daf and Into Israel

Leave my Messiah alone! Shabbat 119 Today’s post is not about ancient times and the Tannaim and Amoraim but about the evolution of a Biblical verse, via the Gemara, to contemporary politics. In Divrei Hayamim 1 16 King David recites a song of praise when he brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem . One of his lines is about God protecting His people: אל תגעו במשיחי ובנביאי אל תרעו , do not harm My anointed ones and My prophets. The Gemara in Shabbat uses this verse, along with many others, to explain why Jerusalem was destroyed. One of the reasons is that there was no respect given for scholars. Rabbi Judah in the name of Rav explains our verse to mean  that משיחי: אלו תינוקות של בית רבן ; My anointed ones are the children who sit and study. Rashi explains that this is because it was customary to rub children with oil. Fast forward to the twenty first century. Any time there is a protest in the Haredi world, particularly one involving education, chances are

Jews and Book Burning Shabbat 116 This daf has an interesting example of early Jewish-Christian polemics. The discussion of whether to save the books of the heretics ספרי מינין from a fire on Shabbat brings some very fiery statements itself. Rabbi Tarfon vows to burn all such books, Rabbi Yishmael advocates burning even God’s name in these books and Rabban Gamliel and his clever sister Ima Shalom, have a teasing debate with a “philosopher,” clearly a Jewish Christian as well. How do we know that these heretical books are Christian ones? The Gemara was censored at a certain point and derogatory references to Christianity  were expunged but the manuscripts show us what was really said (and today the Steinsaltz Gemara publishes the censored version so check it out there). At the end of amud alef, we have an interesting note: Rabbi Meir would call them “Aven Gilyon” and Rabbi Yochanan would call them “Avon Gilyon.”  What are these mysterious evil or sinning gilyonot? The Tannaim a

Masechet Shabbat, Daf 114 In modern terms, clothes make the man, or so we're told. Let's take a walk back through time, on our daf today, to remind ourselves what the people of the First Temple period wore, or didn't wear. We are told that people certainly cared how they looked back in those days, adhering to strict fashion standards. They had, we are told on amud aleph , one outfit to wear while stirring a pot of stew, another for pouring wine for their teacher. A mindset, if you will, for proper behavior, as dictated by appropriate clothing. And what did the prophet Yishayahu, or Isaiah, wear while walking the streets of Jerusalem, in the seventh century BCE -- Why would he, as we are told in chapter 20 verse 3, walk 'naked and barefoot' for three years, risking mockery and worse? Why this emphasis on outer appearance, here in Masechet Shabbat ? A person, especially a prophet, was considered 'out of their mind' if they walked around barefoot.

What do ancient Gamla's archaeological finds help teach us about Mishnaic prose? Take a closer look at this hill, site of the ancient battle of the Israelites in the Great Revolt against the Romans, circa. 67 CE. Masechet Shabbat includes many mentions of Eruv issues, that is the public, private and other spaces we live in, and their direct influence on whether or not we can carry, throw or otherwise move an object through that space. Interestingly, the Mishnaic town included spaces that to the modern man must be explained, as we are less familiar with a 'carmelit' than they were.  In fact, our sages did not always know how to relate to the described spaces, or solutions. On Daf קי"ז and many others throughout the Masechet and in Euruvin as well, some concepts remained a mystery, seldom explicitly understood. Take the small but powerful Lechi , for example. Yes, we know it's at least ten tefachim (approx 80 cm) tall and helps turn a 'mavoi' in

Crawling Around with Ben Dorsai Shabbat 20a In the context of a mishnah about putting cooked food on the fire before Shabbat, the Gemara defines cooked as a מאכל בן דורסאי , something that ben Dorsai would eat. Rashi explains that ben Dorsai was a thief and was in the habit of eating his food only one third cooked, presumably so that he could make a quick getaway. Who was this mysterious ben Dorsai? In the low hills near Bet Guvrin is a beautiful site called Hirbet Midras. It was a Jewish town in Second Temple times, through the Bar Kokhba revolt. Not much is left of the houses of the town but there a lot underground. Midras has prime examples of what we call Bar Kokhba caves, hideouts where the Jewish rebels and their supporters would hole up in preparation for a Roman attack:   Today the caves are used for lighter pursuits than fighting Romans:   Midras’ name comes from the Arabic name Hirbet Drusia. Various associations have been made with this place. Zeev