Off the Daf and Into Israel

A Tale of Two Marys   Hagigah 4b   At the end of this daf we have a rather unusual, if not bizarre, story told by the angel of death to Rav Bibi bar Abbaye. In it he explains that he has confused two women named Miriam, taking one when he should have taken the other. The plot of the story may remind old movie afficianados of the great film Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty. Who knew the guys in Hollywood learned Daf Yomi? Wikipedia I will not attempt to explain this story but what caught my eye were the names of the two women, both of whom have the word מגדלא  in their surname. One is מרים מגדלא שיער נשיא , Miriam the women’s hairdresser, and the other is מרים מגדלא דרדקי , Miriam the nanny (literally, growing women’s hair and growing children, respectively).  These professions and the name Miriam are rather common, what is interesting is מגדלא   which could also mean from Migdal. The most famous Miriam from Migdal is the figure from the N...

Ascending to Jerusalem Hagigah 2     הכל חייבין בראייה חוץ מ . . . Our masechet begins with the axiom that everyone is obligated to come to Jerusalem for the three major festivals, Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. After that follows a long list of those exempt from this obligation: women, small children, slaves, deaf people, etc. It seems that except for those explicitly listed as exempt, everyone else must show up in Jerusalem at the Temple three times a year.   Aliyah laregel was a huge phenomenon in Second Temple times. It was an opportunity for the Jewish people to gather together from all parts of Israel and the Diaspora, to study Torah, take part in political events, express their pleasure (or displeasure) with the leadership and of course have a heightened spiritual experience. The mass pilgrimage was also enormously important for Jerusalem ’s and the Temple ’s economy, with money flowing in from all directions. I hope to explore some of these aspects of...

Go to bed! Moed Katan 27   After too long an absence, I plan to post again about the realia in daf yomi. So here’s a short post at the end of Moed Katan that really is an introduction to an amazing new book. Dr. Keren Kirshenbaum recently published a book called ריהוט הבית במשנה  (Bar Ilan University Press). It is an exhaustively scholarly attempt to understand what furniture looked like in the time of the Mishnah. Her sources are Rabbinic literature (mainly from Eretz Yisrael since Babylonia had a different material culture), classical authors and of course, archaeology, which has immeasurably enriched our knowledge of this subject through discoveries in the last fifty years. She looks primarily at four pieces of furniture: chairs, tables, beds and storage items. It is not light reading but if understanding the way of life of the Tannaim and Amoraim is important to you, get this book! http://www.biupress.co.il/website/index.asp?id=927 And now to our daf...

Seeing is believing Sukkah 51 In its list of superlatives (the greatest party, greatest building, etc) our Gemara includes the Great Synagogue in Alexandria: “if you have not seen the diploston of Alexandria in Egypt, you have not seen the honor/glory of Israel.” We then have a fabulous, hyperbolic description of a synagogue that could hold over one million inhabitants and that had to use flags in order to signal to the crowds when to say amen. My favorite detail in the story is how the people sat according to their professions, so that when a poor stranger arrived, he would go directly to his profession’s section and get help and job tips. What was the community of Alexandria that it had such an amazing edifice? Alexandria was one of the major cities of the ancient world and today it is still the second largest city in Egypt. Situated on the Meditteranean: Map: Esoteric Quest website it was ideally located for trade. One of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, ...

A Queenly Sukkah Sukkah 2 Hello Masechet Sukkah! There are many fascinating connections to Eretz Yisrael in this masechet, we will start with the unusual personality whose sukkah is featured here at the beginning: Queen Helene הלני המלכה . Her sukkah was over twenty amot high (more than ten meters, quite a structure) and yet the rabbis visited her in it and seemingly allowed her and her sons to use it. Who is Queen Helene? She appears in a number of places in the Gemara and Josephus, as a wealthy, generous and religious woman. She donates a chandelier to the Bet HaMikdash (Yoma 37) feeds the poor during a year of famine (Josephus) and even becomes a Nazirite for seven years to fulfill a vow she made when her son went to war (Nazir 19b). Josephus also mentions her palace in the City of David and her massive tomb north of the city, which is known today as the Tombs of the Kings. (a 19 th century picture of the tomb, courtesy of Wikipedia) The most fascinating fact ...