The learning of youth - Shabbat 21b

Abaye, upon learning a teaching about shabbat and chanukah wicks, responds by wishing he had learnt it before hand.

But what's the difference? asks the gemara, hasn't he learnt it now?

The answer given is that the difference is about the learning of one's youth. Abaye wishes he could have learned this teaching when he was still young, so that, as Rashi explains, it would stick in his mind better.

The power of youth
Not only does our learning when young have the potential to stick with us for the rest of our lives, but it also has the power to alter the way we think for the rest of our lives.

I am eternally grateful to my parents that I was raised in a home dominated by Judaism and yiddishkeit, where Torah was spoken around the dinner table, the language of midrash and kabbalah part of every day life - it has made my rabbinical journey far easier.

Yet there are things I wish I had learnt when I was younger - for example more Hebrew and hilchot shabbat - that would now be enmeshed with who I am.

Living with our past
But there's nothing any of us can do to change what we learned when we were young. Short of the invention of time travel, I cannot make it the case that I learned to speak Hebrew fluently at a young age.

All we can do is plan for our future - try to teach our children, and the children under our care, the things we believe they need to learn when young, the ideas that can change the way they think, and help them grow into thoughtful, compassionate human beings and Jews.

(Now just) Change Clothes and go - Shabbat 10a

    Rav Ashi said: I saw Rav Kahana, when there was trouble in the world, remove his cloak, clasp his hands, and pray, saying, ‘[I pray] like a slave before his master.’
    When there was peace, he would put it on, cover and enfold himself and pray, quoting, ‘Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.’ (Amos 4:12)

Rav Kahana would dress differently, act differently, and pray differently, depending on how he saw the world.

I worry that my prayer is too much the same - dressing the same, in the same posture, saying the same words - unaffected and removed from the world as we see and experience it.

How does our prayer respond to the world? And how much should it exist as a comfortable sanctuary unto itself?

Secret Teachings - Shabbat 6b

"Rav said, I found a secret scroll of the school of Rabbi Hiyya wherein it is written, Issi ben Yehuda said: There are thirty-nine principal labours, but one is liable only for one."

While catching up with Daf Yomi today (the chagim threw off my schedule), I came across this fascinating line, in which Rav claims to have found a secret teaching of Rabbi Hiyya which seems to contradict some of our basic assumptions about shabbat, namely that breaking the melachot, the 39 labours, makes us liable for punishment. This secret scroll says that this is not the case, though it also does not tell us which we are liable for.

The Talmud interprets this differently, namely that one of the melachot does not make us liable, but if we read this teaching as stated, why did Rabbi Hiyya keep it secret? Did he think it too dangerous or too heretical to reveal? And why does Rav feel free and able to reveal that which Rabbi Hiyya sought to conceal?

Keeping Secrets
All of which makes me wonder whether there are ideas and teachings that we hold, that as future leaders we could or perhaps even should keep secret from our communities. Are there teachings which would do too much damage to reveal? Or is everything Torah, and our communities sophisticated enough to handle the most academic or esoteric of topics?

For example, if I work in a devout community, that keeps halacha because they believe Moses literally received the whole Torah from God, should I teach them otherwise or keep my sense of history and criticism a secret?

Reveal Secrets
Moreover, if I uncover a secret, an opinion that one of my teachers did not reveal, do I have the right to share that with the world, regardless of how it may change how that teacher is seen?

The border between public and private grows ever more blurry, as ideas are written, shared and recorded faster and more often than ever before. But I suspect that we as community leaders need to consider what we are sharing, and what we should be keeping secret.

Visiting the Sick - Shabbat 12

Shabbat 12 includes a long discussion about practices for visiting the sick and praying for the sick: where to sit when you visit (on the bed? next to the bed?), what to say to the sick, what to do if you are visiting on Shabbat, IF you can EVEN visit on Shabbat, etc. While some authorities offer logically valid reasons why visiting the sick on Shabbat should be forbidden (for the sake of inducing sorrow on Shabbat and lessening the joy), still Beit Hillel (the dominant opinion) permits it, and the amoraim later offer ways to get around the issue even if it is forbidden. For example, they suggest saying שבת היא מלזעוק, or "even though we don't petition for things on Shabbat....still I'm here to visit and pray on this person's behalf." Quite a loophole, or even a total disregard for the law. It reminds me of another time that we offer such a loophole: if a funeral is to be carried out on Chol Hamoed, or Chanukkah, or another festive time, it is forbidden to offer a eulogy. But how could we do that to the people who have a therapeutic need to eulogize their loved ones? So, many rabbis say "if I WERE to give a eulogy, I might have said...."

This also reminds me of a previous daf in Shabbat where we learned that some rabbinic prohibitions on Shabbat can be exercised more leniently for the sake of "wisdom" or "common sense," or in this case, regard for human dignity. Forget Shabbat, it says, go visit your sick friends and family.

Some election wisdom- Shabbat 10a

If all seas were ink, reeds pens, the heavens parchment, and all men writers they would not suffice to write down the intricacies of government.

It's common sense, not הלכה

The Gemara brings up as an example someone who places a loaf of bread in the oven not realizing until after that it's Shabbat. The catch 22 is that if he leaves it in, he is baking on Shabbat, and if he takes it out, he is violating the איסור דרבנן of removing bread from the oven on Shabbat. Rashi comments the following:

הדביק פת בתנור - בשבת בשוגג ונזכר שהוא שבת קודם שתאפה וקיימא לן דרדיית הפת שבות היא שהיא חכמה ואינה מלאכה.

These last four words, I believe, are simply describing that removing the bread is a rabbinic prohibition, not an אב מלאכה, but it's confusing to me that the word חכמה is used. It seems like it could read "taking the bread out is wisdom/common sense, not work."

Could this twist in language here possibly offer us a new perspective on halakhah and Shabbat observance? Put differently, what role does חכמה play in the determination of איסורי שבת and איסורים at large?

Good advice - brakhot 63a

If you suspect your wife of cheating on you, don't drink. I think there's a very practical reason for this.

עת לעשות להי, הפירו תורתך

I love this assessment here, and its extension. This verse read forward tells us one thing, and read backwards (I.e second first) tells us the opposite. So, we learn from this that we should socially flexible, always filling the role that is unfilled the group. If we are in a place where people study lots of Torah, we should tone it down a bit. My question: how does this jive with the teaching from Avot, אל תפרוש מן הציבור?