The tabernacle - Kabbalistic thoughts Shabbat 98b-99a

The school of Rabbi Ishmael taught: What was the Mishkan like? Like a woman who goes into the street and her skirts trail after her.

Our rabbis taught: The boards were cut and the sockets grooved, and the loops in the clasps seemed like stars in the sky.

Having ploughed my way through six weeks of daf yomi over two weeks, I finally caught up today with rather complex legal and architectural debate.

Nevertheless, the last few lines caught my eye as the mishkan/tabernacle is described in very feminine terms, and ideas that remind me of Malchut, the lowest feminine aspect of God in the sefirotic system.

These lines I quoted seem to hint that the mishkan spreads its influence beyond its borders, that for a temple or a synagogue to fulfill its purpose, it must reach beyond itself. The mishkan represents malchut, but within, or beyond, malchut, lies yesod - also called petach einayim, the opening of the eyes. This is the stage where we can glimpse the rest of the system, realise that we are standing at the doorway to the infinite.

If our institutions are to be truly holy, her skirts must extend into the wider world and the heavens must be glimpsed within.

Half a Theodicy - Shabbat 97a

"Rava - others state, R. Yosi b. R. Hanina-said: The dispensation of good comes more quickly than that of punishment [evil]." Shabbat 97a

Today's daf argues passionately that good comes quickly while evil's progress towards reality is slow and encumbered. The language used contrasts middah tova  and middah puranut - literally, a 'measure of goodness' and a 'measure of punishment.' To me it seems that this one line amidst discussions of public and private domains consists of a significant contribution to talmudic theodicy - that what good we've warranted we see sooner than the punishment we've warranted. Perhaps the rabbis hoped that this would answer the question of why wicked people appear not to be punished, and in a way it does. However, it leaves wide open the converse question - if the good dispensation comes quickly, why do the righteous suffer?

Shabbat 83b - Studying torah? It's to die for.

Resh Lakish said 'words of Torah only endure in someone who kills himself over them, as it says "This is the Torah, when a person dies in a tent..." (Num 19)'.

While these words of Resh Lakish have been interpreted as saying that the torah can only endure as long as people are willing to die for it, which is to say become martyrs, I tend to read this powerful statement psychologically.

As long as you are concerned with yourself, the torah cannot endure in you - there is too much ego to make room for God. To make room for God and the words of torah you must kill your 'self', remove your ego, make room for the Holy One to radically alter your life.