The Right to Complain - Pesachim 3b

Two disciples sat before Rav. One said, 'This discussion has made us like an exhausted 'other thing' (i.e. a pig)' while the other said, 'This discussion has made us like an exhausted goat'; and Rav would not speak to the former.
-Pesachim 3b

It's been a long time since I posted anything here, and I must confess that the primary reason is that I didn't make it through Eiruvin, and just decided to pick up again with Pesachim. I've been rather extraordinarily busy but Daf Yomi is exciting and fun, and I missed it.

So let's see how we do.

I loved this teaching from Pesachim, on the subject of speaking with 'clean' language, but what I loved about it in particular, is that complaining is not the problem. It's fine that Rav's students complain that the discussion has left them exhausted - but not all complaining is healthy, and some types of complaints, those inappropriate to the setting, can exclude you from the group.

Speaking with the Spirits - Brakhot 18

Today's daf has several stories relating the frailty of the divide between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The following story attempt to show that the dead know, and can communicate, who will join them next:

"Come and hear; for Ze'iri deposited some money with his landlady, and while he was away visiting Rav she died. So he went after her to the cemetery and said to her, Where is my money? She replied to him: Go and take it from under the ground, in the hole of the doorpost, in such and such a place, and tell my mother to send me my comb and my tube of eye-paint by the hand of So-and-so who is coming here tomorrow. Does not this show that they know? — Perhaps Dumah announces to them beforehand."

The conversation continues on tomorrow's daf, but I doubt the rabbis, like ourselves, ever truly resolve it. We, like them, seem to have pretty good evidence for some level of interaction between the living and the dead, but we still lack any proof that such a thing is possible.