Pesachim 8a - Defining God through limit concepts

"Raba said: To what are the righteous comparable in the presence of the Shechinah? To a lamp in the presence of a torch."

The idea of limits is that when we take a concept to infinity, we can see the point to which we would approach, even if in practice we could never get there. As the number of sides of a polygon tends towards infinity, we reach a circle that itself is not a polygon, being a smooth line.

The righteous stand in a similar relation to the shechinah in this teaching of Raba, being described as lamps that burn and shed light over the world. But if we take the concept of a lamp to its greatest limit we reach the idea of a torch that is not itself a lamp, but is the limit implied by the small flames of all the lamps.

Thus the righteous point the way towards God, shed a kind of divine light on the universe, even though when compared to the divine light of the shechinah (the feminine presence of God) they are like candles in the daytime.

Pesachim 6b - Wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey

From http://my-heart-belongs-to-who.tumblr.com/

"Said Rav Menasia bar Tahlifa in Rav's name: This proves that there is no 'earlier' and 'later' in the Torah. Rav Papa observed: This was said only of two subjects; but in the same subject what is earlier is earlier and what is later is later."

The idea that there is no chronological order in the torah is an amazing exegetical tool, allowing you to shift passages from their place and argue that while temporally the event happened at another point, it was placed here to teach a lesson or make a point.

But Rav Papa points out that we can't go crazy with this idea, because taken to an extreme we would not be able to make any sense of the torah at all. Each sentence would have to be read alone, without reference to what came before or afterwards. To take this principle too far would be to deny the possibility of any chronology, or the ability to read anything in context.

I take Rav Papa to be saying that we have to be careful with how we explain the Torah text, not to push any good exegetical method to the point of absurdity, but to consider how we are using our technique and whether it is truly in the spirit of what the text is trying to say.

While God may stand outside of time, we are temporal beings, living time in a straight line from past to future. The torah mediates these two perspectives, but must take both seriously if it is to be able to speak to us at all.

The pleasure of doing mitzvot - Pesachim 4b

"They asked: What if one rents a house to his neighbour in the presumption of its having been searched, and [the tenant] finds that it has not been searched? Is it as a mistaken agreement or not? — Come and hear! For Abaye said: It is unnecessary of a town, where payment is not made [to others] for searching that a person is pleased to fulfil the mitzvah personally; but even in a town where payment is made for searching [it is okay], because one is pleased to fulfil a precept with his money."
-Pesachim 4b

Abaye divides towns into two types - those who do not pay people to fulfil mitzvot for them, and those who do. One could imagine that this is to say that there are those who love doing God's commandments, and those who find it onerous, or too difficult, and would rather just pay and be done with it.

In fact Abaye is not making this distinction - he assumes that all Jews are excited to fulfil God's word, in this case the commandment to search one's house for chametz, and thus even those who pay for other people to do it for them, are still excited to spend their money in this way.

I like that Abaye does not put a value judgement on paying others to do things for you, but recognises that people live in different socio-economic realities, with different cultural norms about how to fulfil one's obligations. Nevertheless these distinctions don't affect what should be at the heart of every Jewish person - a love of God and God's mitzvot.

While I am among the many people that complain that being Jewish is too expensive (and see my post yesterday about the nature of complaining), I hope that I can live up to Abaye's assumption, and be pleased to use my money for the sake of fulfilling the commandments.

What better use could there be?

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.

Saved by the Brit - Shabbat 132a

"How do we know that the saving of life supersedes the Sabbath? R. Eleazar b. 'Azariah said: If circumcision, which is [performed on but] one of the limbs of man, supersedes the Sabbath, the saving of life, a minori, must supersede the Sabbath"

The argument that saving a life supersedes Shabbat is not unique to this sugya - however, the inference that saving a life is acceptable from the fact that circumcision is acceptable is fascinating. The logic here implies a quantitative interpretation of saving a life - surely we are intended to infer that circumcision thus 'saves' in some way, in order for it to be used to prove pikuach nefesh. If so, how does circumcision 'save' per se? Is it that it preserves the covenant? Or perhaps that it 'saves' the child from being excluded from the Jewish community? Whether one of these or another, I think the insistence on circumcision as a type of salvation begs to be interpreted, and might shed new light on a ritual that troubles many for what they see as harming a new life rather than saving one. 

Context is everything - Shabbat 130b

Said he [Rabbi Zeira] to him [Rav Assi], But I once asked you and you did not answer me: perhaps in the rush your tradition hurried back to you? Yes, he replied; in the rush my tradition hurried back to me.
-Shabbat 130b

We don't learn in single blocks of information, unconnected from anything else, but rather we add to our webs of knowledge, accumulating connections between things we already understand and that which we are trying to assimilate.

When pressured for an answer, Rav Assi couldn't remember his teaching, but in the flow of the entire argument, from the context of the entire debate, his tradition hurried back to him, and he could give an answer.

To learn something well, it must resonate with other facts within our web of knowledge.

To teach well, we must help our students find those points of connection for themselves, so they too can experience the rush in which learning hurries back to them.

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.