“Beer is the wine of the province.”
I have a confession to make. I hate beer. It is bitter and heavy and when I am persuaded to try a glass, I am left feeling bloated and somewhat unwell, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, who suffers indigestion after he imbibes. Unlike the great Rabbi, I never find it “
especially pleasant” and do not understand his remark that it
“pains on one hand and soothes on the other.”
I have been known to sit in cowboy bars in the western US with a glass of wine rather than pint of beer, while getting disturbed looks from the locals around me. I know I must have appeared like an out-of-touch and out-of-place New Yorker. And I do not understand why anyone would want to consume a pint of beer on a hot day, when there is a tall glass of sweet, iced tea to be had.
The wise man, his eyes are in his head.”
How do you measure a day? We learned in the first Tractate of this Daf Yomi journey that it is from sundown to sundown, and the most sanctified day of the week is Shabbat. We are asked to consider today why we recite kiddush at night when the verse in Exodus (20:7) says “remember the day of Shabbat to sanctify it.”
The voice of the Gemara reminds us that the
“essential mitzva of kiddush is to sanctify the day at night.” So, why all the energy to determine if what was really meant was that the kiddush should be recited during Shabbat day? It seems like there is some hair-splitting in the kiddush discussion, which has been going on for days.
“One must blow the dust on the path before taking each step.”
Life is complicated and sometimes we don’t get the important things right the first time. But often we are given second and third chances as we strive to be better or do better the next time around. Our paths are not always paved and often they take us on meandering journeys through dusty dirt roads.
Today’s Daf Yomi portion takes us on such a path as it discusses how those of us that are in mourning or are distance travelers or impure in one sense or another have a chance to do over missed obligations through the concept of a second Pesah.
Today’s Daf Yomi reading continues a discussion of
“ritual impurity of the deep” which the notes in the Koren Talmud tell us involves a grave found in a place where people have no previous knowledge of its existence. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish compares such impurity to a road. He said that a road represents impurity of the deep
“until the entire world knows about it.” One is absolved by a priest’s frontplate if he sprinkled blood on the alter in the courtyard of the temple and only discovered afterwards that he was impure by contact with a hidden corpse.