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Category Archives: Talmud

Honoring EFRAT: An organization that provides support to parents – The Jerusalem Post

Posted: February 18, 2024 at 10:01 am

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a) teaches that if a person saves a life, it is as if he were responsible for saving an entire universe.

There is an apocryphal story of a child who was drowning in the sea and was saved from the clutches of the current by a passing stranger.

The parents, a well-to-do couple, thanked the rescuer with heartfelt gratitude and offered a magnanimous reward. The hero declined graciously and said to the child, I am happy that I was able to save your life, now go and spend the rest of it ensuring it was a life worth saving; that will be my reward.

I was reminded of this by a story I came across this week on Facebook. It was posted on the page of EFRAT, an organization that was established by a modern-day hidden tzadik (righteous person), Dr. Eli Schussheim, in 1977, and which provides women (and couples) with what they describe as a full safety net of support emotional, financial, medical, physical, and even vocational to empower them to give birth with confidence, joy, and dignity.

In essence, EFRAT provides financial and psychological support to people who are considering termination of pregnancy, not because they want to, but because they feel they cannot cope, either with the additional financial burden or with the added stresses that inevitably arrive with the precious bundle of joy.

To date, they have assisted 86,000 women to fulfil their dream of motherhood and, in so doing, saved myriad worlds.

The Facebook post that someone sent me stated: I need to tell you this story. My son is serving in Gaza right now. He was mobilized on that dark Shabbat day of October 7. In the first week, he called me and let me know that they were lacking basic equipment. Immediately, as any father would do, I started calling around to see if anyone could help. By chance, I heard from a friend that EFRAT was fundraising for the supplies my son needed.

EFRAT. The memories started flooding back. I had shivers down my spine because, 20 years ago, my wife wanted to have an abortion. At the time, we were a wreck money-wise. But EFRAT insisted that if we wanted to have the baby, they wouldnt abandon us. They promised us that they would help look after the baby. And they delivered.

When the baby was born, they outfitted us with a new stroller, a crib, a full layette truly everything we needed to bring the baby home. Afterward, for two years, every month we would receive a package full of pacifiers, formula, diapers, and more. Everything with abundance, kindness, and discretion.

Here we are today. My baby, my pride and joy, is all grown up, serving in an elite unit, protecting lives. Ensuring new life. Just like EFRAT did.

When I read this, like many readers, I was greatly moved, but I was also transported back about 35 years.

Back then, in what seems like a different universe altogether, I was a rookie young doctor, full of enthusiasm, energy, and a large dose of naivety, working in a family practice in the UK.

A lady came to consult because she was pregnant and couldnt face the stresses of another child. She hadnt told her husband. She was a wreck; not sleeping, not eating, and constantly tearful. She requested that I refer her for a termination.

We talked it through for what seemed like an eternity, and I did what today would be considered to be breaking every rule in the book: I gave my opinion! I suggested that she find the courage to discuss it with her husband, reconsider, sleep on it some more, and then come back to me to discuss it again.

After a week or so, she returned and told me that she and her husband had decided to continue with the pregnancy. I felt I had done the right thing, and the whole episode was never mentioned again, either by me or the mother, on the numerous occasions we met in my clinic over the years.

However, secretly, I watched, from a distance, how this delightful little girl grew up, went to school, graduated, and was a source of joy to her parents and grandmother, all of whom were my patients. Whenever I saw any of the family, I desperately wanted to ask them how R was doing, but I didnt, of course.

I smiled a warm smile to myself when I read in the local newspaper all the good wishes that she received on her 21st birthday, but perhaps one of the highlights of my long career as a family doctor was, when, completely out of the blue, I received an invitation to a wedding.

On the beautifully printed gold-edged invitation, the brides name had been underlined, and in tiny handwritten letters below were the words, Without you, this would never have happened. Thank you.

Today, that little girl is a mother herself, and another entire world has begun.

How wise is the Talmud, and how wonderful is the organization called EFRAT.

The writer is a rabbi and physician living in Ramat Poleg, Netanya, and is a co-founder of Techelet-Inspiring Judaism.

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Honoring EFRAT: An organization that provides support to parents - The Jerusalem Post

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For the Yehudim There Was Light – COLlive

Posted: at 10:01 am

How Yeshivas Ohr Elchonon Chabad illuminates the world one Talmid at a time. Full Story, Video

Esther 8:16 Talmud Bavli, Megillah 16b

We recite it every Havdalah. It is sourced in the Megillah. It describes the spirit of the Jewish people. It captures the month(s) of Adar. It is who we are.

It is light. It is what the world needs. It is what our Torah, our Bochurim, our Yeshiva radiates into existence.

As our name illuminates, Yeshivas Ohr Elchonon Chabad is anchored in and emanates Ohr, Light. As our sages teach, Light is Torah. The tower of Torah, the lighthouse of learning, the beacon of brilliance that is YOEC infuses every Bochur, every student with a joyous thirst for divine knowledge and heartwarming burn for Yiddishkeit.

Yeshivas Ohr Elchonon Chabad is a Migdal Ohr that, with every wick of wisdom and every spark of spirit, we illuminate our Bochurim by the light of Torah as it is illuminated by Chassidus.

Every candle requires one thing: fuel. Without fuel, we cannot be the Ohr we have to be for our students. This is why we have ignited Our Ohr campaign.

In this month of joy, of increase, of celebrationespecially this year, a leap year, where there is a double measure of everythingwe invite you to give light by partnering with us in our annual Charidy Campaign.

OUR OHR! Give Light.

PLEASE GO TO CHARIDY.COM/YOEC TO HELP BRING LIGHT TO OUR PEOPLE!

Your generosity is essential and your fuel is energizing. It powers and brightens our students, our community, and our world.

The joyous month of Adar proves that light (Torah) never stops, light (Torah) always grows, light (Torah) always glows.

Thank you for being our essential partner in this eternal mission. Thank you for giving what you can and sharing this profound message. For the Jewish people there was, is, and always will be light.

In your merit, and the merit of all the Torah, the Orah, that you generate, surely the eternal will saturate this world with the coming of the eternal Redemption speedily in our days.

Click here to donate now.

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For the Yehudim There Was Light - COLlive

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Book Review: Subculture Vulture, by Moshe Kasher – The New York Times

Posted: January 29, 2024 at 2:24 am

SUBCULTURE VULTURE: A Memoir in Six Scenes, by Moshe Kasher

About three-quarters of the way through his new memoir, Subculture Vulture, the writer and comedian Moshe Kasher warns that, right about now, readers might want to bail and head to YouTube: Hes about to explain the Talmud.

Kasher, whose first book chronicled his early youth, spent many of his childhood summers flying from his home in Oakland, Calif., to visit with his ultra-Orthodox father, who lived in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn. He describes swapping his As cap for a yarmulke as he prepared to live the life of Tevye the Milkman for a few weeks a year.

Despite his warning, Kasher makes short and only moderately sacrilegious work of the various holy texts and their significance. The Mishna is a written version of collected oral law, he explains. It was eventually written down when people realized the Jews werent so good at oral, he adds with, I can only imagine, a click of his teeth and a wink direct to camera. If that sort of joke isnt to your taste, hes right: Abandon ship now.

Talmudic studies la Kasher offer the same solid balance he demonstrates throughout the book. Youll probably learn something unless youve lived an identical life to his, which seems statistically impossible and laugh in roughly equal measure.

In Subculture Vulture, Kasher details his experiences within six distinct communities. First comes his account of growing up in Young Peoples Alcoholics Anonymous after landing in rehab at the age of 13. Later he immerses himself in sober partying and drug-selling within San Franciscos rave scene. He parlays his experience as a child of deaf adults in a yearslong career as a professional sign language interpreter, before a stint manning the entrance at Burning Man, and, ultimately, a career in comedy. And, of course, theres his time in Brooklyn.

These abridged accounts of his life serve as part history lesson, part standup set and, often, part love letter. My mother loves masturbation. Its kind of her thing. Farting and masturbation, he writes in the chapter about deafness. Kasher spares no details of her fondness for a particularly loud vibrator or her unabashed flatulence. (Neither of which, he reminds us, his mother can hear.) He describes being the hearing child of two deaf parents as a nonconsensual sign language interpretation internship program. Still, by the chapters end, Kashers fondness for his mother and the deaf community is unmistakable.

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Book Review: Subculture Vulture, by Moshe Kasher - The New York Times

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Palestine, the Jews, the Talmud and the Aleppo Codex | Jaime Kardontchik | The Blogs – The Times of Israel

Posted: at 2:24 am

The Jews occupied a unique geographic position in the Middle East: they lived in a strategic place, the transit point between three continents, a coveted place for all the large imperial powers of the time. They had a unique philosophy: the Jews worshiped one and only one God, declared this God to be invisible and, on top of it, proclaimed that there were no other gods. This only brought on them the ire of all the imperial powers of the time, like the Greeks and the Romans, who worshiped a variety of multiple idols. And they had a unique history: Remember that we were slaves in Egypt, parents told to their children during the Passover meal, from time immemorial. This is central to the Jewish ethos. What other people would include in their primordial mythos that they descended from slaves? This did not sit well with the great powers of that era, for which slavery was a very profitable endeavor, vital for their economy. All this unique geographic position, unique philosophy, and unique history put the Jews at odds with their surroundings. The result was that they lost their territorial center through frequent wars and became dispersed. Most historians set the origin of this dispersion (the Jewish Diaspora) in the years 66-73 CE, during the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire, that ended with the destruction of Jerusalem. However, the true catastrophic event for the Jewish people was their last revolt against the Roman Empire, in years 132-136 CE, known as the Bar Kokhba Revolt, for the name of their leader. In this last rebellion, 985 villages in Judea were destroyed and around 580,000 Jews perished. [1]

Judea under Bar Kochba rule (132-136 CE). (courtesy of the author)

After the Jewish rebellion in Judea was crushed, the Romans barred the remaining Jews from living in Jerusalem, and merged the Roman provinces of Syria and Judea, under one unified province, renamed Syria Palaestina. The origin of the name Palaestina is unclear: some identify it with an ancient people that used to live in times past in the coastal area, the Philistines. Having just eliminated the Jews of Judea physically, it seems that the Romans decided to eliminate also the name Judea from the maps. Since then, the name Palestine stuck in all the Western literature as the land (or former land) of the Jews.

After the destruction of Judea in the 2nd century CE, the center of Jewish life in Palestine moved from the mountainous region of Judea to the Galilee, what is now northern Israel. In the course of several centuries the Jews in Galilee created two monumental works that shaped for centuries the life of the Jews in the Diaspora: the Jerusalem Talmud and the Aleppo Codex.

The Jerusalem Talmud was originally written by rabbinic sages in Tiberias, a town by the Sea of Galilee, in the 4th century (a century later, a second version of the Talmud, known as the Babylonian Talmud, was written by the Jewish center in Babylon, today Iraq). The importance of the Talmud cannot be understated: with the Jewish State gone and Jews living under foreign occupation in Palestine, or in foreign lands in the diaspora, the rabbinic sages pondered the question of how to preserve Jewish life in such conditions. The answer was the Talmud: an encyclopedic compilation of myriads of examples and teachings covering all the subjects of Jewish life, from Jewish customs, to religious and civil affairs. The Talmud became for centuries the main source of Jewish survival in the Diaspora: Jews in the Diaspora followed the Talmud for guidance in everything related to earthly and spiritual affairs.

The following figure shows a page of the Jerusalem Talmud found in the geniza of the Ben Ezrah synagogue in Fustat, Egypt. (Remember the name Fustat: we will find it again when talking about the Aleppo Codex).

A page of the Jerusalem Talmud, found in the geniza (storage room) of Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Egypt. (source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yerushalmi_Talmud.jpg )

The Aleppo Codex a special text of the Bible was written in Tiberias around 930 CE. It became the most authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible, followed by the Jews in the Diaspora.

Written Hebrew only uses the consonants: vowels are not printed. If you check the archeological remains of ancient Hebrew texts written two thousand years ago in the Land of Israel, you will not find vowels in these texts. No one needed them, because Jews lived then in Israel, Hebrew was quite natural to them, and it was clear to all how to read and pronounce the words in the sacred texts, even if no vowels were indicated in them. If you check the Sacred Scrolls of the Bible today in any synagogue over the world, there are no vowels either written in the text. So how come, Jews so far apart in time and space, today in New York, in Buenos Aires, in London, in Moscow and in Jerusalem, preserved for 2,000 years the phonetics of the Hebrew language and manage to read and pronounce the words in the Bible with such uniformity during the long centuries of dispersion in the Diaspora?

The answer can be found in Tiberias, the city at the shores of the Sea of Galilea. The Jewish sages in Tiberias came to the help of their brethren in the Diaspora: they meticulously added the vowels to all the words in a copy of the Bible, and not only vowels but also diacritical marks so people would know how to pronounce each word with the correct stressed syllable, and thus, the Aleppo Codex was born.

The following two figures show the difference between a standard Bible text you can find today in a synagogue and the biblical text as it appears in the Aleppo Codex:

text in a standard scroll of the Bible. (courtesy of the author)

Notice in the figure above that, for example, the last word in the text (fourth row, to the right) is the word Israel in Hebrew. Notice the absence of vowels, or any marks above and below the word Israel or any other word in the text.

To the right is shown a paragraph of the Aleppo Codex. To the left, the word Israel that appears in the paragraph is reproduced and magnified. (courtesy of the author)

Notice that, in the Aleppo Codex text, the vowels in the word Israel were added below the letters. In addition to the vowels, the Aleppo Codex includes diacritical marks for the correct pronunciation of the words.

The Aleppo Codex, due to circumstances described below, was not kept in Tiberias for long. It circulated between the Jewish communities in the Middle East. The following figure shows this history of its itinerary [2[).

The travel history of the Aleppo Codex (early dates are approximate) (map from: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/hebrew-bible/travelogue-of-the-aleppo-codex/, arrows and text to the right added by the author)

The movement from Tiberias to Jerusalem in year 1030, may be related to a major earthquake along the Jordan Valley, in 1033, which might have damaged Tiberias. The movement from Jerusalem to Egypt was related to historic events in the region: The book had been caught by the Christian Crusaders, during their military expeditions in 1095-1291, and was redeemed by the Jewish community in Egypt by paying a ransom. Fustat, the city in Egypt where the Aleppo Codex was moved to after it was retrieved from the Crusaders, had an important Jewish community: The Jewish philosopher and physician Maimonides (1138-1204) lived in Fustat.

The book was later moved from Fustat to Aleppo, in Syria, in year 1375. The movement of the Aleppo Codex from Fustat to Aleppo, may be related to the deterioration of the conditions of Jews (and Christians Copts) in Egypt during the rule of the Mamelukes. It is known that severe persecution and attacks against non-Muslims happened in 1354, close to the date when the Aleppo Codex was moved out of Egypt.

The Jewish community in Aleppo had the book for almost 600 years (hence, its name Aleppo Codex), until the pogrom in 1947, when the synagogue where it was kept was burnt. During the exodus of the Jews from Syria, following the pogroms in Aleppo (1947) and Damascus (1949), the book disappeared and, somehow, found its way to the recently born state of Israel, and it is now kept in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

The Aleppo Codex, presently kept in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (courtesy of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem)

References

[1] These numerical figures were provided by the Roman historian Cassius Dio (born 150, died 235 CE), in his History of Rome, 69.14.1-2, cited in:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt

[2] Travelogue of the Aleppo Codex

Travelogue of the Aleppo Codex

Lexicon:

Geniza: storage area in a Jewish synagogue designated for the storage of worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics, prior to proper cemetery burial.

The Cairo Geniza is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments that were kept in the geniza of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Egypt. These manuscripts span the entire period of Middle-Eastern, North African, and Spanish Jewish history between the 6th and 19th centuries CE, and comprise the largest and most diverse collection of medieval manuscripts in the world.

The above is an excerpt of a new chapter (Lesson 4) in my book The root of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the path to peace (February 2024 edition). The edition has also two chapters dedicated to the present Hamas-Israel war (Lessons 8 and 9). The book can be downloaded for free at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364057784_The_root_of_the_Arab-Israeli_conflict_and_the_path_to_peace

(The book is also available in a Spanish edition, and it is also available at Amazon)

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Palestine, the Jews, the Talmud and the Aleppo Codex | Jaime Kardontchik | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

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Israel-Hamas War: Yearning for children lost before their time – The Jerusalem Post

Posted: at 2:23 am

There are moments in which the Torah we learn jumps off the page and morphs into something completely different than what appeared at the outset.

As I was searching for inspiring Torah to write for this column, I came across a beautiful dvar Torah by Rabbi Aviva Richman of the Hadar Yeshiva. It was so instantly resonant that it was as if it had been sent for this purpose.

The beginning of the Book of Exodus opens with the terrible loss of baby boys as they are cruelly thrown into the Nile. In this weeks Torah portion, as the Children of Israel are leaving Egypt, they are leaving behind their dead children mired in their watery graves.

Richman analyzes two midrashim that I had never paid close attention to because of their fantastical content. Both describe a reality in which these babies miraculously survive! However, there are significant distinctions between them that yield contrasting ideas.

In the first, the parents reunite with their children on the banks of the Reed Sea.

How do we know that the sons thrown into the Nile River went up with their parents out of Egypt? The Holy One, blessed be He, hinted to the angel appointed over the water who spit them out into the desert. They ate and drank and procreated there... and when the Children of Israel were on the banks of the sea, these sons appeared opposite them and opened their mouths and cried out, These are our fathers!

Immediately, their fathers opened their mouths [in response to this miracle] and said, This is my God and I will glorify Him. The sons [then] said, God of my father and I will elevate Him (Otzar Midrashim Minyan 1:17).

In this midrash, the glorification of God comes after the parents are reunited with their lost children on opposite sides of the Reed Sea. While the children are not part of the initial exodus from Egypt, they join the nation in this singular moment of redemption. In Richmans words, the midrash is suggesting that leaving Egypt would not be meaningful if parents had to leave their children behind.

Only now, in this moment of joyous, miraculous reunion against all odds, parents, followed by their children, recognize the greatness of God and cry out in praise. Love for God is intertwined with love between parents and children, reflecting the midrashic idea that there are three partners in the creation of a child: mother, father, and God. When the partnership between God with parents and children is illuminated, as in this midrashic moment, it is cause for exaltation and celebration of the divine.

In a parallel midrash in Exodus Rabbah, the story is told somewhat differently. The narrative begins with the daughters of Israel seducing their husbands in order to continue procreating, despite Pharaohs decree to kill the male babies. The women would give birth in secret in the fields, and the babies would be provided for by an angel sent by God to clean, care, and feed them.

The midrash in Exodus Rabbah 1:12 continues: Once the Egyptians became aware of them [the babies], they sought to kill them. A miracle was performed for them, and they were enveloped in the ground. They [the Egyptians] brought oxen and they plowed [the land] above them. After [the Egyptians] would leave, they [the babies] would sprout and emerge like the grass of the field.

Once they grew, they would come in flocks to their homes. When the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself at the sea, they recognized Him first, as it is stated: This is my God and I will glorify Him (Exodus 15:2).

In this version of the midrashic narrative, the children return to their parents after they sprout wildly in the fields. They are thus part of the exodus experience. Furthermore, as Richman explains, it is they who recognize God at the sea and, in this way, introduce God to their parents.

Their direct experience with near death and salvation gives them the ability to see Gods providence in the world before their parents, who have only just emerged from the crippling experience of slavery and the near loss of their children.

THIS COLUMN is being written on a day in which 21 families were informed of the terrible loss of their sons during the fighting in Gaza, including a young man, Ariel Wolfstal, who grew up in my community in Elazar and married his childhood sweetheart, Sapir.

Last week, our community lost David Schwartz, and on the October 7 Hamas massacre, we lost Rinat Zagdon. Three beautiful young people with so much life to live and so much love to give to their family, friends, and Am Yisrael. We are only one community mirroring the myriad communities and families who are in deep mourning.

Before this war, I would have read the midrash dispassionately, trying to understand and teach the literary underpinnings to the interpretation and the midrashs incredible ability to weave verses from throughout the Bible to enrich the narrative.

But today, when I rediscovered these midrashim, all I hear is incredible yearning for children who have died before their time to be united with their parents; to feel Gods presence; to sense salvation at times of unending darkness.

One final point. I give a weekly Gemara shiur at the home of Ariel Wolfstals mother, where we study the Talmudic tractate Bava Batra. The first chapter is about the relationship between neighbors, building walls, and the nitty-gritty of who owes what to whom, and when.

Last night, before the family was informed of the terrible news, we started learning about Reuben. His fields abut Simeons on three sides, and he decides to build fences on each side of Simeons field.

In the usual style of the Talmud, questions arose whether Simeon could be obligated to contribute to the cost of the walls. The Talmud talks about the makif (the one who surrounds) and the nikaf (the one who is surrounded). This morning, it occurred to me that those concepts have a much deeper significance. In moments of sorrow and loss, when we live in a community, we are either the ones surrounding a family in mourning (the makif) or being surrounded when we are experiencing a loss (nikaf).

While Bava Batra is filled with moments of conflict between neighbors (which is why good walls make good neighbors), those walls temporarily dissolve as we surge forward to hold, comfort, and surround those who mourn.

May the memories of Ariel, David, and Rinat, along with all of those who have fallen, be a blessing. May they help us see the presence of the divine in these moments of darkness.

The writer teaches contemporary Halacha at the Matan Advanced Talmud Institute. She also teaches Talmud at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, as well as courses on sexuality and sanctity in the Jewish tradition.

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Roots, Midrash and Tu B’Shvat | Gershon Hepner | The Blogs – The Times of Israel

Posted: at 2:23 am

Although regardingboksersI dont give two hoots,

about thecarob trees on which they growmyminds not shut,

appreciating what helps themgrow like me, their roots.

My roots:not just midrashic explanations of me, butpeshat,

a process which midrashic explanations hardly moots,

both tastier thanboksersI dont eat onTu BShvat,

enjoying both midrashic explanations andpeshatas fruits

that arent dependent on a kashrut label such asglatt.

InWhy Jews Used to Eat Dried Carob on Tu bShvat: Bokser smells like Limburger cheese. Its also an embodiment of Jewish vitality and endurance,Mosaic.com, 2/4/15, Meir Soloveichik writes:

In the Talmud, the holiday of Tu bShvat commemorates nothing more than one in a series of halakhic deadlines related to the obligation to offer tithed portions of the years crops to the Levites in the Temple. For fruits in particular, the end of one fiscal year and the beginning of the next was marked by Tu bShvat, the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Shvat. Because these laws of tithing applied only to produce grown in the Holy Land, celebrating Tu bShvat became throughout the centuries a way of connecting to the land itself. For Ashkenazi Jews, that meant eating one fruit: carob, whose name derives from the Hebrewharuv and whose Yiddish name,bokser, is short for the Germanbokshornbaum, the tree with rams-horn-shaped fruit..

In its discussion of laws dependent on the land, the Mishnah presents us with the following conundrum. Suppose a tree is planted on one of the lands borders, with its roots in sacred soil but its fruit hanging over into non-native territoryinto, in effect, the Diaspora. Is the fruit subject to tithing in accordance with the laws relating to Tu bShvat? The answer is unequivocally yes: everything depends on the roots, not the foliage.

Another talmudic ruling is also relevant here. The tractate ofBava Batraincludes a lengthy discussion of the obligations we owe our neighbors. According to one ruling, we may not plant a tree near our neighbors well because the roots, though on our own property, will extend underground and possibly contaminate his water supply. Any tree, therefore, must be planted at a distance of 25 cubits from neighboring property. But certain trees, with exceptionally long roots, must be placed twice as far away. One such tree, the Talmud stresses, is theharuv, the carob.

So, according to Jewish law, identity is defined by roots: surely, an arresting idea. After all, we moderns often assume the oppositethat identity is not predetermined but malleable, that it can be shed and replaced like a suit of clothes, that we can be whoever we wish to be. And to a certain extent that is true enough; taken to an extreme, however, such an attitude, Judaism insists, denies human nature. For man is akin to a tree in the field, Deuteronomy informs us. In the view of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, this strange comparison suggests precisely that man, much like a tree, is in fact integrally connected with his roots, and indeed largely defined by them.

The carob, says the Talmud, has longer roots than most other Israelite trees; to eat its fruit was thus, for Jews in the Diaspora, to link themselves with a land and a heritage far away, and with an identity impervious to the often inimical forces of their surrounding environment. Unquestionably, sweeter and more exotic species of fruit exist abundantly in the Holy Land today, and can be almost instantly transported anywhere in the world. But even today, to connect with ones long-ago ancestors in the land by savoring the humble carob is truly to comprehend the Psalmists confident exclamation: Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored "Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel." He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.

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Emotional moments as awards are given out to the talmidim of Talmud Torah Kollel Shomrei Hachomos Rockland Daily – Rockland Daily

Posted: January 23, 2024 at 5:45 pm

Emotional moments as awards are given out to the talmidim of Talmud Torah Kollel Shomrei Hachomos Rockland Daily  Rockland Daily

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Emotional moments as awards are given out to the talmidim of Talmud Torah Kollel Shomrei Hachomos Rockland Daily - Rockland Daily

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The People’s Talmud Presents: RANDOM Brain Teasers – The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com

Posted: at 5:45 pm

Every so often The Peoples Talmud Presents: RANDOM Brain Teasers. Though not connected directly to the Daf Yomi, it is related, one way or another, to something very current in our lives or the world around us.

Think of Random Brain Teasers as the Joker in the deck!

Just click the link below

Are you doing the Daf Yomi or wish you were? Check out the Brain Teaser and test yourself if you caught this info as the daf flew by! And if not, dont feel bad, just click the link below and youll get the answer you missed.

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The People's Talmud Presents: RANDOM Brain Teasers - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Why the Jewish Word for Heretic Is Based on Epicurus – Greek Reporter

Posted: at 5:45 pm

View into the Jewish Talmud, which denotes Epicurus as meaning heretic. Credit: Chajm Guski. CC BY-4.0/Wikimedia Commons/Chajm Guski

In rabbinic literature, the word epikoros refers to a heretic or person whose views contradict Jewish literature. The term is a specific reference to Greek philosopher Epicurus.

The Talmud, the central text of Jewish religious law, explicitly states that epikoros means heretic and refers to an individual who does not have a share in the world to come. In Sanhedrin 10:1, it is written that all of Israel [has] a part in the world to come. But the following have no part in the world to come: one who says that the resurrection of the dead is not biblical, or that the Torah is not from heaven, or the Epicurean.

According to Maimonides, an ancient Jewish philosopher, insulting a scholar of the old testament is synonymous with disrespecting the entire Torah and its scholars. In his work Mishneh Torah, he explains that an epikoros is one who denies that god communicates with humans through prophecy, a person who denies the prophecy of Moses, or one who denies gods knowledge of the affairs of humans. In other words, this refers to one who doubts gods intervention in human affairs.

In an article published by Philosophy Documentation Center, titled Maimonides and the Epicurean Position on Providence, the author claims that Maimonides likely encountered the word or name Epicurus some time between writing his commentary on the Mishneh and before penning his defining work, The Guide for the Perplexed.

In the former, the author writes, Maimonides said the term epikoros was an Aramaic word, but in The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides seems to have become aware of the atheistic worldview of the philosopher by that name.

However, why did the ancient Jewish philosophers regard Epicurus to be a heretic? Anthony Graftons book, The Classical Tradition, argues that the most important Greek philosopher in the development of atheism was Epicurus, who espoused a materialistic worldview devoid of divine conclusions and drew on ideas from Democritus and the Atomists.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Epicurus still believed that the gods existed but just didnt hold that they were interested in the everyday lives of human beings.

The encyclopedia explains that the aim of the Epicureans was to reach ataraxia, a mental state of being untroubled. One sure fire way of achieving this was by calling out fear of divine wrath as irrational.

The Epicureans also held that there was no such thing as the afterlife. Therefore, according to them, there was no need to fear divine punishment after death.

In The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, written by David Sedley, the author explains that Epicureans denied being atheists, but that their critics, including Jewish philosophers, insisted they were.

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Why the Jewish Word for Heretic Is Based on Epicurus - Greek Reporter

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War, Talmud, and agriculture – opinion – The Jerusalem Post

Posted: December 28, 2023 at 11:53 pm

Variations on the words unity and togetherness have become common in Israeli discourse since October 7. The slogan together we will win is evident everywhere, although apparently not in ultra-orthodox neighborhoods, in which military service is negligible to non-existent. Nevertheless, politicians from that segment of the population draw on unity in their comments and interviews. I have recently seen such by Yitzchak Goldknopf and Arye Deri, leaders of Ashkenazi and Sephardi ultra-Orthodox parties, respectively.

Let me use this platform to suggest how they may express that very unity that they praise. My suggestion will enable them to generate goodwill among the general public, which at this time is doubly sensitive to unequal burden-sharing. This is not about large matters such as compulsory military service or the absence of basic schooling but about small things. How small? From an avocado to an orange, through a cucumber, and onto radishes.

It is no secret that the agricultural sector is in a severe crisis. Farmers and their laborers were murdered while others were evacuated; access to fields was limited by the army; and foreign workers have left. Volunteers attempt to fill this void. Young and old, they pick, pack, and prepare for the next cycle. They attempt to assist the landowners, both private and communal, while helping prevent a rise in the cost of living, which affects us all.

No one expects an unqualified yeshiva student to show up on the frontline and shed his blood. Instead, they could shed some sweat. About a third of some 30,000 foreign workers in the agricultural sector have left the country since October 7. There are about 150,000 full-time students in yeshivot. If they would each allocate one day a week, perhaps not all of them but most, even every fortnight, possibly only on Friday, which is a day off, they could fill the gap, at least until more workers arrive from abroad.

They would thus become a link in a historical chain of tillers of soil, headed by our patriarch Isaac, who sowed in Gerar (apparently between Netivot and Ofakim, not far from Gaza) and reaped a hundredfold. Archeology and our sources testify to our agrarian roots. True, there were limits on land ownership in the Diaspora. But the impression that our forefathers saw produce only in the market is wrong.

Thus, in Hungary last century, my late grandfather owned a threshing machine, which supplemented his earnings as a Talmud teacher, and my late father subsidized his yeshiva studies by pressing grapes for wine. As an added value, such involvement would allow yeshiva students to understand the practical meaning of many agriculture-focused discussions that they see on the page.

They cannot be expected to be as proficient as professional laborers, and work would be adapted to the personal abilities of each one. True, such an enterprise would require a little slowing of their studies. In that, they would join all Israeli students who were called up on October 7 and those whose studies have been interrupted.

Initiatives along these lines, such as those of Karlin Hassidim, are to be applauded, but they are not enough. An extensive and systematic effort by the entire sector will prove to the Israeli public that among the ultra-orthodox and the politicians who represent them, unity is not a theoretical concept that applies to others but applies to them too, as part of the nation as it faces unprecedented challenges.

The writer was Israels first ambassador to the Baltic republics after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, ambassador to South Africa, and congressional liaison officer at the embassy in Washington. She is a graduate of Israels National Defense College.

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