Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Daf Yomi, Bava Batra 31a:

 טוען וחוזר וטוען או אין טוען וחוזר

This is not immediately obvious, but regarding the dispute between Ulla and the Nehardeans, and more specifically, the clarification of which cases are under dispute, is all about the ambiguity of the word chozer.

The way it was intended is almost purely grammatical that after making his first claim, he continues to present to the court another claim. Sort of like "he went and did X".

There are two other possibilities which are ruled out as not under discussion. First, that chozer means a retraction, such that there is an obvious contradiction between his first and second claim. Second, that chozer means physically returning, such that he left the court to go outside, and then physically returned.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Bava Basra 25 - sources

How to use sources below:

In which we look at:
1) Rashi says that Rabbi Abahu's derasha on Oryah is either Persian and means West, or Laaz (Latin) and means East. The Latin word would be Orient. We can see the Persian word in the Aruch. We would expect Rabbi Abahu in Eretz Yisrael to be darshening the Latin more than the Persian.
2) Considering the dispute about how the sun gets backs to its position in the east each morning.
3) Rava's reinterpretation of West being tedira as referring to the location of the Shechina seems farfetched. We see in the Yerushalmi that Abaye appears to hold by the simple meaning, that it is the prevailing wind direction. We could interpret the brayta about the constant contribution of the North wind as referring to something else not contradictory.
At WindFinder dot com, you can see historical dominant wind directions for the past twelve years, at various spots in Israel, and at least for Tel Aviv, how that is the one coming from the West.
4) No, bees don't eat their honey after tasting mustard. They love mustard, and beekeepers suggest it as a bee crop. But the mustard nectar does give a distinctive color, aroma, and flavor. Rabbi Yossi famously says regarding this (or the three cases in the Mishna) that each damages the other. So when we have a statement that:
מפני שפי הדבורים חד ומחריבות הדבש
Perhaps we can reinterpret it. Not that they eat their own honey to get rid of the bad mustard taste. Rather, the mouth of the bees is sharp and destroys the plants. And the mustard destroys the honey by making it honey-mustard.
Regarding the image (from peanut butter cups):
"You got your honey in my mustard!"
"You got your mustard in my honey!"


_________________
Regarding Rashi, the Laaz / Latin word is Orient. What is the Persian word?

Aruch:













“These things being so we shall say, agreeably to what we find in divine scripture, that the sun issuing from the east traverses the sky in the south and ascends northwards, and becomes visible to the whole of the inhabited world. But as the northern and western summit intervenes it produces night in the ocean beyond this earth of ours, and also in the earth beyond the ocean; then afterwards when the sun is in the west, where he is hidden by the highest portion of the earth, and runs his course over the ocean through the northern parts, his presence there makes it night for us, until in describing his orbit he comes again to the east, and again ascending the southern sky illumines the inhabited world, as the divine scripture says through the divine Solomon: “The sun riseth and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his own place. Rising there, he goeth to the south, and wheeleth his circuit, and the wind turneth round to his circuits.” (Christian Topography, part II) Cosmas Indicopleustes-6th Century


Regarding Tedira: 

Abaye in Yerushalmi appears to dispute the diyuk of Rava, that tedira refers to Shechina.


פרק ב הלכה ח משנה  מרחיקין את הנבילות ואת הקברו' ואת הבורסקי מן העיר חמשים אמה ואין עושין בורסקי אלא למזרח העיר ר' עקיבה אומר לכל רוח הוא עושה חוץ מן המערבה ומרחיק חמשים אמה:
דף ו, ב פרק ב הלכה ח גמרא  ר' אבהו בשם רבי יוחנן עד מקום שעושה גלד.  דבית ר' ינאי אמרי עד מקום שעומד ומריח.  ותני כן ר' עקיבה אומר לכל רוח הוא עושה ומרחיק חוץ מן המערבה מפני שהיא תדירה.  רבי מנא היה מהלך עם מוכי שחין אמר ליה אביי לא תהלוך ממדינחיה אלא ממערביה:
דף ו, ב פרק ב הלכה ט משנה  מרחיקין את המשרה מן הירק ואת הכרישין מן הבצלים ואת החרדל מן הדבורים רבי יוסי מתיר בחרדל:

דף ו, ב פרק ב הלכה ט גמרא  תני מרחיקין את הבצלים מן הכרישין ור' לעזר בר' שמעון מתיר.  א"ר יעקב בן דוסאי מגו אילין מתניתא כשם שזה מרחיק זה מזה כך זה מרחיק זה מזה.  רבי אבהו בשם רבי יוסי בן חנינה מפני שפי הדבורים חד ומחריבות הדבש:


From WindFinder.Com, the dominant wind might indeed be a westerly wind:
Dominant Wind Direction, Tel Aviv/Ben Gurion:

Nes Tsiyona:


Do the bees really suffer from eating the mustard and then consume the honey in the hive? No, but the mustard nectar affects the taste of the honey, perhaps in a good way, but there is no accounting for taste.
Bee Value of White Mustard
Considered an excellent bee plant, white mustard brings nectar along with fair quality yellow pollen. The floriferous plants bloom for about a month.
The nectar is easily accessible to bees. Plants yield quite a bit of nectar, up to 1.1 mg per blossom daily. This contains 50 to 60 per-cent sugar concentration.
White mustard can bring a good honey crop of 25 to 100 pounds per colony. The honey can vary in color, but is typically light colored to mustard yellow. When first extracted, it can have a mustard-like aroma.
Although the flavor is initially so strong it can burn the mouth, this mellows with time. Granulating rather rapidly, the honey should be extracted promptly. It has been known to ferment.

"You got your honey in my mustard!"
"You got your mustard in my honey!"

דף ו, ב

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Bava Basra 20b-21b: zecher vs. zeicher

1) In the Mishna at the bottom of 20b, the simple difference is between the objection to intruders, that is, foot traffic making noise and making the courtyard into a less private area, and noise intrinsic to the work. The children studying (or playing) make noise, but this is not the same as making the courtyard into a public thoroughfare.

The various braytot saying one may not establish a school obviously are contradictory to our Mishna and Rava, and claiming that it refers to gentile schoolchildren is a forced answer. It seems more like a matter of Tannaitic dispute. By reinterpreting those other sources, one establishes like the law in the Mishna and like Rava. Meanwhile, the easy answer was not offered by the gemara, that Rava (or by the setama degamara immediately after Rava) already made the necessary distinction, namely ומתקנת יהושע בן גמלא ואילך. Those other braytot were talking about before this takkana, so there would be more intruders, from far off. Or the takkana placed greater importance on this teaching, such that it would override the objections.

2) In terms of punishing a student:



Artscroll’s footnote #10 is based (at least in part) on the next Rashi, or at least that is what they link to. I wonder if this is deliberate.

3) The story with Yoav and reading zecher as referring to males. Artscroll writes it as זְכַר, zechar, with a sheva under the zayin and a patach under the chaf:
This makes some grammatical sense. The idea is that zechar is the construct form (males-of) and would be vocalized in this way, rather than the absolute form (males), which would be vocalized as zachar.

Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Goldberg told me of an interesting explanation from Rav Meshulam Roth (see here) that the difference is between zecher (segol segol) and zeicher (tzeirei segol). With the improper segol segol, it is parallel to eshen hakivshan, a construct form, where the absolute form is ashan. So with segol segol, Yoav believes that it was the construct form of zachar, males.

Shadal uses this as a proof that they didn’t have nikkud in the times of Yoav, because otherwise, “how did the teacher of Yoav not see any sefer which had the nikkud under ther word zecher in the verse timche et zecher Amalek, such that he taught Yoav z'char with a sheva under the zayin and a patach under the chaf?”

(Artscroll presents Tosafot’s read of the gemara, with the teacher knowing it to be zeicher, and answering the adult Yoav with zeicher, but not having corrected Yoav as a child.)

I would add that if Chazal had written nikkud, and / or names for the nikkud, this would be one of the places in which they would have utilized it, at the very least to disambiguate which reading the teacher had, instead of writing the difficult to disambiguate:
אמר ליה והא אנן זכר קרינן א"ל אנא זכר אקריון אזל שייליה לרביה אמר ליה היאך אקריתן אמר ליה זכר

This and other instances in which Chazal should have used nikkud or referred to nikkud by name is telling.

Friday, February 03, 2017

Thoughts on Bava Batra 10b-11b


1)
רבי אבא אמר מהכא (ישעיהו לג, טז) הוא מרומים ישכון מצדות סלעים משגבו לחמו נתן מימיו נאמנים מה טעם מרומים ישכון מצדות סלעים משגבו משום דלחמו נתן ומימיו נאמנים
The derasha might well be also a revocalization, of sela'im mishegavu, *coins* (rather than rocks) when collected.

2)
אלא א"כ ממונה עליה כרבי חנניא בן תרדיון.
See Tosafot. It is a common mistake to judge the value of a person, particularly in the religious sphere, based on a single measure. More accurate would be a vector of characteristics, such as honesty, trustworthiness (like R' Chananya ben Tradyon), mindfulness (like Elisha), empathy, commitment to God, fear of sin, and so on.

3) Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai had his own understanding of the pasuk, yet still encouraged his students to develop their own paths and their own novel interpretations. Interestingly, almost all the students' interpretations line up and have a novelty only in one feature, based on different prooftexts. And none of these really like up with Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai's own interpretation.

11b:
אבותי גנזו במקום שהיד שולטת בו ואני גנזתי במקום שאין היד שולטת בו
Wouldn't they have eventually melted?

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