Berakhot – Blessings

• Berakhot – “Blessings” – Blessed things, actions, and events.
  • 1/5/20, Page 2 – Chapter 1. First note, all of these start on page 2, as page 1 is a cover page. We start with the most important prayer in Judaism, the shema, which is traditionally recited in both the morning and the evening. The opening salvo is a discussion of just how late into the night it’s still considered evening and therefore okay to recite the prayer. The upshot is, if you’re rich and have leisure time, say them in the early evening, if you’re poor, get to it when you get to it. But say your prayers, even if you’ve been out all night partying.
  • 1/6/20, Page 3 – But what about if you’re out wandering around in the evening? You might be interrupted by a brigand, or, if you happen to be near a ruined building, by a prostitute, a demon, or the sudden and unexpected collapse of the ruin. However, brigands, prostitutes, and demons only bother solo travelers, so always walk with a buddy. Mind the falling bricks.
  • 1/7/20, Page 4 – If you procrastinate saying your prayers and it gets too late and you decide, screw it, I’ll do it tomorrow, you’re screwed. But maybe just say it twice the next day and all will be well. Maybe.
  • 1/8/20, Page 5 – Don’t say your prayers in bed, they’re so boring, you’ll fall asleep. And a slap down fight between two rabbis over their respective vineyards and the wine produced from them, and accusations of one souring the wine of the other, and the other not treating his workers well. I more or less got that drinking wine is a good thing.
  • 1/9/20, Page 6 – If you really want to know if you are surrounded by demons (who are the ones causing you to procrastinate or otherwise not say your prayers at the proper times) you should burn a black cat and scatter its ashes around your bed and then look to see if there are tiny footprints in the ashes in the morning. They might look like chicken claw prints, but those are demons, I tell you. What if you have chickens in the house? Nope, demon footprints, chickens don’t leave tracks in the ashes of black cats.
  • 1/10/20, Page 7 – God is angry. Every day. For just a moment. But a moment in God’s timeline might be longer than a moment in ours. So just know, God is angry. Every day. Righteous people who suffer are clearly not completely righteous or they wouldn’t be suffering. Wicked people who prosper are clearly not completely wicked or they wouldn’t be prospering. Let’s just say that “Shades of Grey” is not a new thing.
  • 1/11/20, Page 8 – Your life will be better if you participate communally with the congregation than if you spend all your time on your own, even if you spend it studying or in prayer. It’s always better to pray together with others. Also, when you’re killing a chicken, make sure to cut its jugular veins to kill it in the proper kosher manner, and don’t hold it in your hand, because you might cut yourself.
  • 1/12/20, Page 9 – It took us nine pages to get around to it, but we’re back to the time discussion, only now, it’s about what time to say the morning prayer, just exactly what counts as sunrise. Not surprisingly, there’s disagreement about what constitutes the proper timing. It includes a discussion of the color of the sky, between “sky blue” and “leek green” and “white”. I’m going with Rabbi Akiva, who says that sunrise is the time when it’s light enough to distinguish between a wolf and a dog, at a distance of four cubits, which is about two meters, away. That might be too late though, if it’s a wolf.
  • 1/13/20, Page 10 – Is it “hate the sin, love the sinner”, or “sinners suck, pray for their death”? The rabbis definitely fall into two camps on this one, proving that no matter how sage-like one is, we’re all still human. Take care of your business before you sit down to your evening meal… your business being some combo of bodily functions and/or “needs”. That way you can pay attention to what you eat, instead of thinking about what might come after. Kinda redefines “date night”.
  • 1/14/20, Page 11 – Are there acceptable excuses for not saying your evening prayers? Yes, on your wedding night, or if you’re in the midst of performing a good deed. Otherwise, suck it up and take your punishment, and don’t do it again. Okay? Okay.
  • 1/15/20, Page 12 – There are different blessings over beer vs. wine. If you say the wrong one, go back and say the right one. But drink the beer, or the wine. Same with eating bread or dates. I mean, I can see, if you don’t have a transparent glass, making a mistake with the beverage, but I’m not exactly clear how one can mistake bread for dates or vice versa. Basically, though, if you screw up and say the wrong prayer, anytime, anywhere, correct yourself and get on with life, don’t turn it into a big deal.
  • 1/16/20, Page 13 – Chapter 2. Language. Is it okay to recite prayers or read the Torah in a language other the original? Some say yes, some say no. All of the interpretations seem to come from the fact that ancient Hebrew has no vowels, no capitalization, and no punctuation, and so depending on where each sage in their personal wisdom decides to stick those things in, you can make the rules read differently. Spelling and punctuation matter. Oh yeah, and if you’re really fat, it’s okay to lie down when you read instead of trying to stay standing or sitting.
  • 1/17/20, Page 14 – Don’t interrupt someone saying their prayers or reading a Torah portion, and likewise, don’t interrupt yourself when doing so in order to greet someone. Wait for the break. Only there’s no punctuation, so just exactly where’s the damn break? We also get another exemption from saying your daily prayers – if you’re in the middle of digging a grave, they can wait.
  • 1/18/20, Page 15 – Deaf people can’t read Torah portions for the congregation, because they can’t hear what they’re saying. But other people can. Okay, then deaf-mute people can’t read Torah portions for the congregation, because no one can hear what they’re saying. But they can really mean the words spiritually, and other people can more or less follow along by guess. Okay, imbeciles aren’t allowed to read Torah portions to the congregation, because they’re imbeciles. But… okay, I’ve got nothing.
  • 1/19/20, Page 16 – You should be grounded when saying your prayers. Don’t say your prayers while you’re in a tree, or somewhere else above the ground (this was in the days before high rise apartment buildings, so that didn’t come up). More details on the exemptions noted previously from saying your prayers, and adding in, when you’re in the midst of immediate grieving because someone just died. Like your spouse or your kids, not like your donkey. It apparently had to be said.
  • 1/20/20, Page 17 – Your deathday is better than your birthday. Assuming you regularly said your prayers and led a good life. You made it to the end. Game over. Overcooking food in public is a sin, as is leading others into temptation. Like that guy Jesus. Wait, Jesus is in the Talmud? I’m not clear if he was a sinner because he led others into temptation or overcooked food in public, but he clearly screwed up.
  • 1/21/20, Page 18 – Chapter 3. Don’t eat in the same room as a dead body. Don’t say your morning or evening prayers within four cubits (two meters, remember?) of a grave when you’re in a cemetery. That’s gotta take some logistical maneuvering. Don’t transport someone’s bones from place to place in a saddlebag on the back of a donkey. Unless you’re afraid of being attacked by brigands, then it’s okay. Remember the buddy system from Page 3? Don’t sleep in a cemetery, unless you need to contact the person who died to get the answer to an important question, like, where the hell did they hide the money away? They’ll come to you in a dream and tell you.
  • 1/22/20, Page 19 – Don’t speak ill of the dead, it pisses them off. If you screw up and do something impure, fix it. Don’t play with coffins.
  • 1/23/20, Page 20 – Women, slaves, and children are exempt from saying some prayers, but not others, and should still behave themselves. Women should clean themselves up after sex. Like it needed to be said.
  • 1/24/20, Page 21 – If a man ejaculates while praying, he shouldn’t stop, but should “abridge” the prayer, and then go clean himself up. If he ejaculates as he’s contemplating eating, he shouldn’t say the prayers over the food until after he’s finished eating. If he ejaculates, he shouldn’t then touch the Torah until he’s had a ritual bath. It is not clear why these situations would come up, but hey, some guys are just excitable. Kill the witches! What? You can marry a woman who was raped by your father or your son, but not one who was raped by you, yourself. What? Was this a thing?
  • 1/25/20, Page 22 – We’re still on ejaculation. In the case of it occurring while you’re walking along a river, you can rinse off in the river and it’s like it never happened. If you’re sick and having sexual intercourse, you need a ritual bath, but if you just happen to have an involuntary ejaculation, you can pretend it didn’t happen. If you see poop while praying (what?), you should move at least four cubits (damn, they like that distance) away and then resume praying. If you get piss on yourself while peeing during prayer (why would that come up?), stop, clean yourself up, and then return to praying.
  • 1/26/20, Page 23 – If you have to go, go before we start praying. Also before eating. And, by the way, Keep Your Things With You At All Times, The Synagogue Is Not Responsible For Your Personal Effects.
  • 1/27/20, Page 24 – Apparently, you can sleep naked with your wife and not have lustful thoughts, but if you sleep naked with a fellow student, you might, so you need to erect barriers. I’m starting to speculate on all the ejaculating while studying above. Also, no sneezing, farting, or spitting during prayers, it’s distracting.
  • 1/28/20, Page 25 – If you gotta go, dig a hole. If you step in poop, say a “prayer”.
  • 1/29/20, Page 26 – Chapter 4. And… suddenly we’re back to arguing about time. This time it’s how long does morning last. After much back and forth, I think we’ve settled on, until sometime, a bit before or a bit after… noon.
  • 1/30/20, Page 27 – Ah, that led into afternoon and evening prayers, got it. But what’s all this shvitzing in the bathhouse with students while teaching them? I’m still speculating on all that ejaculating.
  • 1/13/20, Page 28 – ‘Tis the story of little rich boy, Rabbi Azarya, who on his 18th birthday his hair turns white like the elder sages, so they put him in charge. I’m sure it had nothing to do with him being “richer than Caesar”, nor that he’s cuter than a button. He, of course, remodels the whole synagogue and expands it to suit his tastes. This is when the rabbis start to find out there’s some real wealth disparity in their number and aren’t sure what to do about it.
  • 2/1/20, Page 29 – Good people who do occasional bad things are still good people. Bad people who do occasional good things are still bad people. It had to be said.
  • 2/2/20, Page 30 – Stand up when you pray. But I’m riding on a donkey…. Get off the donkey, stand up when you pray. But I’m riding in a boat…. Stand up in the boat and pray. But I’m with a bunch of other people and they’re sitting, I’ll be embarrassed…. Stand up and pray. But I’m…. Just shut up already, stand up when you pray.
  • 2/3/20, Page 31 – Chapter 5. If your wife sometimes gives birth to white children and sometimes to black children, if she sometimes gives birth to short kids, and sometimes to tall ones, if it’s sometimes twins, sometimes not…. it’s all about whether she’s purified herself properly and how you prayed. Dude, they’re putting you on, given that this started with a discussion of her being drunk and out late, this is not the explanation for why she’s giving birth to so many kids, and why they’re all different. Trust me on this one.
  • 2/4/20, Page 32 – Give someone everything and they just want more and treat you without respect. Make them work for it, it’ll teach them to respect others. I guess, here, I’ve hit a month of Daf Yomi… only seven years and four months to go.
  • 2/5/20, Page 33 – A lot of comparisons going on, the upshot is, if someone has less than you, don’t look down on them and their possessions, because to them, that’s their whole world. We could use a bit of that in modern life.
  • 2/6/20, Page 34 – How to dissemble…. The first time you get asked to do something important, decline politely and explain you’re not worthy. The second time, waver a bit, but still decline. The third time, go for it. Of course, these days, you rarely get asked even twice. Everyone’s got a list of people they can fill in your spot with. It was harder without instant messaging and contact lists.
  • 2/7/20, Page 35 – Chapter 6. An intro to blessings over different fruits, particularly grapes and olives. But the pithy discussion is a disagreement between the rich rabbis who say you should focus on study and fit in your other work around it, or “just hire some foreigner to do the work for you”, and the poor rabbis who say you should get your work done and then study with that off your mind. Two thousand years later and the conversation hasn’t changed.
  • 2/8/20, Page 36 – Lots of discussion over which blessings to say over which kinds of fruits and spices. But the big takeaway for me is what was probably the world’s first argument over capers. Buds versus berries. Two thousand years later and the conversation hasn’t changed.
  • 2/9/20, Page 37 – Rice. Lots about rice. Is it a grain, is it not a grain, is it special? I’m not sure why, but the discussion of volume, related to the “olive bulk” sticks with me. It’s a visual that anyone can more or less picture, and it’s a size that is apparently used to measure things to decide if they’re big enough to say a prayer over.
  • 2/10/20, Page 38 – Bread and boiled vegetables take the center stage here, and determining the proper blessing is based on the type of bread, and the type of vegetable. But more important is the intent of the eater. Say the prayer that fits your mindset in front of the food.
  • 2/11/20, Page 39 – The olive bulk is back, with a philosophical question for all of us to ponder. Given that you’re not going to eat the pit of the olive, is an olive actually as big as an olive bulk? This is the kind of thing that will come to you at 4 in the morning when you’re trying to sleep.
  • 2/12/20, Page 40 – Lots of advice on how often to eat certain ingredients. Coming down highly positive on drinking lots of water, eating small fish, lots of leafy greens and fruit, using cumin as a spice, and drinking wine in moderation. Michael Pollan has gotten famous by repackaging Talmudic wisdom.
  • 2/13/20, Page 41 – The olive bulk is now being supplemented. We have the size of a barley grain, the size of a date bulk, the size of a fig bulk, the size of a pomegranate, and a new time measure, the half loaf of bread, as in, how long does it take to eat a half loaf of bread. The volume ones are reasonably specific, and anyone can visualize them. My feeling is that the time measure is a bit… loose.
  • 2/14/20, Page 42 – Rabbi Huna is a glutton. I mean, he ate thirteen pastries for dessert. And all of them drink a whole lotta wine. I mean, a whole lot.
  • 2/15/20, Page 43 – Remember all that speculating I was doing about the ejaculating? I mean, teachers and students, bathhouses…. Now we have rules for scholars – if you go out at night, don’t wear cologne because you might be thought of as gay, don’t go by yourself or you might be thought of as gay, but if you do, wear nice shoes and don’t talk to women, only men, don’t hang out with stupid guys, and don’t walk in an arrogant way. Sounds like advice for a night of cruising “the market” to me.
  • 2/16/20, Page 44 – Salt and sauces. As in, don’t cook your food without the first, and don’t serve it without the second. Escoffier, and by dint of evidence, all of French cooking, was clearly plagiarizing Talmudic cooking wisdom.
  • 2/17/20, Page 45 – Chapter 7. It’s good to know that if you’re choking on a piece of meat, you don’t have to pause to say a blessing over the water you drink to wash it down. Also probably good hospitality etiquette that waiters shouldn’t sit down at the table with customers to eat unless invited to do so.
  • 2/18/20, Page 46 – If you ever need a primer on the arrangement and etiquette of reclining couches in the dining room, the Persians have this one down to an art. This Talmud stuff covers everything, I’m just sayin’.
  • 2/19/20, Page 47 – Table manners: If there are just two of you, you do the dance of, “you first”, “no, you first” when sharing food. If you’re three or more, shove your chopsticks in and get the first of that mu shu pork….
  • 2/20/20, Page 48 – I realize I’m obsessing over this whole bit of ejaculations and studying naked in the saunas and all, but hey, it’s there, in the Talmud. Anyone with half a brain can read between the lines, and my gaydar is pinging off the scale. So even though it’s just the opening paragraphs, when we find out that a boy who has two verified pubic hairs is to be considered an adult, I have to wonder, who’s verifying, and just what else is going on? Oh, and women are chatterboxes and gossips. They said it, not me.
  • 2/21/20, Page 49 – There’s a prayer in here that is a blessing to God, and in each time it’s repeated, it talks about God “sitting on” or “enthroned upon” the cherubs” or “the cherubim”. It called to mind some sort of picture of an old white man with flowing robes and beard, and all the little cherubic attendants more or less squashed beneath him, writhing away. Interestingly, a bit of online research, and New Testament versions of this prayer replace “on/upon” with “between”, so I’m not the first person to feel a bit squeamish about this passage and prayer.
  • 2/22/20, Page 50 – We all know that there’s nothing quite so special as good bread. So it’s nice to know there are rules. Don’t set raw meat on a slice of bread because the blood will ruin it; don’t hold your glass of wine above it because you might drip wine on it and ruin it; don’t throw it; and don’t use it as a hot plate to prop up a dish. I have to say, though, that I’m not in agreement with the first two. A slab of bread with meat juices and/or wine soaked into it, is a heavenly thing. So there, Talmud.
  • 2/23/20, Page 51 – Asparagus wine, asparagus beer, all things asparagus. I mean, they make Cynar from artichokes, but that’s distilled, not fermented. I’m not feeling it. And neither was Yalta, the wife of a local rabbi and daughter of a political bigwig, who righteously gets pissed off when a visiting sage declines to bless her cup of wine, saying, “we only bless men’s wine, women get their ‘blessing’ from the man’s body and then bear children”. She heads right down into the wine cellar, smashes four hundred casks of wine open, and then tells him that words from him are like lice from rags. You go girl.
  • 2/24/20, Page 52 – Chapter 8. Although the primary focus of this daf is the order of various blessings, something that brought to mind the Catholic “spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch” ordering of the Sign of the Cross, I zeroed on the fact that there are tables which are considered “pure” for eating at, and others which are not. This might have been the first solid argument for gathering ones family and friends at the dinner table to dine rather than some eating at their computer desk, others at the coffee table in front of the TV. I’m down with this. Eat together, as a family, at the table designated for eating, whichever one that is in your household.
  • 2/25/20, Page 53 – This might be the first recorded instance of philosophers and other learned folk arguing about the essence of a flame and its light, whether it can be considered an object, i.e., a noun, or is a process, i.e., a verb.
  • 2/26/20, Page 54 – Chapter 9. We have giants and witches, we have Moses being 15′ tall, we have blessings over random events, good and bad. But, and I’m going to touch on a religious note here, one short, seemingly innocuous passage stuck out to me, in which the Talmudic rabbis discuss that sometimes, in order to do God’s work, to do the work of the Torah, which is to do good in the world, you have to set aside the rules laid out in the selfsame book. What? I know I’ve never heard that suggested in all my time back in Hebrew school. And they refer back to Psalms 119:126. I do some research. and all the English versions of this are a very different viewpoint – that it’s a plea to God to step in, because people have set aside the rules laid out in the book. Assuming that this pretty well established version of the Talmud is correct as to the original Hebrew, at some point in history, it was decided to change a pretty key point.
  • 2/27/20, Page 55 – The rabbis come down in favor of not sitting under the incline of a wall that’s about to collapse; not wiping your ass with a stone that someone else has already used for the same purpose, not praying for someone else’s deeds/life to be judged (because karma’s a bitch, a boomerang), and a whole lot of dream interpretation. I’m certainly down with the first three, and willing to talk about the last.
  • 2/28/20, Page 56 – Quite the dream lexicon, with interpretations for all sorts of them, particularly bad omens. We do find out two very important points – pay for the dream interpretation to get the good news, don’t pay, and get the bad news, much of which is shared on this page. And don’t piss off a Roman emperor. Being split in two is no fun.
  • 2/29/20, Page 57 – Today’s passage switches it up and we get the dream lexicon for good omens. Of particular positive import seem to be dreams about sleeping with your mother, your sister, another man’s fiance, or a married woman, having an orgasm, or taking a dump but not cleaning yourself up. Rabbis, what is wrong with you people?
  • 3/1/20, Page 58 – The passage starts with an interesting and somewhat libertarian discussion on the value of doing something for yourself, versus doing it for others, versus receiving it from others. Then it quickly devolves into… Heretics? Death Sentence. Burned to a pile of bones. Sleep with a Donkey? Death sentence. Flogging. Gentiles (non-Jews) are both Heretics and Donkeys. So… Gentiles? Death sentence? Sleeping with one? Death sentence? Way to mix up topics guys.
  • 3/2/20, Page 59 – I believe that what we have here might be one of the world’s first written down manuals for weather prognostication. I see that methods and accuracy haven’t changed in 1700 years.
  • 3/3/20, Page 60 – There’s a lot here, it’s like they know that Berakhot is winding up and are trying to pack a little of everything in. I’m still on the sexual stuff in this tractate. It’s a small part of this portion, but we found out some key things about sex and pregnancy, and worth noting, especially for those of you who aren’t satisfied with your sex lifes and or offspring. A) Both the man and the woman need to orgasm to get pregnant. B) If the woman orgasms first, the child will be a boy, if the man orgasms first, the child will be a girl. C) And though it’s not said, as it’s left up to prayer, I’m inferring that if they orgasm simultaneously, we’ve just found the first mention of transgender folk in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic literature.
  • 3/4/20, Page 61 – A very bizarre passage about dichotomies. Was Eve created from Adam or separately. If from him, was she created by splitting him in two, or the more traditional story of being built from a rib (or a tail)… (a tail??). Is one kidney good and one evil? Should you only take a dump facing east or west; or north or south? If you have blessings, you have curses, right? I don’t even….
  • 3/5/20, Page 62 – This same weirdness continues, as the discussion of direction in which to shit proceeds, continuing into the vagaries of if you have to do so in a corner, and on to which hand is the one to use to wipe yourself with. Then suddenly we’re discussing the wearing of clothing or not, and which pieces of clothing, and in which setting. Key information was divined – it’s best to take a lamb with you into the bathroom to protect you from demons. Not a goat, because there are goat demons who might swap places with your real goat.
  • 3/6/20, Page 63 – Sages vs. Rabbis: The Last Stand. In essence, the interpreters of wisdom versus the teachers of wisdom. Almost as good as Magneto vs. Professor X.
  • 3/7/20, Page 64 – “If one forces the moment and attempts to take advantage of an undeserved opportunity, the moment forces him and he is pushed aside. If one yields to the moment and relinquishes an opportunity that presents itself, the moment yields to him.” That is some very est Training wisdom there. And a lovely way to wind up Berakhot.

Go forward to Shabbat – “Sabbath”

Take a tangent into the rest of Seder Zeraim and head to Pe’ah – “Corner”

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