Week in Review
As Shabbat approaches, let us review the posts over this short post-Pesach week.
My article this week in the Jewish Link is Worrying About Flying Camels. Events happening at the same time and place makes for eidim zomemim. What if it is a distant place, at a slightly different time. Should we consider whether the travel time precludes the possibility of being able to testify. That’s the purpose of Rava’s multiple exploratory statements. The Talmudic Narrator suggests Rava dismisses a concern for flying camels. What exactly is the distance from Sura to Nehardea, and what were the non-magical ways of making the trip?
In ChatGPT and Brisker Torah, we wonder whether an Israelite could have immersed in the water during Kri’at Yam Suf, when the water became a wall. Funny, but lots of hallucinations.
In a post from the previous week, I discussed a modern Haggadah which endorsed shutting up until Korech. This was grounded in sources, but I nevertheless felt this was a transformative chumra, especially as it combined with other chumrot about the volume, rate, and pre-chewing.
Some of this could be obviated if it was just matza and then Korech. In Skipping Maror, I note an old position I had, a logical reason we should not need a maror separate from Korech. Now, I note several Talmudic manuscripts where that’s exactly what the Talmudic Narrator says.In Beginning Makkot? Now?! I wonder whether there was a separate grouping, in which this final chapter was considered a single tractate, Makkot, and Sanhedrin extended until the end of the second chapter of our Makkot. Support for this would be a Rishon calling the second chapter the final chapter; lashes, the grouping title, only actually being the main topic in the third chapter; and Yerushalmi lacking a gemara on this chapter (except a small section that appears in the Geniza and is echoed in Bereishit Rabba and elsewhere). That does not necessarily mean the re-grouping is right, but it may be a position that some Sages held at a certain point.
In Shemini: How Some Heretics Explain Kosher Species, I argue with Eliyahu Munk about how to understand teshuvat haminim. As non-standard as Rashbam’s explanation may be, he still is defending Chazal and tradition against some other heretical reason for eschewing non-kosher species. What might that be?
Finally, in Rabbi Yitzchak the Tanna and his Son Rabbi Yishmael b. Rabbi Yitzchak, we first identify the Tanna, Rabbi Yitzchak, who argues in the Mishnah with Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva. He’s actually one generation later, and a Babylonian. Then, Rashi grappled with the meaning of a cryptic phrase,קַבְּלַהּ מִינֵּיהּ רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר רַב יִצְחָק, and gives two forced explanations. Pointing to a manuscript, we separate the phrase in two, so that קַבְּלַהּ מִינֵּיהּ ends the first sugya, and we emend Shmuel to Yishmael, so that the Amora becomes a Tanna, and Rabbi Yitzchak’s son. Everything falls into place!
