What Did He Find? (article summary)
Yes, still on Gittin, this time about the last daf. Here is my article from last Shabbat, What Did He Find? (flipdocs, HTML, paid Substack).
A short rundown of the ideas I discuss.
(1) Note how everyone is somehow based on finding. Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, on ko matza bah ervat davar. And Rabbi Akiva at least in his formulation is matza acheret na’eh heimena, he found someone prettier than her. And the derasha is on another matza in the preceding phrase in the verse, im lo timtza chein be’einav.
(2) I therefore suggest as a hidden derasha mechanic that she doesn’t find chein (and thus relative prettiness in his eyes), but someone else does find chein in his eyes.
(3) I dislike how the Setama makes use of Reish Lakish’s multiple meanings of ki. OK, Rashi explains it, and I explain Rashi, but it is still a kvetch and at odds with how ki implies “if” elsewhere. I prefer my explanation in (2).
(4) The different measures of a man, from Rabbi Meir, is most likely something he didn’t make up, but something from the surrounding culture which he adapted to Torah purposes. Indeed, we have it as a joke nowadays.
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar and each order a beer. As the beers are set down on the table three flies fly into the bar and land in the beer, one in each glass. The Englishman pushes his beer away and orders another. The Irishman blows the foam off the top of his beer along with the fly and drinks the beer. The Scotsman picks up the fly by the wings and says "Alrright ya wee bastarrd, spit it out."
(5) The third person, for whom it falls into his plate, seems like an unnecessary twist. The other two had cups (of wine).
Here’s a manuscript where the scribe wrote cup, then crossed it out by putting a line over the word, and wrote the fixed word after:
I’d suggest that it is because he’s squeezing the fly into the drink and eating “it”, meaning the fly. This was reinterpreted as eating “it”, the food, so the cup turned to a bowl.
(5) Centuries after Rabbi Meir, this same idea which existed in various cultures made its way to Mohammed. Thus, in Sunnah 3321:
Naturally, there are Islamic apologetics / kiruv, such as this one:
Question: Is modern science in agreement with the hadiths that indicate there is a cure in the wing of a fly?
Answer: In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most MercifulOnly in modern times was it discovered that the common fly carried parasitic pathogens for many diseases including malaria, typhoid fever, cholera, and others. It was also discovered that the fly carried parasitic bacteriophagic fungi capable of fighting the germs of all these diseases.
The Prophet Muhammad – upon him and his House blessings and peace – alluded to both facts 1,400 years ago when he said, as narrated from Abu Hurayra and Abu Sa`id al-Khudri by al-Bukhari and in the Sunan:
<< If a fly falls into one of your containers [of food or drink], immerse it completely (falyaghmis-hu kullahu) before removing it, for under one of its wings there is venom and under another there is its antidote. >>
and so on.