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We have been cleaning and cleaning. I am World Expert at relighting the pilot light.
In other news, two Talmud Treasures. Most of us are familiar with the statement in the Mishnah that a Sanhedrin (sort of supreme court) which executed once in seventy years was called tyrannical, and the subsequent statement from R Tarfon and R Akiva that if they had been on the Sanhedrin, no-one would ever have been killed. Most of us haven't read the subsequent discussion, which ends with the implicit question: how would R Tarfon and R Akiva have achieved this? Well, in murder cases, they would have asked everyone if the murderer had ever been ill, so as to exempt him on grounds of insanity. Or they would say the equivalent of "How do you know that bullet killed him? Maybe he already had a hole in his chest."
The second treasure goes like this. Ulla is having dinner at Rav Nachman's place, and he's doing grace-after-meals on a cup of wine, from which people drink after grace is over. Rav Nachman asks Ulla to pass the cup to his wife Yalta, so that she can have some blessing from it too. Ulla doesn't think she should have any, and quotes a Bible verse which is stated, as so many Bible verses are, in the masculine singular. Ulla says this means she shouldn't have any, since it wasn't stated in the feminine. She gets ticked off (as well she might, that's one of the least convincing ways of using Bible verses), and goes into the cellar and smashes four hundred barrels of wine.
Rav Nachman, presumably fearing for his household, suggests that maybe Ulla would like to have another go at passing the cup, and he says she has enough wine there already in puddles on the floor, that can be her blessing. Gossips blow hot air, says she of him, and rags house lice. Go Yalta.
In other news, two Talmud Treasures. Most of us are familiar with the statement in the Mishnah that a Sanhedrin (sort of supreme court) which executed once in seventy years was called tyrannical, and the subsequent statement from R Tarfon and R Akiva that if they had been on the Sanhedrin, no-one would ever have been killed. Most of us haven't read the subsequent discussion, which ends with the implicit question: how would R Tarfon and R Akiva have achieved this? Well, in murder cases, they would have asked everyone if the murderer had ever been ill, so as to exempt him on grounds of insanity. Or they would say the equivalent of "How do you know that bullet killed him? Maybe he already had a hole in his chest."
The second treasure goes like this. Ulla is having dinner at Rav Nachman's place, and he's doing grace-after-meals on a cup of wine, from which people drink after grace is over. Rav Nachman asks Ulla to pass the cup to his wife Yalta, so that she can have some blessing from it too. Ulla doesn't think she should have any, and quotes a Bible verse which is stated, as so many Bible verses are, in the masculine singular. Ulla says this means she shouldn't have any, since it wasn't stated in the feminine. She gets ticked off (as well she might, that's one of the least convincing ways of using Bible verses), and goes into the cellar and smashes four hundred barrels of wine.
Rav Nachman, presumably fearing for his household, suggests that maybe Ulla would like to have another go at passing the cup, and he says she has enough wine there already in puddles on the floor, that can be her blessing. Gossips blow hot air, says she of him, and rags house lice. Go Yalta.
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