Discussion on the Daf - Shabbat

malki2

Mon, Jun 01 2020, 6:15 am

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

The loss of life theory might work for menstruation, but you can't possibly apply it to childbirth. Sometimes, there really are no good answers.

Meanwhile, I've been enjoying the fact that we learn about מתן תורה right after שבועות.

It’s not the loss of life. It’s the exiting of a life force from the body.

malki2

Mon, Jun 01 2020, 7:22 am

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

A baby isn't a life force, it's an actual life. So it's not a lost potential. It's a realized one.

An actual life is also a life force. And it exited the mother’s body. I never used the word “potential “. A person dying is also a realized life force leaving a body.

BTW, I’m not married to this pshat, as it’s not like it was brought by the Gemara or Rishonim (I think it’s by Rav Hirsch ZTL). I’m just pointing out that your difficulties do not negate the pshat.

Aylat

Mon, Jun 01 2020, 7:28 am

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

Meanwhile, I've been enjoying the fact that we learn about מתן תורה right after שבועות.

Yep, it's cool! One of the shiurim I went to on Shavuot was based on the dispute over the date of Matan Torah on daf 86.

Aylat

Mon, Jun 01 2020, 7:29 am

malki2 wrote:

Malki2 I agree with you here.

Aylat

Mon, Jun 01 2020, 7:30 am

amother [ Pumpkin ] wrote:

Daf 86

I know we touched on this in Brachos 22, but no matter how many times it comes up - I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that engaging in a dvar mitzvah (which is objectively a positive thing) engenders tumah (which at least appears to be a negative thing).

Thinking about this further, the question re burying the dead is stronger than that re a seminal emission. Seminal emission can occur in a mitzva context or in a negative context. Burying the dead is חסד של אמת, a completely altruistic mitzva.

malki2

Tue, Jun 02 2020, 11:37 am

Aylat wrote:

Shabbat 87 and 88

How can they know which months are חסר/מלא 29/30? Until הלל הזקן it was according to עדים seeing the new moon and must have varied month to month, year to year.

I was wondering this myself. I was thinking that maybe they got things back in order by Rosh Chodesh Nissan so that Nissan would always be מלא. But I’m making this up.

imorethanamother

Tue, Jun 02 2020, 2:03 pm

Practically speaking, tumah and taharah made life extremely cumbersome. It's also unclear whether tumas medris applied to shfichas tera?

If a man and a woman were both tamai after biah, and a woman up to two days later and then again during niddah, then who prepared the food? Prepubescent children? Did people just exist in a state of tumah all the time? Is this where priests got the idea never to marry, because shfichas zera has such negative ramifications? How could neviim get nevuah unless they went daily to a mikvah? (and just an aside, maybe this is why Eliyahu, Elisha, and Yirmiyahu never seem to marry).

And what about their beds? Their chairs? Rugs? Reed mats on the floor? They were always tamay from tumas medras?

And as my shiur brought up, if everyone in all the camps were constantly running to the mikvah nightly, between biah and niddah and being a zav and the kohanim.... where were all these mikvaos in the desert? I mean, theoretically, that could be like 600,000 mikvah visits nightly. It was speculated that this was from Be'er Miriam, but whoa. That line must have been huge.

I know Rabbi Lopiansky says that part of the reason we mourn the Temple is because we don't get the opportunity to practice a lot of mitzvos, and he lists tumah and taharah, but frankly, it's a relief.

malki2

Tue, Jun 02 2020, 2:06 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

Zera is not metame Medras. Only Maga.

imorethanamother

Tue, Jun 02 2020, 2:12 pm

malki2 wrote:

It's the only thing that makes some sense, but I think we have to leave logic at the door with the laws of taharah. It's odd that the mother's happiness affects her ability to be in a state of tumah, as the laws of having a boy baby or a girl baby discuss. It's odd that there's multiple conflicting statements with regard to tumah, whereas a direct Torah commandment can have negative consequences. (As you said, Aylat, the commandment to bury the dead and the punishment of being in a state of tumah. The commandment to be fruitful and multiply, and to have responsibilities towards your wife, but on the flip side NOT to have relations with your wife, so the Rabbis instituted shfichas zera as causing one to be tamay.)

malki2

Tue, Jun 02 2020, 2:17 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

You are correct. The laws of Tumah and Tahara are ultimately based on chukim, although some do try to give rationale. I compare this to Geometry, in which we are given a number of Axioms that we need to accept (although these are of course provable), and we base other concepts on the Axioms.

malki2

Tue, Jun 02 2020, 5:06 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

Niddah does. So for fourteen days a month, more or less, who's cooking the food?

You asked about Zera. But, I suppose not the Niddah, if they want to live Betahara. That’s pretty clear from the sources.

Aylat

Tue, Jun 02 2020, 11:52 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

Niddah does. So for fourteen days a month, more or less, who's cooking the food?

Only an issue if you're a Cohen, are visiting the בית המקדש/ירושלים or a תלמיד חכם who is careful to eat חולין בטהרה. For the rest of us in most of the land of Israel, טומאה is not pressing. Maybe תלמידי חכמים cooked their own food while their wives were נידה so it would be טהור Wink

Aylat

Tue, Jun 02 2020, 11:54 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

I really don't read it as a punishment, more as a natural consequence. ('Natural' = on some spiritual level of mechanism.)

amother

Pumpkin

Tue, Jun 02 2020, 11:59 pm

Aylat wrote:

I really don't read it as a punishment, more as a natural consequence. ('Natural' = on some spiritual level of mechanism.)

It may not be a punishment per se, but it does seem to be negative. Why should a positive act generate a negative result?

Also, from everything I see and hear, it seems like tumah was a very big deal In those days and something everyone went out of their way to avoid. That’s why they were gozer tumah d’rabbanan - generally as a deterrent. Wouldn’t the outcome of tumah discourage people from doing mitzvos, which were associated with it?

Aylat

Wed, Jun 03 2020, 5:45 am

amother [ Pumpkin ] wrote:

Well, that's why they cancelled תקנת עזרא, because it discouraged פרו ורבו and לימוד תורה.

But your general question (bolded), I really don't know. I'd love to find someone who goes into the hashkafa of this. The Maharal? R Moshe Shapiro?

Aylat

Fri, Jun 12 2020, 4:15 am

Shabbat 98

Haven't managed to post here recently, but I just wanted to express my appreciation for Rabbi Orlofsky, whose seminary parsha class on תרומה enabled me to understand and picture the משכן structure and thus to be able to follow today's daf - which of course is one of the sources of that information.