Discussion on the Daf - Brachot

Aylat

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 1:53 pm

Missed responding to this earlier.

amother [ Dodgerblue ] wrote:

- Every day shacharis also correlates to the five levels of the neshama. If you learn the chassidus of davening, you can learn more about this. Basically davening is like an ascending ladder and when you get to shmone esrei, the holiest part, that is the part that correlates with yechida shebinefesh. .

This is cool. I wonder which parts of davening correspond to each part of the soul.

amother [ Dodgerblue ] wrote:

-The yechida can never be damaged, ruined, or affected by sin. It is always there in Heaven, perfect and complete. It is the essence of our souls and this is why even when we feel like we have majorly messed up or if we feel damaged by another person's actions, we must know that our yechida is pure, and is there to help us get back to that pure state. Which is what teshuva is about if we sinned. The yechida enables teshuva and frees us from things other people may have done to us. This is the connection to Yom Kippur, which chassidus explains automatically affects all our sins of bein adam lmakom as forgiven. (Bein adam lchaveiro has to be personally asked.).

Thank you for this, it's beautiful.

amother [ Dodgerblue ] wrote:

Generally in my experience, when chassidus explains a gemara, it is a mindblowing inspiring explanation. I encourage you to ask and I would look forward to hearing the explanation.

I love hearing a piece of Gemara analysed to bring out philosophical/inspirational ideas.

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 1:56 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

Reading this makes me realize that even learning it inside, I'm not as smart as many of you. Kol hakavod to you all.

I have a lingering question from a few dafs ago, and I've asked quite a few people this over the years and have never really gotten an answer.

If it says that there's one regah that Hashem gets angry, then when is this regah? Is it once per a 24 hour cycle, with the morning timing (during the first three hours of the day) coinciding with Israel's time zone, meaning that the regah could be in different times of the day for chutz la'aretz? Or is it a regah per time zone, in which case there are multiple times during the 24 hour period that Hashem gets angry?

I never understood things like this.

Great question! Thanks for the opportunity to do chazarah (on Daf 7a).

First, I think we should keep in mind that it's clear that there are different opinions as to the nature and length of the rega. For example, R. Yochanan says in the name of R. Yosi that it's around half a millisecond (that's what the fraction given there works out to) whlle R. Avin (or Avina) says it's as long as it takes to say "rega", which is a lot longer than half a millisecond. So I'm not sure there is a definitive answer.

Second, I think from the fact that the rega of anger is defined in terms of an event that happens during the day that is dependent on when sunrise is (e.g., when the kings start bowing down to the sun, or when the rooster's comb appears white), that it is a different rega in different parts of the world. So yes, I would guess that it happens multiple times during the day, one per location. (Who knows if "time zone" is the right granularity, though?) But it's a really short interval of time either way.

Were Chazal aware of the fact that the time of sunrise in one location is not the time of sunrise a long way away? I think the Rishonim were aware of this, but don't know if Chazal were concerned about this.

I was also fascinated that this is what Bilam's power was, that he knew the exact moment of Hashem's rage, so that is how he was able to plan to make curses that worked.

amother

Papaya

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 2:03 pm

As op of the original thread I am SO HAPPY to see this thread. People learning Torah together instead of fighting.

I'm not really learning in anything like enough depth to add to the discussion at this point, but I am reading eagerly. But I will just say this Re rega- it is interesting when you think about it that at any moment in history it was/is simultaneously sunrise chatzot sunset and every other time that exists somewhere on the planet. To me this really demonstrates in a simple way how HKBH is beyond time. And regarding the Rega that He is angry, I hope it means it one specific time in EY only. Otherwise it seems to be saying that He is always angry somewhere in the world, which makes no sense to me.

keym

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 2:04 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

To add to this concept, I remember learning once that the shofar is blown after shacharis to avoid that rega of anger, when there's no rachamim.
And that goes timezone by timezone.

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 2:20 pm

amother [ Papaya ] wrote:

I think even if this rega refers to a different time point at different locations, it does not mean that Hashem is always angry. I think it depends on the granularity of location relative to the granularity of the characteristic event. A king putting his crown on his head and bowing down to the sun doesn't happen in the time span of half a millisecond or even in the one third of a second it takes to say "rega". (People speak at the rate of around 150-200 words per minute.) But also, the rooster in your neighbor's yard and the rooster in your yard probably have combs that appear white at the same time even though their locations are somewhat different. If we chunk up time and space in reasonable ways, I think it would still be the case that Hashem is angry only in a tiny amount of the time in a day. I hope so.

malki2

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 2:24 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Chazal didn’t believe that the Earth was flat, so yes, they did know that the sun rises at different times in different places. I’m not addressing the Rega question with this, though.

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 2:29 pm

malki2 wrote:

Chazal didn’t believe that the Earth was flat, so yes, they did know that the sun rises at different times in different places. I’m not addressing the Rega question with this, though.

I don't think this has anything to do with whether or not Chazal believed in a flat earth. (I know they didn't.) It has to do with sunrise/sunset happening at different times over the world. What does a flat earth have to do with that?

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 2:34 pm

To clarify my question above: Even assuming a flat earth, consider a point P representing the sun above a plane (the flat earth). Consider two points A and B in the plane. If A and B are distinct, the angle from P to A is different than the angle from P to B. If A and B are far enough apart, the angles are noticeably different, even if A and B are on a plane.

Now that I write it out, it's clear that whether or not any ancient believed in a curved earth or a flat earth, the fact that there are different times for sunrise in different locations must have been obvious.

malki2

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 2:43 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Because if the Earth would be flat, the sun would shine at the same moment on the entire Earth as soon as it came up. The sun is 93,000,000 million miles away, and the Earth is only 24,000 miles in circumference, so it would only make a difference re time zones if the Earth is round.

Aylat

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 3:07 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Were Chazal aware of the fact that the time of sunrise in one location is not the time of sunrise a long way away? I think the Rishonim were aware of this, but don't know if Chazal were concerned about this. .

Astronomy was the most developed science in the ancient world. The theory behind it wasn't understood but they made extremely precise observations and accurate predictions. Hillel haZaken worked out the correct calendar for 1000+ years to keep the lunar months in sync with the solar year. So I'm pretty sure that Chazal knew that the time of sunrise varies with location, though I can't think of a concrete example.

Aylat

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 3:09 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

My non-technical takeaway from this was to be amazed at just how short a time Hashem is angry for! Parenting and relationship implications duly noted...

malki2

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 3:23 pm

Aylat wrote:

Aside from this, the Maharal and others state clearly that Chazal knew the Sod HaIbbur, which was the truth regarding Astronomy, as opposed to scientific theory and conjecture, as it was given by Hashem.

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 3:30 pm

malki2 wrote:

Sunrise isn’t a question of the sun “coming up.” It’s when the sun shines with a certain angle on the earth. It’s different on different points on a plane. It’s also different, and in fact a bit more different, on a curved surface, but the principle is the same.

malki2

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 3:39 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Imagine picking your head up and peering over a ledge. The entire ledge will become visible the moment your eyes rise over the top of the ledge. Or, take a light bulb and raise it up over the edge of a table. It will shine with the same angle over the entire table. Then imagine the sun, 93,000,000 miles away, rising over the “edge of a flat earth” that is 1/100 the diameter of the sun. The entire Earth would light up at the same moment. It’s completely different when the Earth is round. There’s no debate about this point. Sorry. Back to the Daf.

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 3:56 pm

malki2 wrote:

Take a light bulb and raise it up over the edge of a table. It will shine with the same angle over the entire table. Then imagine the sun, 93,000,000 miles away, rising over the “edge of a flat earth” that is 1/100 the diameter of the sun. The entire Earth would light up at the same moment. It’s completely different when the Earth is round. There’s no debate about this point. Sorry. Back to the Daf.

I concede the point to you given the 93 million miles from sun to earth, but do we know when that was known? If a much shorter distance, it’s not that clear to me.

I agree that discussions about the Daf are much more interesting. I just finished Berakhot 11, which is a much more typical Daf than the previous few Dapim.

imorethanamother

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 4:13 pm

amother [ Papaya ] wrote:

But I will just say this Re rega- it is interesting when you think about it that at any moment in history it was/is simultaneously sunrise chatzot sunset and every other time that exists somewhere on the planet. To me this really demonstrates in a simple way how HKBH is beyond time. And regarding the Rega that He is angry, I hope it means it one specific time in EY only. Otherwise it seems to be saying that He is always angry somewhere in the world, which makes no sense to me.

That’s exactly what my husband said when I asked him. He said that God is “above time”, so there’s only one moment per day when He gets angry. I have no understanding what this actually means. But God is not bound by time, but somehow the moment of anger is somehow calculable, as we see with Billam?

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 4:34 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

A quick Google of two ancient Greek astronomers, Aristarchus and Hipparchus -- the latter's work "On Sizes and Distances" was used by Ptolemy, who was contemporary with the Mishnah -- shows that they were off by anywhere between a factor of around 40 to 60 regarding the distance from the earth to the sun relative to the size of the earth. Moreover, the size of the earth seems to have been estimated fairly accurately by Eratosthenes, who lived before the time of the Mishna.

Malki2, your argument also holds if there are "only" one or two million miles between earth and sun, so I agree that you are correct about that point.

malki2

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 5:02 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

What is probably confusing you is the following: if the Earth were flat, and the sun was relatively close to the earth, there would be a difference in the intensity of the sun’s rays on different parts of the Earth. But not in the actual areas that would be lit up by the sun.

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Jan 14 2020, 5:56 pm

malki2 wrote:

Malki2, I have conceded that your general point is correct, because the sun is far from the earth and the sun is much larger than the earth. But if the sun were relatively close to earth, the earth small and the sun's light not large, then, when the sun started to climb over the horizon, it would not illuminate the whole earth. I just tried that experiment with my iPhone light and a large book (my Gemara, in fact).

That's what confused me, not the issue of intensity. In any case, the conditions of my experiment correspond to falsities about what was known about the world, even for flat earthers (which neither Chazal nor the ancients were), so it's an experiment that shows nothing, except for the source of my confusion. Smile