The Talmud cites a Mishnah that the tools used in Temple all had a second and third backup.  This was to ensure that if one became ritually impure the holy service could go on without interruption.  This was a danger during festivals, when the Temple was packed with pilgrims and with priests who did not ordinarily serve and may be less careful with purity.

The Gemara discusses if the table of show bread (lehem haPanim) that was in the Temple could become impure.  During festivals the priests would take out the table to display to everyone the miracle that it was still hot and fresh a week after it was baked.  Otherwise the table with the bread had to be constantly in the Temple, due to Exodus 25:30.

The display of fresh bread was to help the nation understand the consistency of God’s love for the people.  Human love starts with intense passion and tends to wane over time.  The hormones that produce the initial state of obsessive love decrease.   Only God is perfectly consistent, and His commitment to us does not wane.  Just as the bread retained freshness so God retains love for us.

These aspects of the Temple remind modern men of a couple of important traits.  First, have a backup plan and extra equipment.  If your business relies on one item or vehicle then you better plan on how to get two.  Make a continuity of operations plan so you can keep on trucking.

This applies to your personal business as well.  If you go to the gym and find it closed, know what to do to get your workout in.  If you made plans with someone and they stand you up, have something worthwhile to do instead.

We also learn the value of consistency.  We cannot keep up emotional energy forever as God does.  But when a man is able to maintain his excitement and energy in a relationship, this makes him appreciated and desired.  This is not advice to make the relationship fun, that is a common trope which is not really helpful.  Instead make yourself a fun and interesting person to be around.  Others will naturally be drawn to you and they will put in the work to forge a relationship.

With just two more days of Hagiga, the Talmud mentions an amazing law which allows a man to travel through an area of possible ritual contamination and stay pure.  This leniency is only for a man on his way to Jerusalem to bring the Passover offering, as that is a critical commandment with a harsh penalty.  If he encounters a field in which a grave was lost (no one knows exactly where it was buried) which was subsequently plowed, he can blow on the ground to remove the topsoil and uncover any bone fragments.  He must proceed slowly and methodologically so avoid touching any possible pieces which would render him impure (details of this are explained in Brakhot 19b).

Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba said in the name of Ulla that if such a field already has a well trodden path, then that path is assumed to be uncontaminated.  Obviously if there were visible bone chips on the path they would need to be avoided.  But in general we assume that the first men making the path were meticulous to avoid impurity, and the subsequent travelers cleared the path.

When you are entering a critical phase of life, such as making your personal plan for life or selecting a mate, you must be careful and intentional.  It is easy to be swept up in excitement and emotion when you feel the possibility of success.  This is especially true with what we call “falling in love”.  The release of hormones makes it difficult to perform the intellectual analysis needed to determine if this person is really appropriate for you.

Take things one step at a time, and examine the ground before you walk there.  Don’t commit yourself to one plan or to one person until you think about the consequences of proceeding down that path.  Men, particularly young men, have the capability of pursuing many possibilities.  Choose those that bring you personal fulfillment, be they in business, sports, hobbies, and relationships.  Rushing headlong into something may prevent you from choosing a different path later in life that would have been better in the long run.

From Ulla’s teaching we learn that when there is a clear path already, a man need not be so meticulous.  This applies to choices with less profound effects on your personal life.  For example, you can simply ask experienced players which tennis racket or golf clubs you should buy.  Assuming you are not a pro, it won’t ruin your game if they are not perfect for you.  For simple choices don’t get bogged down doing comparisons and reading all the reviews, save that intellectual energy for the areas where you need to forge your own path through life.

We are continuing on the topic of ritual purity.  As a rabbinic stringency, our ancient sages decreed that we must wash our hands before touching trumah (a tithe given to priests) and must immerse both hands in a mikvah before handling kodesh (items used in offerings).  As a reminder of the law for trumah, Jews today still wash their hands before a meal, even though the food does not contain tithes.

Today the Talmud explains that there was an additional level of security decreed for hands.  If one hand became contaminated (through touching a rabbinical source of impurity, a Biblical level source affects the entire body), then this also messed up the other hand for kodesh purposes.  Our sages discuss if this impurity should be considered to spread only to the other hand of the same person, or even to another person that he shakes hands with.

The Gemara concludes that the ‘dirty’ hand does affect the hand of another person.  One man’s problem can be spread to the people he touches.

This is an important reminder that in your own life you are profoundly influenced by the people you choose to be around.  We all end up as the average of those we spend the most time with.  If the men you associate with are motivated to grow and improve, this will rub off on you.  If instead they are satisfied staying the same throughout life, chances are you will do the same.

Evaluate your peers and compare them to who you want to become.  You make need to make some tough decisions about who belongs in your life.

The Talmud explains an incident where someone was bringing the ashes of a Red Heifer on a boat across the Jordan River.  It was discovered that there was a piece of a dead body stuck inside the boat, rendering the priceless ashes impure and unusable.

In response the sages made a decree that a man transporting the ashes or liquid from a Red Heifer could not travel by boat, swim, ride an animal, or even ride on the shoulders of another man.  The ordinance concludes that he must keep his feet on solid ground.

This sounds redundant, as the sages already told him to stay out of rivers and the like.  This hints to a hidden gem of wisdom.  Even when you are involved in complex, intellectual issues, you must stay practical.

Often we are tempted to analyze events on a philosophical or political level, and delve into the details.  It can help to step back and ask how this issue actually affects you life.  What can you do about it or to cope with it?

Delving into serious study helps you to develop your mental power.  However, we are still human brings inhabiting a physical world.  Purely intellectual work can be challenging and rewarding but can also take your attention away from vital daily needs.  Think about how you can apply what you are doing to everyday life.

Today the Talmud explains that even though we are concerned that unlearned Jews are not careful to keep all the intricate laws of ritual purity, we still accept their offerings at the Temple.  The Gemara asks why we do not accept Trumah (a tithe given to priests that is also required to be pure) from these men.  Our sages answer that while meticulous priests (Cohanim) would not accept them, priests from a similar background to the giver would as they were similarly less concerned with ensuring ritual purity.

However, for holy (kodesh) items brought the Temple, there was no alternative.  If a man prepared wine, oil, or fine flour for an offering and it was not accepted, this man may become disillusioned with the Temple service.  The Gemara warns that he may even build his own altar in his yard and pour libations outside the Temple, a grave transgression.

On Daf 24b, the last Tosafot on that page brings an additional reason for accepting offerings from such a man.  While not everyone was careful all the time with purity, everyone understood that items for the Temple required these stringencies.  Even the common man was afraid of contaminating sacrificial items and would be extremely careful.  If he intended to bring an offering, he would go to the trouble and be meticulous from the start.

This reminds us of the importance of including people in our mission when appropriate.  If you have a team or group you must work with, make sure everyone can pitch in and do something that will contribute to the goal.  People work harder and better when they are attached to the outcome and feel that their personal work is contributing to the success of the entire project.

When you are managing others, or parenting children, be cognizant than not everyone works to the same standards or at the same speed.  You must take into account that some individuals will be more careful at certain tasks and can be slow and less efficient in other areas.  The challenge of leadership is having everyone to contribute in his own way without interfering with anyone else.

We have just started the final chapter of Hagiga, which focuses on ritual purity.  Ancient Jews would purify themselves and their tools and vessels in preparation for ascending to Jerusalem to celebrate the festivals.  This was vital as impure items cannot be used in the sacrificial service and impure people cannot eat from the offerings, including the Hagiga itself.  Items used in the Temple are called kodesh meaning holy.

Today the Talmud notes that some people held themselves and their households to the higher standards of purity required for offerings all year round.  Even their regular food, hullin (see Daf 19), was prepared on the level of kodesh.

The Mishnah explaining the stringency of kodesh contains ten cases (some say it goes to 11).  Half of these apply only the actual kodesh, and the other half apply even to hullin being prepared to the standard of kodesh.

The Gemara explains that when there is a possible result of real biblical level contamination, then the stringency also applied to such hullin.  However, when the only danger was a rabbinical impurity, then the rule only applied to actual kodesh.

This is an important distinction to make when you decide for yourself when to play it safe.  When making choices, think about if there is a real danger to yourself or your mission.  If there is not, it should be easier to take some risks.

Being aware of what you stand to lose helps you to evaluate your life choices.  Use your rational powers to consider potential gains versus losses.  Many men play it safe their whole lives, when even if they had taken risks and lost, not much would have changed for them.

We are discussing laws of ritual purity, and the Talmud brings a case where a man who was being careful to keep himself and his clothing pure (so he could eat tithes or the like) dropped his scarf.  He then asked another man to pick it up.  Even though the scarf was in his view the whole time, it is now considered impure.

Naturally this sounds extreme, but the Gemara explains that it is based on human psychology.  A man knows he cannot control what is in the hands of someone else.  Since the other man may be impure or accidentally touch his scarf to something impure, he must assume it is no longer pure once it is under someone else’s control.

This is a tremendous lesson.  You cannot truly control other people, even those right in front of you.  This includes your spouse and family.  The best you can do is control how you act and react, and enforce your personal boundaries.

The Talmud cites another case of two women, both scrupulous to keep pure, who went to the mikvah at the same time, and when they came out they accidentally swapped clothing.  Rabbi Akiva ruled that both sets of clothes were now impure.

The Gemara explains that this is based on the fact that both women assumed that the other woman was married to a man who was not careful with ritual purity, and therefore was not careful to keep the clothing pure.  Again, once the garments were out of her personal control, each woman gave up on keeping them from contamination.

This also reminds us that women continually judge one another based on the status of the man each woman married.  This is not new.  Women have always compared the earnings, looks, or accomplishments of each other’s husbands.  This should be expected as the status of the woman is based on the status of the man she could attract.

A wise man realizes this fact and plans accordingly to ensure his status remains high in the eyes of his mate.  Sometimes a change in status (such as a man losing his job) causes his wife to reevaluate how she relates to him, and tempts her to leave the relationship in search of a higher status man.

The Talmud is explaining details of ritual purity, a topic that takes us through the conclusion of Hagiga.  If a person touches a source of impurity, such as certain dead animals, he is ritually contaminated and must immerse in a Mikvah, a special pool of collected rainwater, or in a natural body of water such as a spring or ocean.

The Mishnah on 18b ruled that a person must intend during this immersion for the level he wants to handle – a man who intended merely to handle tithes cannot touch sacrificial items which are a higher level, one who intended to touch even sacrificial items cannot then touch the ashes of a red heifer, which are held to an even higher standard.

Today the Gemara debates if any intention is required to handle regular non holy foods called “hullin”. The conclusion is that regular items don’t require specific intent.  Only a man who wants to deal with more important things needs to plan for that when he immerses in a Mikvah. 

This is an amazing lesson: if you go through life without thinking and crafting your intentions, you will always be dealing with the lowest level possible.  If you want to work with higher level tasks, you must make a plan to develop the skills and resources needed to succeed in advanced work.

To illustrate, a man cannot simply sit down and fly a jet plane.  The results will be tragic.  First he has to learn how airplanes work so he can understand intellectually how lift and drag affect the plane.  Then he needs to find an actual pilot to teach him in a small plane.  He must practice in a simulator and understand the controls.  After years of absorbing information and learning how to apply it he can confidently sit in the pilot’s seat and be trusted with the lives of the passengers.

Today, when we do not regularly deal with tithes and never with sacrificial items, the main application of this Daf is when a woman goes to the Mikvah after her period to return to intimate relations with her husband.  See Leviticus 15:18  “When she becomes clean of her discharge, she shall count off seven days, and after that she shall be clean”.

However, a woman’s husband is considered “hullin”, so a woman does not need any intent when she immerses to become purified for intimacy.  Even if her friend pushed her into a Mikvah, or she swam in the ocean, this may count as an immersion.  See Igrot Moshe, Even haEzer volume 4 teshuvah 23 for an amazing application of this law.

Even though a woman may not have had intention for anything special, a man can plan for a memorable rendezvous and elevate the physical act into a deeper connection.  People are more excited to be a part of encounters that are novel.

The Talmud is discussing the source for having make up days to bring the offerings of Shavuot, the festival of weeks.  That holiday is only one day, and not everyone can bring their personal offerings on one day.  As we mentioned yesterday, if Shavuot falls on the Sabbath, no one can bring private offerings so they were postponed to Sunday.

Reish Lakish suggests a scriptural source for the makeup day: “And the Festival of harvest” (Exodus 23:16), teaching that there is a day to both celebrate and harvest, on the make up days for Shavuot.  Rabbi Yohanon rebuts this since Sukkot is called “the Festival of gathering” in that verse, but there is not time during Sukkot when it is permitted to gather agricultural produce from the field.  Instead of make up days, the middle days of Sukkot and Pesah are called “hol hamoed”.  As we discussed in Moed Katan, these days have a blanket prohibition on agricultural work, with a few leniencies described by the sages.

The Talmud explains that since the sages proclaimed the new moon on the basis of witnesses (see our discussion on tractate Rosh Hashanah which explain that the sages had some leeway in certain cases) in reality it was the sages  that set the date of the holidays.  Since the Torah allows setting the date on which the holiday will fall, it also allows the sages to define the exceptions to the general prohibition of work on hol hamoed.

This is unlike the weekly Sabbath, which falls every Friday night regardless of the calendar date.  Likewise there are no exceptions for the Sabbath restrictions on productive work.

The concept here is the party that sets the time and place sets the rules.  This concept applies to sporting events where the home team has an advantage.  Setting a business meeting or negotiation on your terms – the time and place of your choosing – can give you a similar home court advantage.

When a man is trying to make an impression on someone, it is wise to plan ahead and pick a good time for you and a familiar venue.  Then be active in orchestrating the tone and progression of your encounter.  When you start off by setting the time and place, you should assume you are able to set the ground rules as well and should do so.

The Talmud, continuing the debate over “semicha”, explains that when the holiday of Shavuot is on Saturday, the Sabbath, we bring the required personal holiday offerings on Sunday instead.  However, we also allow eulogies and fasts on that day.  The high priest did not wear his garments or bring sacrifices that day.

These behaviors are contradictory, as the day a man brought sacrifices was something of a personal holiday even when this was not during a national holiday.  The high priest typically donned his holy garments and participated in the rituals during holidays.  So why allow fasting and eulogies?

This was needed to dispel the notion that certain heretical sects could be correct in their reading of the Torah.  You see, Shavuot is the only holiday without a set date in the calendar.  Instead, the Bible directs us to start counting seven weeks the day after the day of rest (Lev 23:15) and also notes that the holiday is seven weeks after the first harvest (Deut 16:9-10).

It could be understood that “the day after the day of rest” means we always start counting on a Sunday and therefore Shavuot always falls on a Sunday.  However, our sages learn from the context that the day of rest the verse refers to is actually the first day of Passover.  Some heretics tried to convince the nation that Shavuot must be Sunday, so even when Shavuot came out on Saturday and the sacrifices were deferred to Sunday, our sages enacted this mixed message to clarify that the heretics were wrong.

Men, particularly young men, often get mixed messages from women.  It can be tempting to analyze words and behaviors and look for signs of interest and weigh them against other indications of possible disinterest.  However, it is better to step back and realize that when someone sends you mixed messages, that in itself is the message.  If this person was really interested in you and motivated to pursue a relationship, then you would not feel confusion about her behaviors since she would make it perfectly clear.