The Talmud brings a case where a student was walking on Shabbat and, engrossed in his learning, wandered out of his techum, his boundary.  When he realized where he was, he was stuck since now he was outside his allowed bounds and could not walk back.  The men who noticed him went to his rabbi, who advised them to make a wall out of men (who could walk to where the student was) and surround him so he would be in an enclosure.  Then he could walk back, since there is an allowance to walk within a closed off area even outside your original techum.

This hints to an amazing concept.  In the modern world so many men get stuck in some aspects of their life.  Other men who are able to move through those difficulties are needed to go out to them and get them unstuck.  But you need men who have had actual life experience, who can go to him where he is stuck since they have been there.  Many times we are taking advise from men who have not actually been in the trenches.  We do need to vet the sources we are relying on.

The main cure for the stuck man is to change his perspective.  He can feel alone and overwhelmed by the open land all around, surrounding him with men to show him the way back helps him get moving.  The men who have had similar experiences in life can inform him of effective actions he can take, and give him direction.  But he has to start moving for himself to get back to reality.

In some areas of your life you may be stuck and waiting for help, in other areas you man be the man who can help other men see their options and get moving.  Do what you can to help, and look for appropriate sources of advise and wisdom to improve your own life.

The Talmud seeks to determine if the Sabbath limits on travel (techumin) extend up in the air, or are only relevant near the ground.  As a potential proof for this, the Gemara brings an episode where seven teachings that were said on a Shabbat morning before Rav Ḥisda in Sura were repeated toward the end of that same Shabbat before Rava in Pumbedita, despite the fact that the distance between them is too great for someone to have traversed it on Shabbat.  The Gemara suggests that Elijah the prophet brought these teachings by flying through the air.  Recall that Elijah did not die, but rose into heaven on a fiery chariot, II King 2.  Elijah shows up in a number of episodes in the Talmud, and is assumed to be able to travel supernaturally.  However, the ultimate return of Elijah will herald the coming of the Messiah.

Today the Talmud mentions about that coming: It has already been promised to the Jewish people that Elijah will not come either on the eve of Shabbat or on the eve of a Festival, due to the trouble (the people will go out to greet him and not be able to complete all their preparations for the sacred day).  At first glance this sounds bizarre.  Elijah will be coming to inform all humanity of a new age of goodness and salvation.  But peeling the potatoes is more important?

One answer we can suggest is that when people are so busy in their day to day struggles, they don’t have the headspace to realize that something big is going on.  Rather than have people struggling to comprehend redemption and salvation while they have their bread burning in the oven, Elijah would prefer to get our undivided attention another day.  This same logic is even more needed today.  We are constantly bombarded with notifications, messages, reminders, news and fake news.  When we need to take action on something important and make a real decision, it becomes a chore to filter out all the background noise.  Elijah reminds us to focus on what is truly important.
Another factor at play is that some men are so wrapped up in their situation that they wouldn’t even want to be saved.  They may not be doing great, but they are used to life as it is.  Men can get used to pretty much anything, even some seriously nasty relationships.  It is a familiar, comfortable misery that so many men today inhabit.   Telling a man you have an important message that will change his life may not even be appealing to him.  You can’t save men who don’t want to be saved.

A man must remain within a certain place on the Sabbath.  We have been learning the laws of making an Eruv Techumin to move that default place to allow travelling to somewhere else.  Today the Talmud discusses what happens if a man is forcibly or accidently removed from his default location and brought back.

This reminds us that most men live within their default framework of life, they work, eat, exercise and socialize at the same places with the same people.  They will keep the same basic pattern of life unless there is a shock to their system.  Then, maybe, their perspective will shift.  The question is, when that initial shock is gone, will the shift in perspective remain or will the man simply return to his original outlook on life?

That, friends, is up to you.

Today is Rosh Hashanah, so I had to add this post after the holiday.  Happy New Year.

The Mishnah discusses a case where a man was forcibly removed from his “techum”, his area of dwelling on Shabbat.  The Talmud lists forces that drive a man to violate his own will, and brings another classic list of adversities:

Three classes of people do not see the face of Gehinnom (hell), because their suffering in this world atones for their sins, and they are:  Those suffering the deprivations of extreme poverty, those afflicted with intestinal disease, and those oppressed by creditors or the government.
And some say: Even one who has an evil wife.
The Gemara asks: And why don’t the other Sages include one with an evil wife among those who will not be punished in Gehinnom?  They maintain that it is a mitzvah (commandment) to divorce an evil wife.

And why do the other Sages include an evil wife? The Gemara answers: Sometimes payment of her marriage contract is very large, and consequently he cannot divorce her since he cannot afford to pay it. Alternatively, he has children from her, and he cannot raise them himself, and therefore he cannot divorce her.

When we study the volume of the Talmud about divorce we will, God willing, glean a lot of practical wisdom.  Here we see one crucial element: even though conventional Judaism places a very high value on marriage, sometimes a man has to end it.  Divorce may even be, in some cases, fulfilling a positive Divine commandment.

However, a man who is by his circumstances trapped in a difficult marriage does have hope.  The Gemara advises these men who “do not see hell” since they have already had hell on earth to accept and come to terms with their situation.  This sounds bizarre, but is actually practical advice.

First this husband must accept that the situation is bad enough that if he could he would divorce her.  He cannot lie to himself that she is just in a bad mood, he has to face the reality of his current problem.  Then, since he cannot be rid of her entirely, he must do what he can.  In his mind he can begin to separate himself from the trouble she gives him.

He needs to start weaning himself off of relying on her emotionally, financially, and physically.  He can start working on his economic situation, with the goal to eventually be able to buy her out.  He improves his parenting or child care situation to get to the point where he doesn’t need her there to raise the small children (Jewish law presumes custody should go to the father).

Most of all, he can work on growing his emotional independence so her nagging and evil doesn’t bother him so much.  When he has other sources of self esteem and companionship in his life, her antics are less damaging to him.  By treating her in some respects as if they were already divorced, the man reduces the hellish suffering from the evil wife.  She may, if she is not truly crazy, realize his change in attitude and decide to come around, saving the marriage.

Today is the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the new year.  In an amazing display of hashgacha (Divine supervision over the world) the Talmud today discusses Rosh Hashanah.  Keep in mind we learn the Talmud one page a day in a cycle which takes over seven years.  With 2,711 pages in the Talmud, it is truly amazing that the topic of Rosh Hashanah should be learned on Rosh Hashanah.  We even have a discussion of Rosh Hashanah falling on Shabbat, as we God willing experience tonight.

The Gemara mentions a case of turnips brought into Mechoza (in Bavel) on a holiday.  Since they had withered, Rava allowed Jews to buy them, since they had not been picked and brought in with Jewish buyers in mind.  When the merchants saw the Jews were buying, they brought more, and Rava forbid the Jews from buying the turnips, since they had been picked with Jews in mind.

In a free market, increased demand fuels supply, our sages were well aware of economic reality.  The deeper message is to be aware of when other people are doing something for your benefit, they may be trying to create a relationship or curry favor.  And more importantly, realize when you are doing something for another person and are trying to get something in exchange or to build a relationship.  Doing for others with an expectation of getting back is a covert contract.

The Talmud discusses saying the special blessing of “He who sustained us to this time” on Rosh Hashanah.  Keep in mind Rosh Hashanah is not merely the new year, it is the day of judgment for all creations.  Why would we thank God for sustaining us and bringing us to the day of judgment, when we are in peril of being sentenced to death?

The fact that we are here to be judged is itself something to give thanks for.  If God didn’t care about us there would be no need to judge, as we have explained regarding the punishments that befell the Jews through history.  Your actions and choices are important, they matter in this world.  Rosh Hashanah is a great time to reflect on what you have done so far and where to go from here.

Ketiva vHatima Tovah leHaim Tovim ulShalom

Today the Talmud mentions that it is forbidden for a man to go out to his fields on Shabbat to see what work is needed, and wait there for Shabbat to end.  Likewise it is forbidden to go to wait by the bathhouse for the end of Shabbat to bathe in hot water.  This is because people will see you preparing on the holy day of rest for activities that cannot be done on Shabbat, which itself is problematic.

However, merely walking to a point near the limit (techum) in order to establish his Eruv techumin for the next day was allowed, since it is not apparent that he is doing any preparation for the next day.  This tactic could be used to form a new Eruv techumin when a holiday follows the Sabbath.  So while technically you are preparing for the next day, it doesn’t look like you are doing anything other than walking by.

The lesson is that other people will make assumptions about what you are up to based on where you are going.  If you go somewhere specific with a goal in mind it is obvious.   Imagine a man interested in a certain young women, and he goes to her workplace during lunch break with some flowers.  Cute, sure.  But it is so obvious that he is fixated on her.  Not a good move.  If the man happens to meet her on the street, and he is already on his way somewhere else but has just 20 minutes to chat then it turns out much differently.  She cannot make assumptions about his motivation for being there and has to invest to determine his intentions.

Rabbi Meir allows a man to verbally designate tithes and leave them in the bottle (ideally they should be physically separated, here he has no other containers).  Then he can drink the wine, and leave over the tithes at the bottom of the bottle.

The other sages challenge rabbi Meir, arguing that not only must the tithes be physically separate, but if the bottle breaks then the tithes never get separated and the man was drinking unfixed wine, a serious transgression.  Rabbi Meir answers When it will break we can worry about it.

This is a fundamental argument in how to live your life.  Some people worry about every thing that could go badly. They can develop anxiety about starting new activities and approaching novel situations.

Rabbi Meir advises a man to go ahead with life, and when something goes wrong deal with it then.  Obviously he isn’t flippant about danger, the bible tells us not to out ourselves into danger.  Rabbi Meir teaches us to live with the inherent risks of taking action without suffering anxiety.  Go ahead and approach, knowing there is a risk, and keep going anyway.

Our sages mention that produce bought from a Cuti must be tithed.  Separating tithes was normally done when produce was ready, before it was sold, but the Cutim did not take the tithes before selling.  The Cutim were a foreign people brought into Israel by Sancherrib to replace the Jews the Assyrians had exiled, they are often identified with the Samaritans.  When they settled in Israel they were attacked by wild animals until they converted to Judaism.  However, they accepted only the written law, not the oral law that explains it, so their observance was lacking in many areas.  Eventually it was discovered that many of them kept idols secretly, and they were no longer considered to be valid converts at all.  This is why there is a moniker “good Samaritan” since most of them were no good.

Now tithes are required by the Bible, and failing to separate tithes is stealing from the priests and Levites, stealing is also in the written law.  Since most Jews took the tithes, and the Cutim knew this, they should have taken tithes.  They justified selling untithed produce even though this would be a violation of “do not place a stumbling block before the blind” (Leviticus 19:14).  The Cutim twisted that verse into meaning that the only problem is actually placing something in front of a literally blind man (see Tosafot).  Obviously, the intent of the verse is to prohibit metaphorically stumbling blocks as well, since the end of the verse is “but you shall fear your God…”  A man literally making blind men fall would not fear God, he would fear getting beaten by other men for his obvious treachery.  Only the man metaphorically causing others to stumble through bad advice or trickery need to fear from God alone.  These Cutim had elaborate justifications to misread the written law and allow crooked business dealings.

When someone wants to take advantage of someone else, they will rely on emotional and intellectual contortions to prove to themselves that they are correct to do so.  People don’t go around feeling that they are bad and are taking advantage of others.  They think they are good and that either they have no obligation to the other people or that the other side had it coming anyway.  This is not only in business but also in relationships.  A woman can think she is entitled to your time, affection, and support since she feels you owe it to her.  At the same time she can believe she has no obligation to you unless she feels like it.  People can justify mistreating their partners by telling themselves lies and exaggerations about the other.

Be aware of the mental gymnastics other people are engaging in to make themselves feel good about their choices.  They pretend you’re a bad person so they don’t feel guilty for the bad things they did to you.  Don’t believe their justifications, but be aware that sometimes you will need to be the “bad guy” in her life story in order to be the hero in your own.

The concept of Eruv techumin is that you can re-center yourself to extend your Sabbath boundaries in one direction, so you can go outside your normal limits.

but by doing so you lose access to the other directions.  This is a life lesson: when we decide on one thing we automatically exclude others.  The obvious example is choosing just one woman in your life; even simple things like picking where to go out to lunch illustrate the idea.  When you are a young man you may assume you can be flippant in decisions as you will have more time to try the other options later.  This doesn’t always work out, picking one now can exclude many options later.  A wiser, more mature man, is deliberate with his life choices.

One of the possibilities of Eruv techum is to enable you to leave your town to go learn wisdom with a sage who is staying outside the town.  The Gemara mentions that you would go in the direction of your personal rabbi, or an experienced teacher to learn, not necessarily to “Makre Shema”.  A Makre Shema is the man who teaches young boys how to pray, to recite the Shema, the basic credo of Judaism.  He has an apparently simple job but he too is called a sage.  This shows the importance of the basic concepts, of knowing how to pray and to whom you are praying.

The Talmud also mentions that sometimes a man chooses to make his Eruv to visit with a friend rather than his teacher.  Often we end up learning even more from friends than a formal teacher, due to the difference in relationship and structure.

The Talmud examines if a locked chest is considered a utensil or a structure, and notes that if a zav (a man who had an abnormal emission) moved such an item directly, it becomes ritually contaminated. If the zav jumped causing this item to move indirectly then our sages argue over if it was contaminated, since it was not a direct application of his force.

The concept here is that when you put your effort into your mission be purposeful and direct. Sure, you may be able to get things done passively or indirectly, but this is not the same level as a direct application of your personal force on the task. It doesn’t give the same sense of accomplishment. Be aware of what you need to do and how to go about it.