not getting involved but you did mess up one gemara - BK 10b. there was clearly another person Papa bar Abba who was not Rav Papa who he was referring to (despite that he himself was in fact fat). Anyways...
Good catch. In my looking up the sources, I saw that but it messed with the structure of the post to differentiate between two Rav papas and I saw someone saying they're the same person so I just went with that shita
I've heard that pshat (actually in context of why it wasn't lashon hara) but being that there actually is a distinct papa bar abba who lived during rav papa's time it would be a massive dochek to say he was referring to himself as papa bar abba and not the person known by that name, which could at least be misconstrued to mean the other papa bar abba
If I were a demon I would not expect to find much joy in the shirttail of a tsedek. I would much prefer to reside near to the breast of a lactating mother.
Many commentaries do explain this all away as metaphor. This is pretty common when a non-religious irreverent text enters a religious canon. See the Song of Songs, an extremely romantic and sometimes sexual text that has been explained by Jewish commentators to be an allegory for God's love for Israel, and by Christians as Christ's relationship with the church
Interestingly the commentators over the years who spent time on these absurd passages instead of just going past them and seeing them for what they are, are likely doing what these Rabbis were doing themselves. Justifying the common youthful desire to engage in perverted Behavior by couching it as part of their judaic studies
I love these passages and don't see it as perverted. The idea that all sex and sexuality is taboo and perverted is a modern one, mostly influenced by Christianity. I don't think the ancient Rabbis, or really anyone in the ancient world, shared your sensitivities.
Rav Kahana was not upset because his student was trespassing I can assure you. Additionally these stories were not shared because of their Common Place nature. Halacha forbids these things long before medieval Christian sentiments took hold. Viewing naked women is forbidden, sex is certainly, even women's voices were at times. As was watching someone defecate i believe
Citations needed. I've never seen anywhere in the Talmud say that viewing a naked woman is forbidden. Discussions on looking at women, and on women's voices, are only discussed in the context of saying kriyas shema or other prayers in their presence. It does not have any blanket ban on looking at women. The same thing goes for women's voices.
Sex with a menstruating woman is forbidden in the Torah/talmud but citation needed forbidding all premarital sex.
אמר רב יהודה אמר רב מעשה באדם אחד שנתן עיניו באשה אחת והעלה לבו טינא ובאו ושאלו לרופאים ואמרו אין לו תקנה עד שתבעל אאמרו חכמים ימות ואל תבעל לו תעמוד לפניו ערומה ימות ואל תעמוד לפניו ערומה תספר עמו מאחורי הגדר ימות ולא תספר עמו מאחורי הגדר
סנהדרין עה
. אמר רב יהודה אמר רב: באותה שעה גזרו
על הייחוד, ועל הפנויה. יחוד? דאורייתא הוא! דאמר רבי יוחנן משום רבי שמעון בן יהוצדק: רמז לייחוד מן התורה מניין? שנאמר: ״כי יסיתך אחיך בן אמך״. וכי בן אם מסית, בן אב אינו מסית? אלא לומר לך: בן מתייחד עם אמו, ואין אחר מתייחד עם כל עריות שבתורה. אלא אימא: גזרו על ייחוד דפנויה
סנהדרין כא
if yichud is forbidden as a precaution to not have sex, it would seem that premarital sex is forbidden
Sanhedrin 21a has a bizarre and fascinating discussion about this. The Gemara starts with the following bizarre statement:
"Va'Yisna'eha" - (after he raped her,) why did he hate her? (R. Yitzchak): His Penis got caught on a (Pubic) hair, and it castrated him. She did not intend for this! Correction: She intentionally tied a hair to castrate him.
This is truly bizarre, the Gemara states that Amnon was castrated by Tamar's pubic hair. I am pretty sure that that is not physically possible to castrate someone with pubic hairs, certainly not, unintentionally. The Gemara continues:
Rava taught that "va'Yetzei Lach Shem ba'Goyim b'Yafyech" (Jewish women are know for their beauty) - Jewish women do not have hair in the underarms or pubic hair! Tamar was the daughter of a Yafes To'ar. (and therefore was not born Jewish)
We see that Chazal believed that
Jewish women did not have pubic hair but gentile women did
Not having pubic hair was considered to be beautiful
The Rishonim/Acharonim are bothered by a number of questions:
1. A Jewish girl becomes an adult when she turns 12 and has 2 pubic hairs. If Jewish women don't have pubic hair how does this work? How do we know if any Jewish girl is an adult?
I saw 3 answers:
They have only a little short hair
They have no hair but the holes from which the hair would grow are there and that is enough to make them an adult
They have pubic hair but they used to shave it (Maharsha)
Based on this, we can ask why don't they shave their pubic hair now? If Chazal said that it makes them beautiful why the change? Maybe I am missing something, maybe many frum women do shave their pubic hair?
2. The Gemara in Nazir says that it is an issur of lo yilbash if a man shaves his pubic hair because that is something that women do. However, if women had no pubic hair then why should it be prohibited for a man?
I saw 2 answers:
According to the Maharsha (Answer 3 above) there is no question as the women shaved their pubic hair.
Since having no pubic hair was considered beautiful for a women it is prohibited for a man.
The really obvious question is how could it be that Jewish women had no pubic hair and non-Jewish women did and of course nowadays even Jewish women have pubic hair? I saw one answer based on kabbala but nothing satisfying. Another instance of Chazal thinking that Jews were physically different then non-Jews (see for example Do gentiles have more teeth than Jews? Do they have less?).
I also wonder how Chazal actually could possibly have known this. When did they ever see a non-Jewish women naked or even a Jewish woman other then their wife naked? It is strictly prohibited to look at any part of a woman's body especially the pubic area. Is this another case where they simply speculated that something was true without actually checking it out
Your stories do not come directly from the Talmud but have been added to and exaggerated, for purposes of you getting more attention. A lay person would not be inspired to study Talmud due to these spicey tales and only as children do we sometimes seek the bits in the Torah as who had sex with whom and what was the details about it. A proper education about sex is more significant, but if you are under the bed where it occurs, all you can see is the bed springs and hear not observe properly what is happening, nor be able to comment on what apparently is not permitted.
While these stories are not word for word from the Talmud, I didn't change much. I put the source for every story with a link to Sefaria, so anyone who'd like can read them for themselves.
"A lay person would not be inspired to study Talmud due to these spicy tales"
1) there are a lot better stories than these three commonly cited low effort examples. Sorry.
2) These stories are awesome either way. They give Chazal personality. I heard a story about one of the RY of Lakewood whose chavrusa had to get medical treatments. The chavrusa said they would end learning mid sentence and pick up in the same sentence. Of course that is ridiculously artificial and not remotely how Chazal would do it. If Chazal had a chavrusa who had medical treatments,.there would be five pages of aggadata discussing the treatment, the time, the people met etc.
3) you still have an extremely yeshivish perspective of Chazal (and life) despite going otd.
(I'm not going to ask about AI editing though. Simon Furst gets too annoyed).
1) these are classics for a reason. What are your favorites though?
2) loll true
3) if you say so Ash.
About the AI, you can assume going forward that there is always an element of AI editing in my posts, whether you notice or not. I write the first drafts when I'm bored on the train home from work (this one was bored in the airport) and I don't have the interest in editing them into a more polished form myself, so I do use AI. I've been perfecting the prompt though so it keeps the original style as much as possible, based on your past criticism. So actually, if it sounds super AI I do appreciate the call outs when necessary. Anyway, let's stop talking about it so we don't annoy Simon ;)
This is one of the funniest things I've ever read. I've instantly subscribed
This is out of control and I love it
not getting involved but you did mess up one gemara - BK 10b. there was clearly another person Papa bar Abba who was not Rav Papa who he was referring to (despite that he himself was in fact fat). Anyways...
Good catch. In my looking up the sources, I saw that but it messed with the structure of the post to differentiate between two Rav papas and I saw someone saying they're the same person so I just went with that shita
I've heard that pshat (actually in context of why it wasn't lashon hara) but being that there actually is a distinct papa bar abba who lived during rav papa's time it would be a massive dochek to say he was referring to himself as papa bar abba and not the person known by that name, which could at least be misconstrued to mean the other papa bar abba
Hahaha this is great!
This reminds me, when we learnt the gemarah about demons everywhere, my hs rebbe explained this is why holy tzadikim have such worn out shirts.
He asked us,
All they do is sit and learn all day - how do their shirts get so worn out?
Answer - when learning, they are shukling which rubs their clothes against the demons causing wear and tear.
If I were a demon I would not expect to find much joy in the shirttail of a tsedek. I would much prefer to reside near to the breast of a lactating mother.
Here before this all gets explained away as brilliant metaphor
Many commentaries do explain this all away as metaphor. This is pretty common when a non-religious irreverent text enters a religious canon. See the Song of Songs, an extremely romantic and sometimes sexual text that has been explained by Jewish commentators to be an allegory for God's love for Israel, and by Christians as Christ's relationship with the church
Interestingly the commentators over the years who spent time on these absurd passages instead of just going past them and seeing them for what they are, are likely doing what these Rabbis were doing themselves. Justifying the common youthful desire to engage in perverted Behavior by couching it as part of their judaic studies
I love these passages and don't see it as perverted. The idea that all sex and sexuality is taboo and perverted is a modern one, mostly influenced by Christianity. I don't think the ancient Rabbis, or really anyone in the ancient world, shared your sensitivities.
Rav Kahana was not upset because his student was trespassing I can assure you. Additionally these stories were not shared because of their Common Place nature. Halacha forbids these things long before medieval Christian sentiments took hold. Viewing naked women is forbidden, sex is certainly, even women's voices were at times. As was watching someone defecate i believe
Citations needed. I've never seen anywhere in the Talmud say that viewing a naked woman is forbidden. Discussions on looking at women, and on women's voices, are only discussed in the context of saying kriyas shema or other prayers in their presence. It does not have any blanket ban on looking at women. The same thing goes for women's voices.
Sex with a menstruating woman is forbidden in the Torah/talmud but citation needed forbidding all premarital sex.
אמר רב יהודה אמר רב מעשה באדם אחד שנתן עיניו באשה אחת והעלה לבו טינא ובאו ושאלו לרופאים ואמרו אין לו תקנה עד שתבעל אאמרו חכמים ימות ואל תבעל לו תעמוד לפניו ערומה ימות ואל תעמוד לפניו ערומה תספר עמו מאחורי הגדר ימות ולא תספר עמו מאחורי הגדר
סנהדרין עה
. אמר רב יהודה אמר רב: באותה שעה גזרו
על הייחוד, ועל הפנויה. יחוד? דאורייתא הוא! דאמר רבי יוחנן משום רבי שמעון בן יהוצדק: רמז לייחוד מן התורה מניין? שנאמר: ״כי יסיתך אחיך בן אמך״. וכי בן אם מסית, בן אב אינו מסית? אלא לומר לך: בן מתייחד עם אמו, ואין אחר מתייחד עם כל עריות שבתורה. אלא אימא: גזרו על ייחוד דפנויה
סנהדרין כא
if yichud is forbidden as a precaution to not have sex, it would seem that premarital sex is forbidden
Here is a good one from https://ajewwithquestions.blogspot.com/2017/08/jewish-women-and-pubic-hair.html
Sanhedrin 21a has a bizarre and fascinating discussion about this. The Gemara starts with the following bizarre statement:
"Va'Yisna'eha" - (after he raped her,) why did he hate her? (R. Yitzchak): His Penis got caught on a (Pubic) hair, and it castrated him. She did not intend for this! Correction: She intentionally tied a hair to castrate him.
This is truly bizarre, the Gemara states that Amnon was castrated by Tamar's pubic hair. I am pretty sure that that is not physically possible to castrate someone with pubic hairs, certainly not, unintentionally. The Gemara continues:
Rava taught that "va'Yetzei Lach Shem ba'Goyim b'Yafyech" (Jewish women are know for their beauty) - Jewish women do not have hair in the underarms or pubic hair! Tamar was the daughter of a Yafes To'ar. (and therefore was not born Jewish)
We see that Chazal believed that
Jewish women did not have pubic hair but gentile women did
Not having pubic hair was considered to be beautiful
The Rishonim/Acharonim are bothered by a number of questions:
1. A Jewish girl becomes an adult when she turns 12 and has 2 pubic hairs. If Jewish women don't have pubic hair how does this work? How do we know if any Jewish girl is an adult?
I saw 3 answers:
They have only a little short hair
They have no hair but the holes from which the hair would grow are there and that is enough to make them an adult
They have pubic hair but they used to shave it (Maharsha)
Based on this, we can ask why don't they shave their pubic hair now? If Chazal said that it makes them beautiful why the change? Maybe I am missing something, maybe many frum women do shave their pubic hair?
2. The Gemara in Nazir says that it is an issur of lo yilbash if a man shaves his pubic hair because that is something that women do. However, if women had no pubic hair then why should it be prohibited for a man?
I saw 2 answers:
According to the Maharsha (Answer 3 above) there is no question as the women shaved their pubic hair.
Since having no pubic hair was considered beautiful for a women it is prohibited for a man.
The really obvious question is how could it be that Jewish women had no pubic hair and non-Jewish women did and of course nowadays even Jewish women have pubic hair? I saw one answer based on kabbala but nothing satisfying. Another instance of Chazal thinking that Jews were physically different then non-Jews (see for example Do gentiles have more teeth than Jews? Do they have less?).
I also wonder how Chazal actually could possibly have known this. When did they ever see a non-Jewish women naked or even a Jewish woman other then their wife naked? It is strictly prohibited to look at any part of a woman's body especially the pubic area. Is this another case where they simply speculated that something was true without actually checking it out
Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbi out of my hat!
Bullwinkle, that trick never works!
Your stories do not come directly from the Talmud but have been added to and exaggerated, for purposes of you getting more attention. A lay person would not be inspired to study Talmud due to these spicey tales and only as children do we sometimes seek the bits in the Torah as who had sex with whom and what was the details about it. A proper education about sex is more significant, but if you are under the bed where it occurs, all you can see is the bed springs and hear not observe properly what is happening, nor be able to comment on what apparently is not permitted.
While these stories are not word for word from the Talmud, I didn't change much. I put the source for every story with a link to Sefaria, so anyone who'd like can read them for themselves.
"A lay person would not be inspired to study Talmud due to these spicy tales"
I mean, I think it depends on the lay person
Lololol. I like the irreverence mixed with the seriousness (but I can't imagine our more fundementalist friends will notice that part)
1) there are a lot better stories than these three commonly cited low effort examples. Sorry.
2) These stories are awesome either way. They give Chazal personality. I heard a story about one of the RY of Lakewood whose chavrusa had to get medical treatments. The chavrusa said they would end learning mid sentence and pick up in the same sentence. Of course that is ridiculously artificial and not remotely how Chazal would do it. If Chazal had a chavrusa who had medical treatments,.there would be five pages of aggadata discussing the treatment, the time, the people met etc.
3) you still have an extremely yeshivish perspective of Chazal (and life) despite going otd.
(I'm not going to ask about AI editing though. Simon Furst gets too annoyed).
1) these are classics for a reason. What are your favorites though?
2) loll true
3) if you say so Ash.
About the AI, you can assume going forward that there is always an element of AI editing in my posts, whether you notice or not. I write the first drafts when I'm bored on the train home from work (this one was bored in the airport) and I don't have the interest in editing them into a more polished form myself, so I do use AI. I've been perfecting the prompt though so it keeps the original style as much as possible, based on your past criticism. So actually, if it sounds super AI I do appreciate the call outs when necessary. Anyway, let's stop talking about it so we don't annoy Simon ;)
Thanks!! 😁
Thanks!! 😁
Your comment was written by GPT
https://youtu.be/VVFowwrjJo4?si=CILbxyXjOT5zNEvV