Bava Metzia 29
My Jewish Learning
by aseitz
6h ago
My mother was a librarian who referred to the sin of dog-earing pages in the same tone others use when discussing murder. She would have loved the mishnah on today’s daf that begins with directions on proper care of books:  If one found books, one reads them once in 30 days. And if one does not know how to read, one rolls and unrolls them. But one should not study passages in them for the first time and another person should not read it with them. This mishnah dates to a period before the codex — meaning books with pages that turn — became widely popular. In this period, the Hebrew word s ..read more
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Easy Spinach and Feta Noodle Kugel Recipe
My Jewish Learning
by Rachel Myerson
2d ago
Of all the kugels out there — from potato and sweet potato to broccoli, and even cauliflower — noodle kugel is by far my favorite. Whether it’s studded with raisins and cinnamon, flavoured with cranberries and apples, or topped with cornflakes (if you’re not convinced, read this strong case for why your noodle kugel needs crunch). I’ve always thought of noodle (aka lokshen) kugel as a sweet dish, but it turns out that noodle kugel has a long and complex history dating back to the 1500s. While a sweeter version of the dish prevailed in Jewish communities in Poland and Hungary, thanks to Polish ..read more
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Bava Metzia 26
My Jewish Learning
by aseitz
3d ago
The mishnah at the top of today’s daf tells us what to do with items found in a wall. Commentaries explain that what the rabbis mean are items that are placed in niches or, in an era that predates sheetrock, crammed into indentations and cracks. (Today, it is common Jewish practice to place written prayers into the cracks of the Western Wall in Jerusalem — though these are not meant to be retrieved by their owners.) The mishnah declares that items found in a new wall from the midpoint to the exterior belong to the finder, while items from the middle inward belong to the homeowner. The Gem ..read more
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The Jewish History of Snapple
My Jewish Learning
by Rachel Myerson
3d ago
Jews’ love affair with seltzer is well-documented, as are their contributions to the soda industry, but their roles as titans of tea is less well-known.   The OGs of the Jewish tea scene include Samuel Zechnowitz, who started the Swee-Touch-Nee company in 1880. “Swee-Touch-Nee” is a rough transliteration of the Russian “tsvetochnyy chay” (flowery tea) and the original packaging included the name written in Cyrillic. A few years later, Zechnowitz emigrated from Russia to New York City, where he opened a tea store in the Lower East Side. The small shop eventually grew into The Consolid ..read more
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Bava Metzia 25
My Jewish Learning
by aseitz
6d ago
By Rabbi Elliot Goldberg The mishnah’s list of found items that a person must announce so that the owner has a chance to reclaim them includes three coins stacked on top of one another — presumably because this stacking looks intentional. Rabbi Yitzhak of Migdal explains further:  One is obligated to proclaim the find in a case where the coins are arranged in towers.  What does it mean to stack coins like a tower? According to Rashi, this means that the widest coin is at the bottom and the rest of the coins are stacked in size order with the smallest on top. We do not know much about ..read more
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Bava Metzia 24
My Jewish Learning
by aseitz
1w ago
Yesterday’s daf offered us a definition of the concept of ye’ush (despair), the standard that determines whether or not a lost object can be claimed by the person who finds it.  Rav Zevid said in the name of Rava: This is the principle of a lost item: Once (the owner) says: “Woe is me for the monetary loss,” he has despaired of it. But how quickly after a loss does that despair kick in? That depends on how valuable the item is and how likely it is that someone might find it and return it to the original owner. The more valuable, and the more likely an object is to be returned, the longer ..read more
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Bava Metzia 23
My Jewish Learning
by aseitz
1w ago
Honesty is the best policy, right? On today’s daf we get a fascinating statement that complicates this adage.   The Talmud is trying to determine whether a rabbi who finds an item with no distinguishing mark and says it is his should be believed. To some extent, it depends on the rabbi’s character and whether he is known to be trustworthy. But everybody lies a little, so what kinds of lies make a rabbi a liar, and what kinds of lies are normal and do not speak to a broader character issue? Rav Yehuda says that Shmuel says: With regard to these three matters, it is normal for rabbis t ..read more
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Bava Metzia 22
My Jewish Learning
by aseitz
1w ago
Say you find a cheap black umbrella on a subway. It’s likely the owner has abandoned all hope of recovering it, as it is not worth the effort to find it and even if it were, there’s no marking that could identify the owner. Such an umbrella thus becomes ownerless and can be kept if it’s found.  The rabbinic term for an owner who has lost hope of recovering their lost object is yeush, or literally “despair.” But when exactly does the moment of despair begin? Is it when the object is lost, since we presume the owner will relinquish ownership as soon as they notice they have lost their umbre ..read more
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Responding to Hatred, On Purim and Today
My Jewish Learning
by Ben Harris
1w ago
The Jews are different. The Jews don’t follow the laws of the land. The Jews should be eliminated.  This formula, with only minor variation, could describe the situation of Jews in ancient Persia, whose deliverance we celebrate this weekend on Purim. But it arguably also describes the plight of the Israelites in Egypt, the long history of the “Jewish question” in medieval and modern Europe, or even some of the events of the last few months.  This troubling phenomenon has been much discussed and studied. An entire subfield is now dedicated to understanding the nature and causes of ant ..read more
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Bava Metzia 21
My Jewish Learning
by aseitz
1w ago
On today’s daf, we start chapter two of Bava Metzia with a mishnah that lists items that, if you find, you get to keep:  Scattered produce, scattered coins, bundles (of grain) in a public area, round cakes of figs, baker’s loaves, strings of fish, cuts of meat, wool fleeces that are taken from their state (of origin directly after shearing), flax stalks, or strips of purple wool. What is common to this list of items that makes it permissible for someone who finds them to claim them as their own? All of them are devoid of distinguishing marks that would enable their owners to claim them. A ..read more
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