One of my favorite movies is Monty Python’s Life of Brian. I have seen it dozens of times. My wife won’t watch it with me because I yell the lines out just before the characters do and it drives her crazy. If you have not seen it, stop, go watch it and then return to this post! Life of Brian takes place in Israel occupied by the Romans during the life of Jesus. Talmudic scholarship gets skewered. When Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers”, people at the back of the crowd in the speech hear “Blessed are the cheese makers”. Scholars at the back of the crowd begin to debate the statement and one says that Jesus does not mean cheese maker specifically, but all dairy workers in general!

Throughout the movie there is a tension between the Jews and their occupiers, the Romans. The Romans first started meddling in Israel around 63 BCE. Roman direct control of Israel extended from 6 CE to around 640 CE when the Muslims conquered Israel (I count Byzantine control of Israel as Roman occupation). The Romans are mentioned in the Talmud (usually euphemistically) several times throughout the Talmud. The Rabbis could not ignore their various overlords and how Jews should relate to them, so we get discussions of Persians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, etc. In general, the Romans are hated more than the others. Today’s Daf refers to the Romans as “the wicked empire”. When I read that, my mind immediately returned to my 12-year old self laughing hysterically at Life of Brian!

Our Daf finds us in the middle of the discourse about the Eighteen Enactments. Today we do not discuss any of the particular enactments, instead we discuss Hillel and Shammai. Hillel and Shammai headed two great academies during the late Second Temple period (just as the Romans were exerting their control over Israel). Throughout the Talmud, Hillel generally took a more lenient view of rules and Shammai took a more strict view. Frequently the law follows Hillel’s interpretation. The Eighteen Enactments are different. In these cases, we follow the rulings of the House of Shammai.

Today, we start with a view of the relationship between Hillel and Shammai. Rav Huma tells us that Hillel and Shammai only argued in three places. We then learn of these disputes: (i) how much flour must be in dough before we are obligated to separate a portion for the priests; (ii) how much drawn water can be added to the naturally collected water of a Mikveh before it is disqualified for religious use; and (iii) how retroactive is a finding that a woman is menstruating for purposes of determining what she touches is made impure. I have noted several times that Hillel usually had the more lenient rule. In these three cases, we find that Hillel was stricter than Shammai in each of these cases. No explanation is given, but to me, this makes Hillel and Shammai portrayed in the Talmud as more true-to-life, not archetypes. In cases (i) and (iii) the Rabbis decided to basically split the difference between Hillel and Shammai.

Case (ii) above was different. The Rabbis of Babylonia (remember, we are reading the Babylonian Talmud) could not resolve the dispute. Finally, two weavers who lived near the Dung Gate in Jerusalem came and reported how the Rabbis in Israel ruled. Upon hearing the ruling, the Sages of Babylonia adopted it. Another section of the Talmud indicates that weaver is a low-status profession. The Dung Gate was on the South side of the ancient city and, not surprisingly, is where refuse was hauled out of the city. Equally not surprising, living near the Dung Gate indicated a low socio-economic status. Early commentators believe that this story teaches us that no one is exempt from attending the house of study. I don’t know why these commentators did not draw the far more democratic moral that all people should be treated with equal respect.

After discussing these three disputes, the Talmud wonders why these three are special. Hillel and Shammai had lots of disputes. Why did we just say they only had three disputes? We learn of some other disputes not included in the three. However, the Talmud distinguishes the three disputes from the other disputes. In the disputes not included in the three, Hillel and Shammai defended positions that had been subject to previous argument. The three disputes originated between Hillel and Shammai.

The Daf now shifts gears. Yesterday, we learned that all lands outside Israel are Tumah. This ruling arose in relation to the Romans and here is where we get the description of the Romans that reminded me of The Life of Brian. We spend a large portion of today trying to understand why the same ruling was made three different times. We ultimately decide that each time the ruling was made, we modified it. First, we declared lands of the idolaters to be Tumah. Then we said airspace in the lands of the idolaters was Tumah. Finally, we determined that a clod of earth from outside Israel that comes into contact with Terumah requires us to burn the Terumah not just suspend it. Terumah that we know is impure must be burned. If we are unsure, then the Terumah is “suspended”. It can’t be eaten, but it can’t be burnt. It just rots. In the case of a clod of earth from the idolaters, we don’t really know if it came into contact with human remains, so we don’t really know if it transmitted impurity to the Terumah. However, we go ahead and burn it. That is how much we distrust idolaters!

Discussion of how a clod of earth from idolaters requires us to burn Terumah leads to a listing of six cases where we have to burn Terumah in cases of doubtful purity. My favorite of the six – we presume that the garments of an Am Haaretz (an unlearned Jew (literally, a person of the land)) immediately require us to burn Terumah that such garments touch. Apparently, the Sages learned nothing from the parable about the weavers from the Dung Gate. The Sages are concerned that an Am Haaretz may let his menstruating wife sit on his clothes (not sure I get this concern). Because of this likelihood (?), the Rabbis decreed if an Am Haaretz‘ clothes came into contact with Terumah, we need to immediately burn it.

Yesterday, we discussed that the Daf ended with a list of rulings that were separate from the Eighteen Enactments. The first was the ruling about the lands of the idolaters. We now turn to the second ruling, which is glassware can be susceptible to Tumah. The Bible makes earthenware and metalware subject to Tumah, but never mentions glassware. The Rabbis decree that glassware can be subject to Tumah. However, the rules of Tumah of articles and how we cure it depend on the material of which they are made, their function and their shape. Since glass is made of sand, maybe we should just consider it earthenware. That would be easy, but not very exciting. Instead, we look at a previous ruling that glassware, unlike earthenware (but like metalware) can be cleansed by immersion in a Mikveh. One theory – we are talking about a glass container that gets a hole and is then plugged with lead – making it metalware!