I love reading history. About 90% of my reading is history from all periods and all areas of the world. My degree as an undergraduate was in Chinese History. If I mention this fact, I am often asked why did I study Chinese History. Over the decades my response has evolved to, “What should I have studied?” That response usually evokes a laugh and terminates the discussion. I study history because we too often take our world as a given. We don’t understand, without history, that our world developed as a result of concrete events in the past when alternate courses were always possible. America’s dominance in the 20th Century did not just happen – a series of events over a long period of time resulted in America finding itself astride the world economically, militarily, and, at least for a large part of the world, ideologically. I love learning what Greil Marcus called the “lipstick traces” that connect our world with our past, even the ancient past.

Our Rabbis had their own reasons for studying history. By the time the Talmud was redacted, the Temple had been destroyed for hundreds of years and as of now it has been absent for over two millennia. Yet, the Rabbis studied the intricacies of the Temple service and observant Jews continue to study these intricacies. Of course, ultimately the Rabbis then and observant Jews now believe that the Temple will be restored. We need to understand how to continue the service for that eventuality. However, if you believe in a miraculous time to come when the Temple will be restored (and for clarity, I do not), then you also believe that God will answer all outstanding theological questions and debates. The Rabbis studied the Temple service because they believed if they understood the details, even though the Temple was not physically there, it was as if the Temple were built in their days. Understanding the Temple service is thus an important connection to a glorious past, a golden age, that we hope will be restored.

My thoughts on the purpose of history comes because two Medieval commentators on today’s Daf ask why we study the Temple service. Before we get there, however, we need to finish our discussion from yesterday. Yesterday’s Daf ended with the story of a pious man who is travelling and stops to pray on the road. He is approached by a general and greeted, but the man finishes his prayers before he returns the greeting. The general tells him that he should have interrupted his prayers to greet the general because the general could have killed him for his insolence and that the man has a duty to preserve his soul. The pious man responds at the beginning of today’s Daf. The pious man tells the general that if he was in the presence of a mighty king and the general’s friend interrupted him, he would ignore the friend. The pious man was in the presence of the King of Kings and so he ignored the general until he was no longer in front of God. The General lets the pious man go in peace.

The Talmud has a lot of problems with this parable. The sages commend the pious man for his piety. However, the general was right that he should not have placed himself at risk for the sake of the prayer. This concern carries over into the next part of yesterday’s Mishnah about not moving during prayer, even if a snake is coiled around our ankles. The Gemara has deep reservations about this statement. First, the Rabbis want to know if this rule only applies to snakes, or does it apply also to other dangerous animals (snakes, bulls, lions, etc.). (An interesting side note, Rabbi Meir apparently believes only black bulls in one particular Hebrew month are dangerous enough to justify interrupting prayer. This sounds like a Progressive commercial to me!) The Gemara remains deeply ambivalent about this discussion. The discussion ends with another parable about Rabi Chanina ben Dosa who confronted a mythical beast called an arod. The arod was some kind of weird cross between a snake and a toad. Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa was shown the burrow of an arod. He then covered the burrow with his heel. The arod bit Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, but the arod died, not Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. He brought the carcass to the study hall and tells his students, “See, my children, it is not the arod that kills but rather the sin that kills.”

In this view, the arod was simply God’s instrument to punish someone who deserves punishment because of sins. Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa knew he was innocent and he was safe. He therefore tells his pupils to focus on the sins, not on the instrument of their punishment. The Talmud is ambivalent about this advice because the Rabbis believe we should never intentionally put ourselves in danger and rely on a miracle. In the end, the commentators excuse Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa because of his exceptional piety.

We then get a new Mishnah. The Mishnah notes that in the rainy season (in Israel) we inert in the second blessing of the Shemoneh Esrei (the blessing for the resurrection of the dead) and the ninth blessing (the blessing of the years) phrases about rain. The Mishnah then records a dispute with three different opinions about where at the end of the Sabbath (Saturday evening Maariv) do we insert the Havdalah prayer. The Havdalah prayer thanks God for our ability to discern the difference between the sacred and the profane, the Sabbath and the ordinary days. The Rabbis think we should add the Havdalah prayer to the fourth prayer of Shemoneh Esrei. Rabbi Akiva thinks Havdalah should be a separate blessing. Rabbi Elizer thinks we should add Havdalah to the Thanksgiving blessing (the second-to-last blessing). To understand the Gemara’s discussion of this Mishnah, remember that we add the Havdalah blessing into the Shemoneh Esrei, but we also recite it over a cup of wine to officially mark the end of the Sabbath.

The Gemara starts with the question of why we add the phrase about the powers of rain in the blessing for the ressurection of the dead. We learn that rain is tantamount to resurrection of the dead because rain sustains human life by causing produce to grow. The request for rain belongs in the blessing of the years because we ask for sustenance in the year to come and rain brings sustenance. Two reasons exist for making the Havdalah prayer part of the fourth blessing of the Shemoneh Esrei on Saturday evening. The fourth blessing ends, “gracious giver of wisdom”. The foundation of wisdom is the ability to discern, therefore the Havdalah blessing belongs there. Also, the fourth blessing is omitted on the actual Sabbath. When we first recite it on Saturday night, we mark the beginning of a new week. We should therefore include Havdalah, which speaks of dividing the Sabbath from the week, here.

The Gemara then heads off on a tangent about discernment and wisdom. The Gemara considers I Samuel 2:3 (“Talk no more with lofty pride, Let no arrogance cross your lips! For the Lord is an all-knowing God; by Him actions are measured.”). The word translated as “all-knowing” here is “Dayot” and it appears between two different names for God, one indicating God’s quality of justice and one indicating God’s quality of mercy. “Dayot” is wisdom and its placement indicates that God balances justice and mercy in God’s wisdom. If God only had mercy, then the wicked would never be punished. If there were only justice, none of us could survive as none of us is without sin.

The Gemara next considers Exodus 15:17 (“You will bring them and plant them in Your own mountain, The place You made to dwell in, O Lord, The Sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands established.”) Here the word”Sanctuary” appears between two names for God, indicating how the Temple stood between the earthly world and the divine world. By some transitive property, the Rabbis conclude that since “wisdom” was placed between two names for God and so was “sanctuary”, one who has understanding is considered to live in the time of the Temple. Hence, the need to study the laws of the Temple service. However, the Rabbis note another place where “vengeance” appears between two names for God. (Psalms 94:1 (“God of retribution, Lord, God of retribution, appear.”)). Vengeance, according to the Rabbis has its place, particularly when it is used to reward the good and punish the evil.

We can now turn back to the three different opinions about where Havdalah should be inserted into the Shemoneh Esrei on Saturday evening. The Rabbis wonder how this could even be a dispute. The Men of the Great Assembly (the 120 sages who led Israel in the time of the Second Temple) established when we should recite Havdalah. The Havdalah prayer was fixed in the Shemoneh Esrei, not as a separate blessing over wine, because after the Babylonian exile people were poor and could not afford the wine. Later, as they prospered, Havdalah was removed to its own blessing over wine. When the second Temple was destroyed, people became poor again and a dispute arose about where to reinsert Havdalah into the Shemoneh Esrei. However, if we have the means to do so, we should also recite Havdalah a second time over a cup of wine.

There are some Saturday nights when we don’t say the fourth blessing of Shemoneh Esrei. When a holiday follows Sabbath, we say a special holiday Shemoneh Esrei, which does not have the fourth blessing. Therefore, on those days, we follow Rabbi Elizer’s opinion and insert Havdalah in to the thanksgiving blessing. We don’t follow Rabbi Akiva’s opinion and make it a separate blessing because the Shemoneh Esrei is 18 blessings, not 19 blessings (of course, later we added a 19th blessing).

We then get a new Mishnah that prohibits unsanctioned additions into the Shemoneh Esrei. In discussing this Mishneh, the Gemara notes we praise God for both the bad and the good. This gets back to my point yesterday about the nature of evil in Jewish thought. Evil, just like good, is created by God and part of God’s master plan. Rabbi Chanina teaches, “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except for the fear of Heaven”. Rabbi Chanina tells us that all circumstances are created by God, but we have free will on how to react to those circumstances. We then consider the statement in Deuteronomy 10:12 which states, “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you? Merely this: to fear the Lord your God, to walk only in his paths, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul,”. The Rabbis wonder about the word “merely”. They ask if it is so easy to fear the Lord. The Rabbis have an easy out. This statement was made by Moses and they conclude that it was easy for Moses!