“You can put lipstick on a pig . . .” We are all familiar with this expression. I had no idea that its origins were in today’s Daf. We learn, “Hang a palm shoot on the neck of a pig for him to eat in cleanliness, and he will roll it around in the garbage dump.” I thought Sara Palin wrote that phrase. I had no idea she was a Talmudic scholar.

Today we meander through many different subjects. To me, one of the most interesting is the description of a typical banquet. Remember, we are discussing what blessings need to be said by who and when. Banqueting, which is a very social activity, has its own rules about blessing food and drink, before and after a meal. For instance, we learn that one person can bless the meal and wine for the whole group at a banquet. Indeed, at large public banquets, recitation of the blessings is often reserved for the most respected member of the community. The Talmudic Rabbis understood banqueting based on the circumstances of their time and place. First, guests would gather in an antechamber while they waited for everyone to arrive. While waiting, they would enjoy some wine. At this time, the wine is not part of the formal meal, so each participant has to bless his own wine.

Once all the guests had arrived, they would enter the dining room. In the dining room, guests would recline, not sit. Here they would be served more wine. Even though they had already individually blessed the wine in the antechamber, they would again bless the wine, but this time one person would bless the wine on behalf of the whole group. We learned yesterday that if we bless wine with appetizers, we do not need to bless it with the meal. In this case, however, we moved from one room to another, and the change of place requires a new blessing. We also discuss the situation when wine is brought for the first time during the meal. We get a variety of views on when a communal blessing is allowed and when an individual blessing is required.

The footnotes indicate that in the times of the Talmud, it was forbidden to write down a blessing, so all blessings had to be done from memory. The Bircas HaMazon is very lengthy. Doing it from memory could have been challenging. I have no idea why its ok to writ down blessings today.

At the end of the banquet, fragrant oils were brought to remove the smell of food from the diners’ hands and incense was burned. We learn that balsam wood incense and oil were only found in the houses of Judah Ha’Nasi and Caesar, a statement which implicitly makes Judah Ha’Nasi and Caesar equal in prominence (and the Talmud was written when Caesar more or less ruled the known world). The use of fragrant oils, woods and herbs leads to a discussion of when we must bless such substances and the proper blessing over the substances. Of course, we also must address the situation where oil is made fragrant by submerging wood in it.

The blessing for fragrant woods is recited for jasmine and rosemary. They are not really woods, we just treat them as such for blessing purposes – sort of like finding beans in the vegetable aisle of the grocery store.

Much of today’s material comes from sayings of Rav (175-247 CE – the first Amorim). One saying of Rav concerned Ecclesiastes 3:11 (“God brings everything to pass precisely at its time. God puts eternity in their mind, but without humans ever guessing, from first to last, all the things that God brings to pass.”). According to Rav, this means that we all think our work is beautiful, even though others may not see the beauty. Even a lawyer who writes a persuasive and compact brief can take pride – whether others acknowledge it or not). Rav’s saying leads Rav Pappa (300-375 CE and apparently a great brewer of beer) to make his statement about dressing up pigs.

At the end of the banquet, our scholars rubbed fragrant oil into their hands to remove the scent of the food. The diner then wiped his hands (and they were all men) on the head of the waiter. If the waiter was a Torah Scholar, the diner wiped his hands on the wall because Torah Scholars should not go out in public perfumed. This leads to a discussion of the six things rabbis should not do in public: (i) go in public perfumed; (ii) go outside alone at night; (iii) go outside with patched shoes; (iv) converse with a woman in the streets; (v) dine with unlearned people; and (vi) not be the last to the study hall. Apparently, some people also think a rabbi should not walk with large strides or an erect posture. In each case, the scholar has to jealously guard his reputation, rather than any actual bad behavior. Indeed, the Talmud goes so far as to say that a scholar should not talk with his wife in public because strangers may think he is soliciting a prostitute. I find the protection of image to be interesting. I am sure we will find other places in our study that says image is not as important as reality.