Women come to the fore in today’s Daf – not as objects to be regulated, not as objects of desire, not as mothers, but as scholars and heroic confederates. For modern readers, there is much regarding the status of women we may find disturbing in the Talmud. Today, however we see women as equals, if not superior, to their spouses – not in one case, but in two.

Our Daf opens with the story of Rabbi Meir plagued by hooligans in his neighborhood. The notes indicate that the hooligans were amei haaretz, literally people of the earth, but meaning people ignorant of Torah. Rabbi Meir prays for their death, which the Talmud considers an act of mercy so that their wickedness in this world will not cancel their reward in the world to come. Rabbi Meir’s wife, Beruria, engages Rabbi Meir in a debate about the merits of his actions. The notes to the text indicate that Beruria was the daughter of a scholar and a formidable scholar in her own right. Beruria and her husband debate the meaning of Psalm 104:35 (” May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be more . . . “). Breuria tells her husband that the word he believes is sinners (chataim) could be chotim (the evil inclination) (remember, the bible in Hebrew has no vowels). If Breuria is correct, then the Psalmist is praying for an end to the evil inclination, not for the death of sinners. Besides, the end of the verse (“and the wicked be no more”) only makes sense in Breuria’s reading, not Rabbi Meir’s reading. Breuria tells Rabbi Meir to pray for mercy, not punishment. He takes her advice and the hooligans repent.

Breuria had another encounter with a heretic. This time Breuria spars over the meaning of Isaiah 54:1 (which has a special meaning for me because it was the first line of my Bar Mitzvah haftarah portion). (“Shout, O barren one, You who bore no child! Shout aloud for joy, You who did not travail! For the children of the wife forlorn shall outnumber those of the espoused – said the Lord”). The barren women in this verse is the city of Jerusalem after the exile. The heretic claims that he barren women should not rejoice because she has no children. Breuria sets this heretic in his place by pointing to the end of the verse.

The second women coming to the fore in our Daf has no name. She is simply known as the Shunamite woman. She appears in Chapter 4 of II Kings. Upon meeting Elisha the prophet she immediately knows of his holiness, so she builds a room for him in her house and provides a table, a chair and a lamp. The Talmud, being the Talmud, has an extensive debate about the exact specifications of the room she built for Elisha. The Talmud then debates how she knew Elisha was holy (either flies never bothered his food or when she changed his sheets she never saw signs of a nocturnal emission). The Shumanite woman is not spared sexual harassment, however. Elisha is holy, but his servant Geichazi is another story. The Talmud interprets II Kings 4:27 (“Geichazi stepped forward to push her away . . .”) to mean that Geichazi grabbed the Shumanite woman’s breasts. Step forward (l’hodfah) can be read as hod yafah (the glory of her beauty). Since the verse later includes a command for Geichazi to let go of the woman, he must have been grabbing her breasts.

There is another teaching in the Daf about breast feeding. The Talmud believes that when a woman breast feeds her child, she imbues the child with one of the five levels of a human soul. A woman’s breast are near her heart. Other mammals do not have their breasts near the heart. This shows that a woman nurturing her child, is transferring a soul to the child.

I took today’s Daf out of order to highlight those sections that really struck me. The truth is that today was one of the most beautiful and fascinating days, so I want to go back and try to summarize some more of today’s Daf in order.

After Breuria, the Talmud turns to another story of a sage encountering a heretic. In this instance the heretic notes that Psalm 3 concerns David’s flight from his son Absalom. Psalm 57 concerns David’s flight from Saul. David had trouble with Saul long before the revolt of Absalom, so why does the Psalm about Absalom come first? In this case, Rabbi Abahu answers the heretic. Rabbi Abahu notes that the Psalm about the rebellion of Absalom comes right after the Pslam about the revolt of Gog and Magog. We can believe Gog and Magog will rebel, because we know Absalom could rebel against his own father. The Talmud thus relates another important point about interpretation. Biblical passages are not juxtaposed with each other out of chance, their placement teaches us something.

Discussion of King David leads to an exposition of Proverbs 31:26 (“She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the Torah of kindness is on her tongue”), which Rabbi Yochanan says relates to David. This chapter of Proverbs is generally accepted as analogizing the Torah to a woman, but in this verse that cannot be because the clause says the Torah is on her tongue. The verse is written in the feminine because King David used divine inspiration because the noun “divine inspiration” is always feminine.

The Talmud then discusses the five worlds in which King David lived, in each he achieved another level of soul. The five levels and the associated soul are as follows:

1. the womb – the nefesh (the animal soul);
2. birth – ruach (the ability to act morally);
3. breast feeding (see above) – neshama (our religious awareness);
4. adulthood – chaya (mastery of the evil inclination); and
5. death – yechidah (oneness with God).

These levels of soul are a Kabalistic concept. To be honest, I am not that familiar with the gradations of soul. This might be the subject of a later post. The discussion leads to praise of God’ ability to breathe life into a fetus and his eternal nature.

There are five attributes of Godliness shared by our souls:

1. God fills the world and our soul fills our bodies;
2. God is unseen and our soul is unseen;
3. God nourishes the world and our soul nourishes our body;
4. God is pure and our soul is pure; and
5. God resides in rooms within rooms and so does the soul (sorry, I can’t figure this one out).

Much of the rest of the Daf discusses the reign of King Hezekiah discussed in II Kings 18-20; Isiah 36-39; and II Chronicles 29-32. In the first vignette, we learn of Hezekiah and Isaiah arguing over who should come to visit the other a a sign of respect. God forces a compromise between them by making Hezekiah very sick and telling Isaiah to visit him. Hezekiah is dying because he did not fulfill the biblical commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Hezekiah has decided not to have children because he knows his son will not be virtuous. Isiah tells Hezekiah that he needs to fulfill the commandment and whether or not the kid is virtuous is not up to him. Hezekiah agrees and says he will marry Isiah’s daughter and have children with her.

Hezekiah’s illness leads to a meditation on the importance of asking God for mercy, even when there is a sharp sword on our necks. Hezekiah prayed for mercy by turning his face to the wall. Of course, the Talmud must debate what it means that Hezekiah turned his face to the wall. Then the Talmud contrast three acts of Hezekiah that deserved praise:

1. Hezekiah hid the book of remedies so people would rely on God for healing;
2. Hezekiah destroyed the copper serpent Moses had made because people began to worship it as an idol; and
3. Hezekiah made the funeral procession of his father’s bones on a bed of ropes because of his father’s wickedness.

These praiseworthy deeds are contrasted with blameworthy deeds:

1. He stopped up the springs of Gichon to deny the Assyrian invaders water instead of relying on God;
2. He bribed the Assyrians with the golden doors of the Temple; and
3. He incorrectly calculated the lunar leap month in a way that the sages believed tarnished the holy month of Nissan.

After the story of the Shumanite woman, the Talmud discusses how much merit we receive when we host a Torah scholar. Then the Talmud discusses the importance of praying the morning service before eating. All of that brings the Talmud to finally state the ruling on the latest time we can recite the Shema in the morning. We can say the Shema until the third hour of the day.

Today’s Daf ends with our third Mishna. The Third Mishna asks if we have to lie down when we recite the Shema. After all, Deuteronomy 6:7 says we should recite the Shema when we lie down and when we rise up. The Mishna concludes that we recite the Shema at the time people are lying down to go to bed.