In my previous job I traveled all over the world. I traveled to five continents (six, depending on whether the Middle East is Asia, Africa or Europe) and numerous countries. One of the great things about this travel was sampling local cuisines in their native country, rather than the American restaurant version. I learned to be a much more adventurous eater and found the world full of amazing flavors. Sharing a local meal created tighter connections with my host and I loved to reciprocate with Tex-Mex or Barbecue when I could.

I quickly learned that fish names are very localized and hard for folks to translate. Neighboring countries call the same fish vastly different names. Frequently, I would have no idea what I (or my host) had ordered until it showed up or not at all. Even English speaking countries call the same fish many different names. In today’s Daf, the Rabbis confront a similar problem. They look at plant names written hundreds of years before in a different language from a different place and try to determine to what plant they refer.

The discussion of plant names comes towards the end of the Daf, when we switch to Chapter Two. Before we get there we have to finish Chapter One. We left off in the middle of a Mishnah discussing how cooked various items had to be prior to the start of Shabbat, if we planned to leave them in the oven over Shabbat. We also learned that in the Temple, we could light the pyre of the Fire Chamber just before Shabbat. This last rule seemed odd and contradictory to our other rules that did not allow lighting fires just before Shabbat. The Fire Chamber was a room in the Temple with a constant fire for the Kohenim to warm themselves because they had to perform their service barefoot on the marble floors of the Temple. Our Mishnah ends by noting that outside the Temple we cannot light a fire on Friday unless the fire will be completely ignited before Shabbat.

For the rules about cooking, we learn that food must be cooked to the same level as “the food of Ben Derusai” before Shabbat if it is to continue cooking after sundown. Ben Derusai apparently was a notorious bandit who cooked his food only one-third of the normal time so he could be more mobile. I cannot find any information on Ben Derusai or why the Rabbis would determine religious laws from a bandit. If anyone knows where more information can be found, let me know. We also learn that as long as a Jew cooks food to the Ben Derusai standard, a non-Jew can continue the cooking. The Rabbis did not want Jews and non-Jews intermingling over food, so they prohibited eating food cooked by a non-Jew. If however, the Jew cooked the food to the Ben Derusai stage, then all was good if a gentile finishes the cooking.

The rules for cooking the Passover meal are different. As long as the Passover meat is lowered in the fire before Sabbath we don’t care how cooked it is. Cooking the Passover meal was a communal activity and the group would remind each member not to stir the coals on Sabbath. The Fire Chamber pyre could be lit just prior to Shabbat without worrying whether there was a full fire or not because the Kohenim would know not to stir the coals on Shabbat. Chapter One ends as we consider various fuels and how much they need to be ignited before Shabbat begins. The general principle is that fast burning fuels can be in a lesser state of ignition prior to Shabbat because we are less likely to need to accelerate them by stirring or blowing after Shabbat begins.

We then switch to Chapter Two. In Tractate Berakhot, I could never tell what the chapter divisions indicated. There did not seem to be a natural division into a new topic. Today, the chapter introduces a completely new topic – what wicks and fuels can we use for Shabbat lights. At least at the outset, there is a new topic. We begin with a Mishnah that discusses materials that are disqualified as wicks because they do not hold flames well and materials that are disqualified as fuels because they are not easily drawn into the wick. The Gemara spends much of the rest of the Daf of translating the Hebrew names in the Mishnah into every-day identifiable Aramaic names that can be useful to the contemporary people.