In yesterday’s Daf, we ended with a new Mishnah discussing from which commandments mourners were exempt. Today, we will spend much of the page debating what the dead know or do not know about what happens in the world of the living. The debate occurs through three long stories which are fascinating.
The first story concerns an unnamed pious man (although there is speculation that it is Rabbi Yehuda bar Il’ai or Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava). This pious man gave a beggar some money, which led to an argument with the pious man’s wife. So the pious man ended up spending the night in the cemetery where he heard the ghosts of two young girls. One ghostly girl wanted to roam the world and see what was happening. The other girl could not go because she was wrapped in reeds, indicating that her family could not afford linen burial shrouds. The first girl goes out and comes back to report to her friend that people that plant prior to the second rain are going t be sorry. Our pious man heeds this advice and thrives when his neighbors crops are destroyed. He does this same thing next year and learns he needs to plant early. The man’s wife wonders what is what and he tells her everything. When the wife sees the second dead girl’s relatives, she chastises them for the paupers burial. The girl is properly re-buried and the next year she joins the first ghost, so the pious man gets no report.
The second story concerns Zeiri who entrusted money to his landlady. She died while Zeiri was at the academy. Zeiri follows her to the courtyard of death and she tells him where the money is located. She also requests that Zeiri tell her mother to send her comb and cosmetics with another lady who will die soon.
The final story concerns Shmuel. Shmuel’s father had money dedicated to care of orphans. Shmuel’s father died before he could tell Shmuel where this money was. Shmuel went to the courts of death, but could not find his father because he had already moved on to the Heavenly Academy (from which we learn that the Rabbi’s idea of heaven was an academy!). Shmuel does find his friend Levi and wonders why Levi has not moved on to the Heavenly Academy. Levi had to spend time between life and the Heavenly Academy because he never visited a famous scholar’s academy. Shmuel’s father then show up both laughing and crying – crying because Shmuel will soon die and laughing because Shmuel’s reputation is so great that he will immediately be granted entry to the Heavenly Academy. Shmuel asks his dad where the orphan’s money is located. The money is buried safe with the family money on top and bottom of the orphan’s money so that it was safe from robbers and the ground.
In each of these stories, the Talmud finds reasons why they do not prove that the dead know what is going on in the world. The matter is never really resolved although the Talmud does conclude that the dead can speak to each other.
Before getting to these stories, today’s Daf engages some really neat biblical exegesis. We were discussing the commandments from which mourners are excused, which include reciting the Shema, praying the daily service, blessing food before or after it is eating, wearing tefillin and all positive commandments. Since a dead body cannot be buried on the Sabbath, the Rabbis conclude the exemption does not apply to the Sabbath. The Rabbis have an inconclusive debate about whether a mourner is exempted from the commandment to have marital relationships with his spouse on the Sabbath. The Talmud also outlines the contours of the exemption for those who guard dead bodies prior to burial (considered a great mitzvah) and mourners at a funeral. There are additional discussions about the proper way to transport human remains and Torahs with respect.
The Talmud discusses Rabbi Chiya and Rabbi Yonasan walking in a graveyard when Rabbi Chiya saw Rabbi Yonasan’s tzistzis (fringed garment) dragging on a grave. Rabbi Chiya chastises Rabbi Yonasan for mocking the dead because they could not also perform the commandment of wearing tzistzis . This is the incident that leads into the debate about what the dead know because Rabbi Yonasan believes the dead know nothing of the world of the living.
The Rabbis debate the meaning of Ecclesiastes 9:5, “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all.” Rabbi Chiya argues that Rabbi Yonasan does not properly understand the verse. Rabbi Chiya turns to II Samuel 23:20 (” Benaiah, son of Jehoiada from Kabzeel, the son of a living man, was a brave soldier who performed great deeds. He killed the two [sons] of Ariel of Moab. Once on a snowy day, he went down into a pit and killed a lion.”) According to Rabbi Chiya, “the living” referred to in Ecclesiastes refers to the righteous who even after death are considered living. Benaiah is called “the son of a living man” because his father was so righteous that even after his death he is called living. The great deeds of Benaiah are amazing Torah study. We know this because the Kabzeel can be revolwized to mean “to gather for God’s sake”. Similarly “the two [sons] of Moab refer to both the first and second Temple. We know this because “Ariel” literally means lion of God, which is how the Temples are called. They were built on land bought by King David who descended from Ruth the Moabite. Thus we read, “Benaiah put to shame all others in the period of the two Temples with were built by King David, the descendant of Ruth the Moabite”.
Rabbi Chiya then addresses what it means that Benaiah descended into a pit on a snowy day to kill a lion. Two possible meanings emerge. Either Benaiah broke ice on a frozen river to create a ritual bath in which he could purify himself before studying Torah or he studied an especially difficult work of rabbinic literature on a short winter day. Either way, in our original verse in Ecclesiastes, Rabbi Chiya believes he proved that the living should be considered the righteous. Rabbi Chiya then shows that the dead should be considered the wicked by talking about how a defendant who is to be put to death is called “dead” before the execution.
I found this Daf very interesting. There is a lot of evidence of a worldview that considered the boundary between living and dead to be fluid – much more fluid than we consider it today. This continuum of life and death informs a lot of what the Rabbis believe about reward and punishment.