The Talmud pages this week spent a lot of time discussing the Grace after the Meals, Havdalah (the prayer marking the end of Shabbat), other incidental blessings one would say and interpreting dreams. Within these pages I found these ideas to be interesting:
1. The Talmud recounts lessons that a couple of rabbis learned from having discussions with angels. The rabbis don't explain how that could be possible, they just tell their story. We'll find throughout the Talmud stories like this. They take for granted that they could have such mystical and spiritual encounters. Not only do they teach that angels exist but they create stories to corroborate their teaching! The rabbis want us to know that there is a heavenly world above us that monitors our daily lives and has our interests at heart. The rabbis do their best to encounter angels to intervene on our behalf.
In one such encounter - which has bearing on world events today - the rabbis learn that one shouldn't shake hands with someone who hasn't washed hands! Though in that context that lesson referred to contracting ritual impurity, though the rabbis didn't know it, that lesson continues to prove to be a health benefit. Some say it might have saved the Jews during the Black Plague centuries ago.
2. In discussing the blessing over the flame for havdalah, the rabbis discuss whether we could use flames that are burning already. The rabbis wanted to make "mitzvot" as easy to perform as possible but also wanted us to exert some effort to do so. Mitzvot shouldn't be too easy nor should they be too challenging. So of course the rabbis say that it depends what the existing flame was being used for.
3. The rabbis also teach that when we pray to God to fulfill a request, we must do so for a future event, not for something that has already been determined. For example, if one's wife is pregnant one cannot pray for a boy because the fetus already exists. If one hears cries and screams as one approaches one's neighborhood, one cannot pray that the cries aren't coming from his home. Prayers are for the future, not to change the past.
4. Finally the rabbis teach a radical idea from a verse in Psalm 119. That verse - "It is time to act for the Lord for they have violated Your teaching" - is understood by the rabbis to be an imperative for acting on behalf of God. That is, if the times require it, not only can the rabbis intervene, they can reinterpret the Torah in order to make Jewish society better. If the rabbis see that the people are taking a particular teaching too literally and thereby becoming immoral then the rabbis grant themselves the authority to reinterpret that teaching to restore morality. This is a radical statement that has been at the heart of rabbinic Judaism. Transforming "an eye for an eye" into financial compensation and doing away with executing a rebellious child are two examples of this interpretation. Of course it is dependent upon the rabbis' definition of morality - which is quite subjective.
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