The “Duh! Moments” in the Talmud

One of my student pulpits was in Kauneonga Lake, NY, in the Catskills. From July 4th weekend through Labor Day, the bungalow communities, hotels and communities come alive as many Orthodox Jews from the city come up to spend the summer in the fresh air.

A weekly newspaper runs a full page ad for Hatzola, the Jewish amublance corps, with phone numbers and instructions. One of the instructions is that if you call at night, you should “send someone to the bottom of the driveway of your bungalow colony with a flashlight even on Shabbos,” to direct the ambulance.

This past Sunday, in Talmud tractate Shabbat, page 128b, there was a discussion of the permissibility of assisting a woman in childbirth on Shabbat. The discussion contains one of my favorite Talmudic responses–Peshita!–which is literally translated as “obviously, why would you even need to mention this?” but I translate simply as “Duh!”.

The Mishnah tells us that “one may assist a woman giving birth on Shabbat, and call a midwife for her to travel from place to place…and one may desecrate Shabbat for a woman giving birth.” The question is then asked, What does [the statement about desecrating shabbat] come to include? These things have already been mentioned elsewhere.

The answer is that “one may light a lamp.”

Peshita! Duh! We already know this, why would you even need to mention it?

Ma hu d’taima: (literally, it might come to your head) You might think… in this case, what if the woman giving birth is blind and can’t make use of the light? If someone is helping her, it will settle her mind to know that the helper has light by which to see. In other words, we attend to someone’s emotional and mental health as well as their physical well-being.

Ka mashma lan: Learn from this, that there’s a reason it needed to be stated.

When I saw the ad in the Catskills newspaper, reminding people to bring a flashlight even on Shabbos, my first reaction was, Peshita! Of course, we know this! But if there’s a streetlight, why would I need a flashlight? Based on the Talmud’s discussion, the flashlight isn’t for the person directing the ambulance, it’s for the people in the ambulance so they can focus on the task at hand, which is getting to the ill or injured person. Ka mashma lan.

Pikuach nefesh–the preservation of life and health, is such an important mitzvah (commandment) in Judaism that if someone’s life or health is in danger, or appears to be, one may ( I would say must) desecrate Shabbat in order to take care of that person.

All the more so, in our everyday lives we need to be mindful of preserving life and health, ours and that of others, especially during this COVID pandemic. Follow the guidelines that our health and science professionals are recommending, and don’t rely on God to produce a miracle.

My health–and yours–depend on it.

 

 

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Sermons

Rosh Hashanah 5785-After October 7
Rosh Hashanah 5785-After October 7

After September 1st, when six Israeli hostages were found having recently been murdered by Hamas, just about every Facebook post and email I saw began with, “There are no words…” Including mine. Then each poster or sender went on for about 200-500 words. It’s like Dr....

Hukkat: Our Flowing Wells
Hukkat: Our Flowing Wells

In this week’s Torah portion, Hukat, we begin by learning about the red heifer, whose ashes would be mixed with water and sprinkled on a person who had been made ritually impure by reason of a corpse, in order to purify them. It’s good information, because as soon as...

Moses & Yitro At The Mountain
Moses & Yitro At The Mountain

Yitro, this week’s Torah reading, is famous for containing the Aseret haDibrot, commonly translated as “The Ten Commandments.” There’s no question that a law code is necessary for a community to be cohesive, to have a set of principles to guide them, and to create a...

Latest Midrash HaZak

Chukat: The Red Heifer and Our Stuff, Rabbi Andra Greenwald
Chukat: The Red Heifer and Our Stuff, Rabbi Andra Greenwald

Photo Credit: Rennett Stowe on Flickr Chukat: The Red Heifer and Our Stuff Rabbi Andra Greenwald Is it sacrilegious to feel that some pieces of the Torah just don’t make sense? In parshat Chukat, the Law of the Red Heifer presents us with one of the statutes for which...

Devarim: The Power of Retelling, Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman
Devarim: The Power of Retelling, Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman

Image from Medfield, MA public library, wallaceshealy-com-OPvCP3-clipart The Power of Retelling Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak to a university class about being one of the first generation of women and queer rabbis. At these kinds of...

Mattot: What Words Can Create, Ilene Winn-Lederer
Mattot: What Words Can Create, Ilene Winn-Lederer

Illustration ©2009-Ilene Winn-Lederer Mattot: What Words Can Create Ilene Winn-Lederer Although I grew up with a strong Jewish identity, I did not experience a traditional Jewish education and came to Torah in my late teens through influential involvement with a...

Latest Personal Blogs

Blessing My Bended Knees-A Poem
Blessing My Bended Knees-A Poem

This past week, I participated in a Ritualwell class with Alden Solovy on "Writing From One Word of Torah." I distilled 3 stream-of-consciousness prompts on the word "Baruch/Berekh," the root of which can mean "blessing' and "knee, into this poem. Blessing my bended...

The Eshet Hayil In Our Lives
The Eshet Hayil In Our Lives

Photo: publicdomainpictures.net The Eshet Hayil In Our Lives An email from My Jewish Learning about “A Woman of Valor” prompted me to pivot the next evening’s planned adult learning session to looking at these 22 verses from Mishlei, the Book of Proverbs. These verses...

Live Long and Prosper?
Live Long and Prosper?

By Oklahoma Heritage Association, Gaylord-Pickens Museum - Author, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25656727 Live Long and Prosper? January 5, 2022 began the third year of the seven and a half-year cycle of Daf Yomi, the practice of...

Pin It on Pinterest