Masechet Chullin Daf 60
Jan. 28th, 2019 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretDaf 60
Rabbi Linzer warned his shiur that the whole daf today was going to be aggadeta and the class sort of groaned. Which is a little odd, aggada is often the fun part of Talmud, but we've been really heavy into the details of the halachos of treifas for two weeks and were starting up a new and interesting halachic topic, the simanim of kosher animals, and all of a sudden to have a massive digression is at least disorienting. Still, the aggada on this daf is probably worth paying closer attention than I was able to pay today.
We start with the keresh, the kosher one horned animal. Rav Yehuda says it's the deer of Bei-Ilai. Wherever that is. This leads to discussion of another unusual animal associated with Bei-Ilai, the Lion of Bei-Ilai, which is a preposterously large and massive animal that opens us up into the realm of seemingly pure aggada. Its head is nine cubits wide, when it roars from 400 miles away from Rome, the walls of Rome fall down.
The Gemara tells a series of stories about the Tanna Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya and his interactions with the Roman Emperor (apparently Hadrian), who was in some fashion trying to incorporate the Israelite God in the anthropomorphic manner of a pagan deity. The Emperor demanded to see the God of Israel and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya responded with a mashal that the Emperor cannot look straight at the sun, so how could he expect to look at God, who is the ruler over the sun? The Emperor demanded to hear the roar of the Lion of Bei Ilai, so Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya prayed and the lion roared and destroyed the walls of Rome. The Roman Emperor wanted to make a meal for God, so Rabbi Yohoshua ben Chananya told him to prepare a feast and place it on the shore of the Mediterranean. The wind and rain washed it away, and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya told him that these were just the attendants who precede God.
All of these in some fashion are grappling with comprehending God as incorporeal being, God as a universal force, against the petty scale of the Roman pantheon. One suspects these stories also have a political dimension; I do not know enough about Judeo-Roman history to understand what that might be.
Rabbi Linzer warned his shiur that the whole daf today was going to be aggadeta and the class sort of groaned. Which is a little odd, aggada is often the fun part of Talmud, but we've been really heavy into the details of the halachos of treifas for two weeks and were starting up a new and interesting halachic topic, the simanim of kosher animals, and all of a sudden to have a massive digression is at least disorienting. Still, the aggada on this daf is probably worth paying closer attention than I was able to pay today.
We start with the keresh, the kosher one horned animal. Rav Yehuda says it's the deer of Bei-Ilai. Wherever that is. This leads to discussion of another unusual animal associated with Bei-Ilai, the Lion of Bei-Ilai, which is a preposterously large and massive animal that opens us up into the realm of seemingly pure aggada. Its head is nine cubits wide, when it roars from 400 miles away from Rome, the walls of Rome fall down.
The Gemara tells a series of stories about the Tanna Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya and his interactions with the Roman Emperor (apparently Hadrian), who was in some fashion trying to incorporate the Israelite God in the anthropomorphic manner of a pagan deity. The Emperor demanded to see the God of Israel and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya responded with a mashal that the Emperor cannot look straight at the sun, so how could he expect to look at God, who is the ruler over the sun? The Emperor demanded to hear the roar of the Lion of Bei Ilai, so Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya prayed and the lion roared and destroyed the walls of Rome. The Roman Emperor wanted to make a meal for God, so Rabbi Yohoshua ben Chananya told him to prepare a feast and place it on the shore of the Mediterranean. The wind and rain washed it away, and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya told him that these were just the attendants who precede God.
All of these in some fashion are grappling with comprehending God as incorporeal being, God as a universal force, against the petty scale of the Roman pantheon. One suspects these stories also have a political dimension; I do not know enough about Judeo-Roman history to understand what that might be.