And now for something a little different

Recent developments in Israel and the diaspora have generated a host of sombre social media posts and opinion pieces, as well as an impressive array of positive and inspirational material. Just for a change, here are three short items that are neither.

The bread and salt diet

From Claude Tusk comes what we can fairly describe as “food for thought”.

In Avos 6:4 it is taught: “Thus is the way of Torah: eat bread with salt…”. But in Kiddushin 62a, when expounding the words חֶרֶב תְּאֻכְּלוּ (“You shall be fed with the sword”: Isaiah 1:20), we learn: “Stale bread baked in a large oven with salt and onions is as harmful to the body as swords”.

Does that mean, Claude asks, that a Torah-true diet should not include onions, or is the quality of the bread the issue?

Top of the pops

As regular readers will recall, Avot Today keeps track of all the citations of mishnayot and baraitot in Avot that it can find on the social media, using Google Alerts. In the third quarter of 2023 (July to September) we counted 68 all told, July being the peak month with 28 cites.  The most popular Mishnah, with 5 ‘hits’ for this quarter and 17 for the year to date, was Rabbi Tarfon’s teaching at 2:21: “It’s not for you to finish the task, but neither are you free to withdraw from it”.  Next, on 4, is Ben Zoma at 4:1: “Who is strong? The person who can control himself”.  The biggest surprise was the decline in popularity of Yehoshua ben Perachyah’s teaching at 1:6 that we should judge others favourably. Last year it was on everyone’s lips, as it were, but it has only notched up 3 citations for the first nine months of 2023.

 

Fresh opportunity to go astray?

Rabban Gamliel, son of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, promotes the virtues of combining the study of Torah with a worldly occupation (a.k.a. a job) on the basis that the combination of the two causes sin to be forgotten (Avot 2:2). On this the Maharam Shik raises a point worth pondering. Ideally a person who learns Torah 24/7 shouldn’t be thinking of sinning at all. But if he is the sort of person who does contemplate sin, would it not be the case that splitting his time between learning and work will not stop him sinning at all, but will simply provide him with extra opportunities to sin in the workplace? Before you dismiss this as a facetious suggestion, ask if you have never come home with pens, stationery, customer samples or other items that did not belong to you. According to Incorp.com, employee theft and fraud cost US businesses between $20-50 billion annually—and then there is the temptation to stray beyond the bounds of acceptable behaviour towards one’s colleagues. If you want to stay on the straight and narrow, it might be safer to stay in the Bet Midrash…