New web host, new look! Bear with me while I set things up and make sure the content and links I had before are updated in the coming weeks.

Daf Yomi — Berachot p. 6

I have to say that I have a bias in my own Talmud study toward passages that seem to be structured a certain way. That seem quilted, where you can make out some kind of logic to the patterning. This page does not have that. It's a skip from one topic to another.

There is a section about demons, and the desire to perceive them (or not!) — there are certain magical-ish things you can do to see the footprints of them. The rabbis caution against this, because the perception of demons can cause spiritual harm or physical harm. They do posit that demons outnumber humans by a large margin and we are constantly bumping into them.

So all I've really got is the passage that opens and closes the page. The opening teaching, continued from the last page, is about a person who enters the place of prayer with another person. If you cut that person off, your prayer goes awry. At the end of the page, the situation is that you encounter a person who you know makes a real effort to ask about your welfare — you ought to try hard to ask that person first, and not take their interest in you for granted.



Leave a Reply

Discover more from Rabbi Jon 's Website and Blog

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading