Avodah Zarah, Daf 65
Our Gemara on amud aleph tells us about an encounter between Rava and a gentile, Bar Sheshach, who was not an idolator, but may have been an atheist, cynical of all religion. “Rava brought a gift to a minister named Bar Sheshach on their festival day… and found him sitting up to his neck in rose water” and engaging in inappropriate behavior.
Bar Sheshach said to him: “Do you have anything as fine as this in the World to Come?” Rava said to him: “Ours is better than this.”
Bar Sheshach said: “Is there anything finer than this?”
Rava said: “You have the fear of the government upon you; we will not have the fear of the government upon us in the World to Come.”
Bar Sheshach said to him: “As for me, in any event, what fear of the government is there upon me? I am a powerful man.”
While they were sitting, a certain royal officer [peristaka] came and said to Bar Sheshach: “Rise, as the king requires you to appear before him.” As he was going out, he said to Rava: “May any eye that wishes to see evil upon you burst, as it is clear that you were correct.”
Rava said to him: “Amen.” And then Bar Sheshach’s eye burst.
Resisei Layla (54) expands on the sentiment expressed in this aggadah. Bar Sheshach – even if he did not realize it – suffered under fear of the local dictator. However, a Jew has no fear because G-d is his King. This is what is meant in the High Holiday liturgy: “Uv’chein tein pachdecha al kol ma’asecha” – And indeed let Your fear be upon all of Your creations.
To illustrate, I heard a story about Rav Soloveitchik on a Rabbi Rosner Daf Yomi shiur. A prominent psychologist asked the Rav: “In the High Holiday services, we pray that G-d’s fear should be upon all creations. Psychologically speaking, fear and anxiety are destructive forces, making people ill. Why would we pray for that?”
The Rav answered: “If you have only the fear of G-d upon you, you are free from other fears and anxieties.”
Cask And You Shall Perceive
Daf 66
Over the next two dappim, various conceptualizations arise about the nature of what transfers from or actualizes prohibited food substances. Is it the taste? Is it the name? For example, if two substances are both called wine but have different flavors, are they considered a mixture of distinct items or of similar items? This impacts whether or not they can be nullified by a majority. Furthermore, if the non-kosher substance mixes but it has, or causes, a foul taste, does that affect the kashrus?
These halachos point toward a deeper philosophical point: Is there an objective reality, or is reality defined by our perception and interpretation of matters?
You may be quick to say, “Of course there’s an objective reality – otherwise, how is anything true?” But it’s not that simple.
Consider sight and sound. We are not actually seeing color. What we see is the contrast and the way a surface interacts with light, reflecting certain wavelengths into our retina, which then stimulates specific nerve patterns. In reality, every color is actually all the colors except that one – because the surface is absorbing all wavelengths except for one, and reflecting that one back to us.
Sound, likewise, is nothing more than vibrations in the air causing our eardrum to resonate, which our auditory nerves translate into what we call sound. In a vacuum, such as outer space, there would be no sound at all. It’s possible to imagine a creature that “hears” color and “sees” sound. (Indeed, if you place sand on a metal sheet atop a speaker, the sand will dance in patterns in response to the music – effectively, “seeing” sound.) Bats or dolphins “see” mostly with their ears, and certain adept blind people are able to get around by using clicking noises and sonar, known as echolocation.
It doesn’t stop there. Language itself is evocative – internal ideas and experiences matched to combinations of sounds we call words. It’s difficult to say if words truly mean the same thing to each person. Cross-cultural differences magnify this: In Japanese, certain formal apologies also carry shades of “thank you.” In L’shon Kodesh, “shalom” means “peace” and “hello” – because of the conceptual associations embedded in the word.
The Baal HaTanya notes that in L’shon Kodesh, the two main words for “things” are davar (literally, “word”) and chefetz (“desired object”). This indicates that things do not exist independently, but only relative to what is articulated and/or desired.
Many modern philosophers grapple with this. George Berkeley (1685-1753) took it furthest with “Esse est percipi” – To be is to be perceived. He argued that physical objects have no independent existence outside of minds perceiving them. Reality is a collection of ideas in the mind, sustained by G-d’s continuous perception. Without perception, nothing exists. This dovetails intriguingly with quantum physics’ “observer effect.”
The Torah’s principle of “Torah lo bashamayim he” (Bava Metziah 59b) – that the Torah’s application rests in the Sanhedrin’s subjective judgment – can be understood in this light. So too with kavua vs. bitul b’rov (Kesuvos 15a): Majority nullification is not just statistics but about how reality itself is “composed.”
A more down-to-earth approach would be that even Divinely ordained halacha must operate in the physical world, bound by human perception – “A judge has only that which his eyes see” (Sanhedrin 6b). But then, why did G-d design a world where truth is perception-bound, leading to inaccuracies and potential injustice? That question is more easily answered if there is truth to the idea that reality is perception.
Kosher On the Inside as Well as the Outside
Daf 67
Our Gemara on amud beis quotes (Devarim 14:21): “You shall not eat anything that has died a natural death; give it to the stranger in your community to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people (am kadosh) consecrated to your G-d.”
In another verse (Shemos 22:30), referring to an animal torn apart by beasts, G-d says: “You shall be holy people to Me (anshei kodesh); you must not eat flesh torn by beasts in the field.”
The Kesav VehaKabbalah notes the subtle difference. In Devarim it says “am kadosh” – a holy nation. In Shemos it says “anshei kodesh” – holy people.
“Kadosh” as an adjective describes someone who acts with holiness, while “anshei kodesh” as a noun describes people whose essence is holiness itself, detached from material indulgence. The former is a broader, national level; the latter is rare and individual. The former is a person who behaves in accordance with Torah values such as extension and kindness and sacrifice, which are the ways of a holy person. The latter is a person who has become holy himself – one who has internalized these values deeply.
The verse about tereifah (an animal torn or fatally diseased) refers also to the prohibition of eating sacrificial meat outside the Temple (Chullin 68a) – an extra level of holiness, abstaining even from the permitted when it is removed from its sanctified context. That is why the verse uses the term anshei kodesh. Consumption of food is symbolic for engaging in the physical world, and being sure that this food remains within the boundaries of the Temple is symbolic of maintaining a higher level of purity and abnegation.
I would add: A neveilah (unslaughtered carcass) is visibly defective. A tereifah may look fine but has an internal defect, detectable only upon examination. So too, anshei kodesh are holy from within, not just in outward behavior, and this is why the verse uses that description in regard to the tereifah.
Manna, With Ketchup Please
Daf 68
Our Gemara on amud beis discusses ta’am lifgam – when a non-kosher substance mixes in but imparts a foul taste, which may permit it.
The Baruch She’amar Haggadah applies this to the Dayyenu liturgy. For Dayyenu to make sense, each kindness from G-d in the poem must be valuable on its own. “If G-d gave us French fries, it would be enough; but He also gave us ketchup” makes sense. The reverse doesn’t – “If G-d gave us ketchup, we would be happy even if we didn’t get French fries” – because ketchup alone is no gift.
So how can Dayyenu say “Had He provided for our needs in the desert for 40 years, without feeding us manna, it would have been enough?” If we had had no food, how would our needs have been met?
The Baruch She’amar explains: The manna’s extra quality was that it could taste like anything (Yoma 75b). Even if G-d had given us plain, unexciting food – enough to survive – that would have sufficed. The manna was a luxurious bonus.
He adds: If manna could taste like anything, why did the people crave meat (Bamidbar 11:4)? Because its default flavor was “like wafers in honey” (Shemos 16:31), and honey mixed with meat can produce a foul taste (Shulchan Aruch YD 103:4, Avodah Zarah 39b). That is why honey boiled in a gentile pot might still be considered permitted, because even if the meat flavor from the aroma of the gentile’s pot came in, it would not add a pleasant flavor. Thus, manna could not mimic meat flavor satisfactorily.
This also resolves the seeming contradiction: If the Torah states that the manna tasted like wafers dipped in honey, how does that align with the tradition that the manna could taste like anything? Based on the Baruch She’amar’s conceptualization, we can say that the substance of the manna tasted like honeyed wafers, while other flavors were overlaid as aroma or nuance. This is just like the honey that absorbed the meat flavor from the walls of the pot, which had a foul taste. So too, the flavor that people wished onto the manna were not the substance of it, but rather an aroma or additional flavor. And that is exactly why a flavor of meat would clash with the manna’s inherent “honey” base.
