Sunday, August 29, 2010

I hate eating with Harry.... Pesachim 89b

The gemara discusses a very practical issue on this page. Eating the Passover sacrifice was a communal meal. What if one person tends to be a bit, well, piggish with the Paschal lamb? How do you make sure everyone gets a share? Maimonides summarizes the issue nicely:

In the case of a communal group where one member eats a tremendous amount habitually, the rest of the group has the right to tell that member, 'Take your entire share [now] and go eat it by yourself. '

Some things don't change: Pesachim 91b

There's a pattern that is so common that it is the stuff of jokes. The gentile half of an interfaith couple converts to Judaism, and becomes much more strict than the Jewish-from-birth half, sometimes to the point of tension in the relationship. Converts in the time of the Babylonian Talmud showed great, perhaps excessive piety, as is shown by the below passage:

Rabbi Ya'akov says in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: One may not make a group [that shares a Passover sacrifice offering] which is wholly composed of converts, lest they be very particular and improperly determine the sacrifice is flawed.