#chagigah

The sages never intended to shut the door on intellectual inquiry completely. They did not halt the mind from the perceptions of which it is capable. Such anti-intellectual views are the imaginations of the ignorant and the idle, who love to reckon their own faults and foolishness as worth and wisdom. These fools look at the virtue and knowledge of others as a flaw and a religious failing, labeling darkness light and light darkness.

-Maimonides

Talmud passage Chagigah 10a:13, the William Davidson Edition translation: “ Rav concludes. However, for Shmuel’s source there is no refutation. Rava said, and some say it was Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak who said: This explains the folk saying that people say: One spicy pepper is better than a basketful of squash, as the single pepper has more flavor than all the squash combined.”

The Sefaria Community translation: “ But Shmuel's [source] has no [opening for] objection. Rava, and some say R. Nachman bar Yitzchak said, This is what people say, Better is one grain of pepper than a basket full of dates.”

The Sefaria dictionary’s definition for the Hebrew word רִיפְתָּא: “flat cake, in gen. bread” (There is more text than that in the screenshot, but for the life of me I can’t get it to let me copy-paste. If someone else can manage it for image description and screen reader purposes, please do so.)

So I have determined using the Sefaria dictionary that by “one spicy pepper” they mean one single peppercorn. But I am no closer to figuring out what the food in the basket is actually meant to be.

Not squash, of course, as that genus of gourd is indigenous to the Andes and Mesoamerica, and Talmud-era Jews would never have encountered it. That’s what got me curious in the first place, in fact.

But what it actually is - dates, flat cakes, some other unspecified bread product, something else entirely - I still don’t have any idea. And inquiring minds want to know.

Okay but the ending of Massechet Chagigah (the tractate of the Talmud dealing mostly with Temple offerings) is so beautiful?

To paraphrase:

First it says that Jews who learn Torah (talmidei chachamim, “students of sages”) are immune to “ur Gehenom” (best translation would be “the fires of purgatory,” with the caveat that Judaism doesn’t really have a Hell-concept - but think of this as any sort of fiery punishment in the World to Come). Why? We learn it from salamanders. Salamanders are born in fire, and are not harmed by fire; all the more so, then, talmidei chachamim, because we are made entirely of fire, as it says in Isaiah: “Is not My word life fire - declares Hashem.” We are full of God’s word; therefore, we are (spiritually) made of fire, and as such, surely we cannot be harmed by (spiritual) fires.

But it gets better, because it doesn’t end there. The Talmud goes on to add that poshei Yisrael (”the transgressors of Israel,” i.e., those who do not deal in Torah and/or do not deliberately fulfill commandments/mitzvot) are also immune to “ur Gehenom,” because they are as full of (fulfilled) mitzvot as a pomegranate is filled with seeds - as it says in Song of Songs: “your skull is like the pomegranate” (k’phelach ha-rimon rakatech). Do not read rakatech, your skull, but rather reikanim shebach, “the empty ones within you” (a term frequently used in the Talmud to refer to “transgressors,” those who are “empty” of [intent to fulfill] mitzvot) - even the reikanim of Israel are as full of fulfilled mitzvot as a pomegranate is with seeds, and therefore they, too, cannot be harmed by any fiery punishment in the World to Come.

And then we roll the Hadran.

Okay maybe this is just me but I think this is absolutely beautiful? and really feeds into the whole concept of how Judaism is totally not all-or-nothing - we saw it earlier in Chagigah with Elisha ben Abuya’s death, but this really drives it home like “oh okay, you’re a sinner/transgressor? no problem, you’ve still got lots of mitzvot actually, you’re safe.”