#dafyomi

Emuna Tour 2022 – With Renewed Greatness!

Summary A Special Emuna Class Wednesday Live 12 PM Israel time by @Eli Unity Goldsmith Emunalive.com – Next Class will be with special guests – Until then connect https://fb.watch/gfSEAgY0s6/ with our #emunatour 2022 updates TBA & make your meeting with Rav Shalom Arush in person – Email – [email protected]… Emuna is our Future – #Renewed #Greatness! 🙂 Emuna Tour 2022 – Let’s Go!!!…

Today’s daf mentions palm trees during a discussion of lamps on shabbos and yom tov. If you place your burning lamp in a palm tree, you might reach for it and accidentally break off, and therefore reap, a branch (kotzer). On shabbos when the lamp is muktzeh you won’t be inclined to touch it anyway, but on yom tov it’s not muktzeh and you might be inclined to touch it. So you can put burning lamps in trees on shabbos but not on yom tov (although personally I would be more concerned about burning the tree down than breaking off a branch?)

https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.45a.1?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

Palms are a whole family (Arecaeae) of 2600 known species (and probably more unknown species) in tropical and subtropical climates. They’re mostly characterized by their leaves. Not all of them are trees - some are shrubs, and some are vines called climbers, with leaves that grow along the stem instead of on top! One, nypoideae, grows in mangroves. Coconuts are also part of the palm family. I’ll never know which species the rabbis were talking about, so let’s find one from their part of the world.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/48867-Arecaceae

The date palm, Phoenix Dactylifera, is an Arecaceae family member that most likely originated somewhere between Egypt and Mesopotamia, and is found most commonly in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. They’re 69-75ft tall! And they’ve been cultivated for a long time.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/78555-Phoenix-dactylifera

There were lots of fun trees in perek 2 (bameh madlikin) but so far perek 3 has been alll about hot water and how you can heat it on shabbos. While today is Daf 42, here’s a tree mention from a few days ago:

Shabbos Perek 3 Daf 37b

Rotem - The rabbis discuss that this wood makes a particularly strong fire, and “even” fires fueled with rotem wood can heat water on shabbos. It’s Rotem in Artscroll, while Sefaria translates it as a “broom tree” - I guess it looks like a broom sweeping the dessert?

https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.37b.2?lang=bi&with=Commentary&lang2=en

But wait! Isn’t Rotem a popular Israeli girls name? If I were to guess, I’d say that’s due to the pink and white flowers, and not the burnability (so to speak) of its wood...

Retama raetam is part of the Legumes family (Fabaceae). It’s native to North Africa, Italy, Saudi Arabia and Israel. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/333974-Retama-raetam

Its oils have historically been used to treat wounds. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21547844

Talked with a local rabbi about the conversion process. We talked about what would be a respectful way to start entering into the Jewish way of life, and I suggested prayers. He agreed and off I go...

As I'm doing dafyomi, in Berakhot, I determined to start working on blessing the Eternal for the food I eat and the drink I drink.

Ya'll.

That's hard. Moving from a casual snack to integrating the awareness of Divine by action into your life? The hallowing of the daily? I fail at it big time (and I've spent years being a rather devout Christian).