📖 SATURDAY PRAYER: HOD-YESHIVAT HAVERIM יְשִׁיבָה חברים – BABYLONIAN TALMUD p145

READING: BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN OF SATURDAY

And “Why has an ox a long tail?” “Because he grazes in plains and must protect himself from
the gnats.” “Why are the feelers of a locust soft?” “Because the locusts swarm in fields; were
their feelers hard, the locusts would be blinded by losing them in knocking against trees, for
Samuel said, all that is necessary to blind a locust is to tear off his feelers.” “What is the reason
that the lower eyelids of a hen are turned up (and cover the upper eyelids)?” “Because a hen
soars to her roost and (in a house full of smoke) she might be blinded by the smoke from below.”
The rabbis taught the following: “Three creatures grow stronger as they grow older, viz.: Fishes,
serpents, and swine.”
“Oil sufficient to anoint a small limb with,” i.e., a little finger. At the school of R. Janai it was
thus explained: “It means the smallest limb of a one-day-old infant.” And the same was said by
R. Simeon b. Elazar.