SATURDAY PRAYER: HOCHMA-YESHIVAT HAVERIM יְשִׁיבָה חברים – BABYLONIAN TALMUD p125

READING: BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN OF SATURDAY

Said R. Na’hman b. Itz’hak: “Thy bread is cast upon the deep” (meaning the remedy is an
impossibility). 1
The rabbis taught: (Women) may go out with a Kutana stone (to prevent miscarriage) on the
Sabbath. It was said in the name of R. Meir that they may even go out with the counterpoise of a
Kutana stone, and not only such (women) as have already once miscarried, but even as a
preventive to miscarriage, and not only when a woman is pregnant, but lest she become pregnant
and miscarry. Said R. Jemar b. Shalmia in the name of Abayi: But the counterpoise must be an
exact one and made in one piece.
MISHNA IX.: It is permitted to go out with eggs of grasshoppers or with the tooth of a fox or a
nail from the gallows where a man was hanged, as medical remedies. Such is the decision of R.
Meir, but the sages prohibit the using of these things even on week days, for fear of imitating the
Amorites. 2
GEMARA: The eggs of grasshoppers as a remedy for toothache; the tooth of a fox as a remedy
for sleep, viz., the tooth of a live fox to prevent sleep and of a dead one to cause sleep; the nail
from the gallows where a man was hanged as a remedy for swelling.
“As medical remedies,” such is the decision of R. Meir. Abayi and Rabha both said: “Anything
(intended) for a medical remedy, there is no apprehension of imitating the Amorites; hence, if
not intended as a remedy there is apprehension of imitating the Amorites? But were we not
taught that a tree which throws off its fruit, it is permitted to paint it and lay stones around it? It
is right only to lay stones around it in order to weaken its strength, but what remedy is painting
it? Is it not imitating the Amorites? (Nay) it is only that people may see it and pray for mercy.
We have learned in a Boraitha: It is written [Leviticus, xiii. 45]: “Unclean, unclean, shall he call
out.” (To what purpose?) That one must make his troubles known to his fellow-men, that they
may pray for his relief.
Rabhina. said: The hanging up of a cluster of dates on a date
tree (as a sign that the tree throws off its fruit) is in accordance with the above-mentioned
teacher.