📖 SATURDAY PRAYER: KETER-YESHIVAT HAVERIM יְשִׁיבָה חברים – BABYLONIAN TALMUD p168

READING: BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN OF SATURDAY

Then Israel said (unto Isaac): “For thou (alone) art our father.” Said Isaac unto
them: “Instead of praising me, praise ye the Holy One, blessed be He,” and he pointed them on
high with his finger. “There is the Lord!” Then they lifted up their eyes unto Heaven and said:
Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer from everlasting is Thy name.
R. Hyya b. Aba said in the name of R. Johanan: “Jacob deserved to go down into Egypt in iron
shackles (because that is the usual way of going into exile), but his merits precluded such a
thing, as it is written: “With human cords I ever drew them forward, with leading-strings of
love; and I was to them as those that lift off the yoke from their jaws, and I held out unto them
food” [Hosea, xi. 4].
MISHNA V.: The prescribed quantity for wood is as much as suffices. to cook an (easily boiled)
egg; for spices as much as would suffice to spice such an egg–and the different spices are
counted together; nut-shells, pomegranate peel, isatis, and cochineal, as much as suffices to dye
the edge of a small piece of cloth; alum, native carbonate of soda, Cimolia chalk, vegetable
soap, as much as suffices to wash the edge of a small piece of cloth. R. Jehudah says as much as
will suffice to remove a blood stain.
GEMARA: Have we not learned this already? Reeds, split, as much as will suffice to cook an
egg? In that case we must assume that the reeds could not be used for any other purpose, but
wood which can be put to a multitude of uses, as, for instance, to make the handle for a key,
(should be limited to a smaller quantity). He comes to teach us that the same quantity also
applies in this case.
“Nut-shells,” etc. Is this not a contradiction to what we have learned elsewhere, that dyes may
not be carried in quantities sufficient to exhibit a sample of the color in the market? Said R.
Na’hman in the name of Rabba b. Abuhu: “Because one will not take the trouble to make dye
sufficient only for a sample.”
“Native carbonate,” etc. A Boraitha in addition to this states, that coming from Alexandria but
not from Anphantrin.
“Vegetable soap” (Ashleg). Said Samuel: “I have inquired of a number of seafaring men and
they have told me that the name for it is Ashalgoh; it is found in the shells of a pearl-oyster and
it is extracted with iron needles.”
MISHNA VI.: The prescribed quantity for (aromatic) pepper is the least possible amount; for tar it is the same; for different kinds of spices and metals it is also the same; for the stone and the earth of the altar, torn pieces of the scroll of laws or its cover, it is also the same, because such things are generally preserved by men. R. Jehudah said: The same quantity applies to everything pertaining to the worship of
idols, because it is written [Deut. xiii. 18]: “And there shall not cleave to thy hand aught of the
devoted things.”