short takes

[cellio]

One of the cats is apparently taunting Dani.

A few months ago, Baldur started going off early in the morning (6ish), meowing in the bedroom. I've been chasing him out and, if it happens a second time, throwing him out and closing the door. This has been happening on a regular basis -- not necessarily every day, but most of them.

Dani left for Origins (gaming con) on Wednesday and returned Sunday. Baldur did not do this even once during those four days. This morning, he was back to normal.

Heh. Baldur is yanking Dani's chain, it appears. I wonder why.



Sunday dinner last night was just three of us; Dani had spent the last several days around a convention full of people, so he bowed out, and the other regulars were busy with various things. So Ralph, Lori, and I sat around chatting about various things, including a fair bit of D&D geeking. (We've decided what to do about polymorph and templates.) Ralph made wonderful steaks on the grill. I've never learned the art of cooking steaks -- I can do good things with roasts, with birds, with stews and soups and chili, but steaks elude me. Ralph has the knack.

Dani did not come home from Origins with many bags of games this year. It was apparently a slow shopping year. :-) He did play some interesting games, but didn't find them for sale.

I spent some of Saturday studying the Torah portion I'm chanting next month. It's a longer portion than I would have bitten off on my own initiative, but it's managable. So far it's going fairly well, and I've internalized a couple more of the trope symbols.

Today while studying with my rabbi we came to the justification in the talmud for all of the Torah and all of the oral law having been given to Moshe at Sinai. (I actually anticipated where the argument was going, and I think my rabbi was pleased that I saw it before we got there.) I had not realized before that according to this argument all of scripture, not just all of torah, was given at Sinai. In other words, that collection includes prophets and writings. That's an idea I'm having trouble with. (Berachot 5a, for those who care.)

Comments

[goljerp]

Sinai was an extraordinary experience in the rabbinic imagination. There's a midrash (I'm not sure where) that says that everything was given at Sinai: not just the complete TaNaKh[1] , not Tanakh + Mishnah, not even Tanakh + Talmud, but everything, including the insight that someone studying somewhere had just now.

[1] TaNaKh = Torah-Nevi'im-Kethuvim = 5 books of torah+prophets+"The writings" (Psalms, Esther, etc.)

[cellio]

But if everything was given at Sinai, wouldn't that include the midrash where Moshe travels forward in time, observes a study hall, and is utterly confused by what he hears because the laws being cited are unfamiliar? If that midrash was given at Sinai, it wouldn't have been able to happen as stated -- temporal-anomoly time, batman! :-)

[goljerp]

Oh, that's easy.

Moses was up on Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights, right? Well, he popped forward in time sometime during that duration, before he was given that midrash.

Now the tough part is if this bit of torah was given before he popped forward in time. :-)

(Actually, I think that there are very few discussions about when, exactly, something was given at Sinai.)

[geekosaur]

That was mentioned as well, rationalized as cellio said: that it was more the "intent" that was given, and that it energizes all belief. (FWIW, this interpretation is carried over from Judaism into the Christian view of the Holy Spirit (which differs somewhat from the Jewish one), and the Shi'i "withdrawn" Twelfth Imam.)