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

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Heh, cats always know who is not the cat person, but this is a new level of messing with the non-cat-lover. ;-)

[geekosaur]

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.

Cf. my comments to amergina about "oral Torah" (which you may have missed, as it was a reply to an old thread, here).

According to what I've been reading, written Torah consists of the 5 Books of Moses, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, 24 books total; oral Torah was committed to paper much later as the Mishnah, which became the core of the Talmud; and both were given at Sinai, although the oral Torah changed over time and was expected to do so, as the "adaptive" part of the Torah, and this "adaptive" function was why the Talmud was written the way it was.