daf bit: Kiddushin 29

[cellio]

Some commandments are binding on men but not on women, among them the following obligations to his son: to circumcise him, to redeem him, to teach him torah, to find him a wife, and to teach him a craft. Some say: and to teach him to swim. Rabbi Yehudah said that a man who does not teach his son a craft teaches him brigandry. (29a)

Comments

[talvinamarich.livejournal.com]

OK, you know we have to be curious about swimming lessons as a commandment.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It's considered to be part making kids able to take care of themselves. If you live near a body of water, there's a chance your kids are going to fall in. You therefore are commanded to make them death-resistant, by teaching them to swim.

This concept has been expanded to include other skill sets. Martial arts, for instance: if you live in an area where your kids might get beat up, the argument goes, you have a responsibility to teach them self-defense. It's not universally accepted, of course.

Me, I'd consider this a requirement to teach your kids basic self-defense, gun safety, basic wilderness survival, swimming, and first aid.

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

It's considered to be part making kids able to take care of themselves. If you live near a body of water, there's a chance your kids are going to fall in. You therefore are commanded to make them death-resistant, by teaching them to swim.

My snarky side responds: So if you live near a cliff, you teach them to fly? :)

On the serious side, even though bodies of water are dangerous, they are also pleasurable, and a fantastic natural resource. Without the ability to swim, one loses a substantial amount of the utility of the water.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No, but you ARE required to build a fence around it, if it's a danger.

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

That would make sense, but there must be practicality limits. A fence around the entire Grand Canyon?

Of course, now I'm mixing and comparing the metaphors of building fences around the torah and a cliff, set to the proverb, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Clearly, I need more sleep.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

If it's on your property, you are required to take reasonable efforts to make sure that it's not a danger to passerby. If it's entirely within your property, your responsibilities are lessened, but not eliminated.

If you lived next to the Grand Canyon, your responsibility would be to put a fence around your property, or, at least, the generally travelled part of your property, such that people on your property would not wander off a cliff in the middle of the night.

[cellio]

On the serious side, even though bodies of water are dangerous, they are also pleasurable, and a fantastic natural resource. Without the ability to swim, one loses a substantial amount of the utility of the water.

That's an important point. The safest reaction to something potentially dangerous is to stay away, but that's not what the rabbis call for. Balance is important, and pleasure is worth a small risk.

[cellio]

Me, I'd consider this a requirement to teach your kids basic self-defense, gun safety, basic wilderness survival, swimming, and first aid.

That's about how I interpret it too.

Thanks for all the interesting discussion. I was a bit surprised when I saw the volume of comments; my daf bits usually don't attract that much attention. :-)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I read them all, though, even if I never comment.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I love the Gemara's explanation of this, because it's so succinct:

ויש אומרים: אף להשיטו בנהר. מאי טעמא? חיותיה הוא.

It quotes the Mishna: And there are those who say: also to swim in water..

Then it asks its usual question: What is the reason?

And the entirety of the answer: It's his life.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My Hebrew really sucks, but I'm trying to piece together the bits I know: would that be literally:

Let's see. . . "אף" means "nose" or "anger", but, looking it up, I see that in Babylonian Hebrew, it is used for "also, too, but" and so forth. Weird. I assume that there's not really any connection between those.

And "השיט" means "to transport by boat," or "to sail", but, more generally means, "to float".

[there exists] [sayings]: [also] [to make him float] [in the sea]. [what] [reason]? [the life of] [him].

So, it's really not so much "swimming" as "drown-proofing". It includes the concept of "in the sea", where you'd have to deal with waves and currents, and treading water long enough to be rescued would be all you're required to do.

My father's been swimming a mile every moring in the lake recently, and recently went, with his swimming group, to do an open sea swim. He said it was amazing how much more difficult the two-and-a-half mile open sea swim was, compared to a couple miles in the lake.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

A few minor corrections to your word-by-word translation:

"אומרים" is "ones who say" (or "sayers"), not "sayings"

"חיותיה" is "his life", so "הוא" here is not referring to the child but to the reason. In Yodish grammar, with double-brackets for the implied copula, "[the life of him] [it] [[is]]"

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yay! I've actually been ABSORBING something from Hebrew all these years! Not much, but something.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Whups: נהר means "river", not "ocean".

So it comes out almost exactly as you translated it above:
There are ones who say: also, to make him float in the river.
What reason?
It is his life.

(I'm looking up words here (http://www.milon.co.il/), since I don't know any Babylonian Hebrew. These words that mean multiple unrelated-in-English concepts are fun . . . so "also" might actually be "nose", or "anger", and "reason" might actually be "flavor", "salt", or "preference". Heh. "There are those who say, "Nose, to make him sail on a river. What salt? It is his life.")

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

If you want to learn Talmudic Aramaic (and Mishnaic Hebrew), I highly recommend Grammar for Gemara and Practical Talmud Dictionary, both by Yitchak Frank.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm still trying to work my way through The First Hebrew Primer: The Adult Beginner's Path to Biblical Hebrew (http://www.amazon.com/First-Hebrew-Primer-Beginners-Biblical/dp/0939144158/ref=pd_sim_b_3).

[cellio]

Thanks for these pointers (and the discussion).

Now it all comes clear.

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

"There are those who say, "Nose, to make him sail on a river. What salt? It is his life."

Judaism has stranger precepts.

:)

[magid.livejournal.com]

If I'm remembering correctly, the local JCC has this up on the walls of the swimming pool :-)

[arib.livejournal.com]

That's kinda neat. :-)

[cellio]

Hee!

[fauxklore]

I also recall something about how if your teacher and your father are drowning and you can only save one, you're supposed to save your teacher unless your father is a sage. And that to be a sage, your father has to have taught you one religious thing and one practical thing, with the religious thing being the Sh'ma and the practical thing how to swim.

[cellio]

I've heard the teacher-versus-father issue, but hadn't heard the definition of sage. That's classic rabbinic thinking, though, so it doesn't surprise me.