daf bit: Gittin 6

Rabbi Chisda said: a man should never terrorize his household. [Ed: you would think this would go without saying, nu? :-) ] The concubine of Gibea (Judges 19) was terrorized by her husband [and fled], and on her account many thousands were slaughtered in Israel. Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: if a man terrorizes his household, he will eventually commit three sins: unchastity (having relations with his wife at the wrong time because she is afraid to tell him), blood-shedding (people run away from him and meet with violence), and violation of Shabbat (because his wife, through fear of him, lights the lamp late). (6b)

The parenthetical explanations in that last part were in footnotes (presumably from other talmudic commentaries). Before I chased those notes I was a little puzzled by the combination of sins listed here -- particularly wondering what Shabbat had to do with the previous two.

Interesting: two of the sins are indirect; he bears the fault if these things happen as consequences, even if he did not directly attack someone or break Shabbat. I've seen that before for sins against people (e.g. you're liable for your ox that gores or the pit you dug that someone fell into), but less so for sins against God.

Shabbat, NHC, and a few links

I'll be leading services tomorrow night (and Saturday morning) at my synagogue, including reading torah. (Both the rabbis are away.) I'm looking forward to it. One small monkey wrench was thrown at me -- last week we switched to a new siddur for Friday nights, an interim prayerbook based on the forthcoming Mishkan T'filah. (MT is out, but our copies are still "forthcoming".) So all the familiar page numbers are wrong, some of the songs are in different places, some of the English is a little different, etc. I borrowed a copy and applied stickie notes for a few page cues; it should be fine. (If you're local and want to come, that's 7:00 tomorrow night.)

When I registered for the NHC summer institute (the learning program I'm going to after Pennsic), I checked off the "willing to read torah" box. I had looked at the portion; there is one very long aliya (two columns!) and the rest are managable, but there was no place to indicate "but please not levi". Fortunately, they don't just send out assignments; yesterday I got mail asking what I'm interested in. (There are several options, not just Shabbat morning.) There were a bunch of people on the To: line of that message, including some with "rab" in their user names. I hope I won't be outclassed. I don't think so.

Links:

The Art of Conversation is a new blog that promises to cover some of the issues, philosophical and practical, of online conversations. Good stuff from jducoeur and others; I suspect it will appeal to many of my readers.

Running for office the XKCD way (link from a locked post). I loved the first campaign attempt (the petition drive), though I agree it was ill-advised.

Misspelled signs are common, but this collection of signs with the same error made me laugh.

Speaking of misspellings, this thread in magid's journal is fun. Doesn't everyone know about the fourteenth-century Sephardim/Ashkenazim diphthong wars?

Duck Darwin awards (source forgotten), or "what happens when a duck builds a nest on a high-rise?".

Vegan zombie t-shirt (from kmelion). It looks like the shirt doesn't actually exist and it's just a design. Pity.