daf bit: Gittin 20

The mishna teaches that a get (bill of divorce) can be written on almost anything, including an olive leaf, the horn of an ox, or the hand of a slave. (Rabbi Yosi says not on living creatures or foodstuffs, which the rabbis confirm in the g'mara.) The man must give his wife the item on which the get is written; the rabbis teach that if he says "here is your get, but the sheet belongs to me" she is not divorced. However, he still has an out: if he says "here is your get on the condition that you return the sheet to me" then she is divorced; this was a conditional gift, which is still a gift. (19a (mishna), 20b (g'mara))

NHC summer institute

After Pennsic I head north for the NHC summer institute. I got both of my first-choice classes (this and this), and there are interesting workshops in every session (sometimes more than one). This should be fun!

They encourage newcomers to just dive in (they even asked if I'd like to to lead a workshop), so I volunteered to chant torah. I'll be reading twice (one a subset of the other), on Thursday morning and Shabbat morning (the chavurah-style minyan, as opposed to the traditional-egalitarian or the kabbalistic-sounding one).

I'm looking forward to NHC. It's something I haven't done before, and it sounds like it'll be a fairly immersive experience -- lots of stuff going on all day and evening, as opposed to the daytime-only program I attended last year. (The timing might be a bit brain-bending; it's probably pretty different in style from Pennsic. :-))

The organizers report that cell-phone coverage on the rural campus is spotty, but there's internet access. I sure hope the latter is correct, as I'd like to be able to communicate with my cat-sitter. (Dani won't be going so can take care of two of them, but special-needs kitty will go to his usual sitter.)