daf bit: Menachot 43

The g'mara on today's daf discusses tzitzit, the fringes we are commanded to affix to the corners of our garments. The biblical commandment is to include a thread of blue (the others are white); this is (mostly) not done today because of uncertainty about the proper dye. The rabbis discuss this blue thread:

It was taught that Rabbi Meir used to say: why was blue chosen among all the colors for this special thread? The blue resembles the sea, which resembles the sky, which resembles a sapphire, which resembles the color of the Throne of Glory, as it is written: there was under his feet a paved work of sapphire stone (when Moshe and the elders ascended to heaven). (The g'mara does not explain why R. Meir went through the intermediate steps of sea and sky.)

It was also taught in Rabbi Meir's name that the punishment for neglecting the white threads is greater than for neglecting the blue. Why? He explains by way of a parable: a king of flesh and blood told one servant to bring him a seal of clay, and another servant to bring him a seal of gold. Both failed. Who is deserving of greater punishment? The one who could not even bring the seal of clay. (43b)

Pesach

We were in Toronto for a few days. We spent some time with Dani's family, helped an outlaw (spouse of an inlaw) buy a computer, saw a show I might review later (Billy Elliot), visited a textile museum, and went to the two seders. This post is mostly about the seders.

But first: on the way up it rained the whole way, except that it was sunny in Erie. That's just Wrong. Bad weather is centered in Erie; it's one of the laws of the universe. :-)

( seders )

We experienced good hospitality on this trip. My sister-in-law and her husband have always been happy to have us, and this year I found that they had laid in a supply of Diet Coke in anticipation. :-) ("Um, we couldn't remember if you take it with caffeine..." "Caffeine is the point of the exercise." "Oh good, we got it right.") My mother-in-law went to the effort to procure kosher meat for me (no one else cares), which was a nice surprise. The hosts of the first seder, about whom I didn't have clear memories from their previous turn, were gracious and easy-going even with 20+ people invading their home. :-)

We saw something interesting in their home, by the way. They had recently returned from travel overseas (I didn't catch where) and had brought back a painting. It was a reasonable journeyman-grade picture of a vase of flowers -- unremarkable, until you learn that it was painted by an elephant. :-) They told us that they had a painting done by an elephant and I was imagining abstract art, but no -- somebody has trained some elephants to do specific classes of paintings. (Different elephants did different ones, as I understand it.) They watched their painting being painted. (A human has to dip the brush in the paint and put it in the elephant's trunk.) "Their" elephant is four years old, which led to the expected comments about child labor.