Mishnaic Musings 5 by slaveofone
They tell of R. Hanina b. Dosa that he used to pray over the sick and say,
This one will live,or,This one will die.They said to him,How knowest thou?He replied,If my prayer is fluent in my mouth I know that he is accepted; and if it is not I know that he is rejected.m. Berakoth 5:5
Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it? And yet I believe it could be possible. I, myself, have experienced some pretty weird foreknowledge. Just a couple weeks ago, in fact, I dreamed that a friend had broken up with his girlfriend. Somehow I just knew it was true. So I called him up and was about to say, this is going to sound really weird, but I just dreamed you broke up with your girlfriend,
and the first thing he said was, I just broke up with my girlfriend.
See my posts Premonitions and Extra-Sensory Knowledge Part I and Part II for more. Whether this was possible in Hanina b. Dosa’s case, I couldn’t say.
Women or slaves or minors may not be included [to make up the number for the Common Grace].
m. Berakoth 7:2
I can understand slaves and minors not being included in ceremonial obligation…but women? This is offensive to me. Women were second-class citizens—or maybe even third-class citizens—in ancient Israel and most of the ancient world (indeed, even in much of the modern world). But just because that’s the way it was doesn’t mean I have to like it. I have a feeling that reading through the entire division of the Mishnah on women is going to be a bit challenging. The misogynistic perspectives in the biblical texts can be quite taxing as well. The trick is to remember that one is dealing with cultures that are different than our own and thus not to hold those different cultures up to standards we’d expect of ours.
No benediction may be said over a lamp until one can enjoy its light.
m. Berakoth 8:6
There we go, a beautiful saying to make up for an ugly one. The basic idea is one can only call something blessed when they have partaken of its goodness.
The Mishnaic Musings are a periodic series of posts where I reflect on one thing or another in the compendium of the Oral Law (the Mishnah) as I read through it for the first time. Quoted portions are taken from Hebert Danby’s eminent single-volume edition, The Mishnah, published by Oxford University Press.