Menachot 61 and 62 - Raise Your Lambs in the Air

0:00Hey there, and welcome back to Take One, the podcast that brings you just one spiritual page of Talmud each day. And today's pages, in a hot 61 and 62, deliver a stunning masterclass on how to be religious. Like all lessons worth learning, this one too unfurls slowly and is well worth every drop of our attention. So let's begin. The Mishnah teaches that the two loaves and the two lambs are waived in the following manner. The priest places his two hands below the lambs, extends them to each of the four directions and brings them back, then raises and lowers them. That's the act known as Snufah, holding up the sacrifices in the air and waving them in all directions before raising and lowering them.

1:02It's appealing and very cinematic. We can almost imagine the priest, all dressed in white, holding up those lambs and these loaves, hoisting them in the air for all to see before waving them about dramatically. But why, pray tell, all the dramatic waving? Today's death gives us not one, but three divergent explanations. Rabiqya Baraba says that Rabi'ohan says, he extends the lambs and brings them back in order to dedicate them to he, to whom the four directions belong. He raises and lowers them in order to dedicate them to he, to whom the heavens and the earth belong. Make sense? God, after all, is the creator of all things. So what better way to acknowledge his omnipresence and omnipotence than pointing our offerings in all directions to suggest that we understand full well, that God is here, there, and truly everywhere. It's a simple, elegant, and soulful explanation, so we're a bit surprised to learn that

2:05while the rabbis in Babylonia seemingly endorsed this beautiful and spiritual notion, their colleagues over in the land of Israel had a radically different take. In the West, the Talmud continues, Eratis Rehr, they taught the idea like this, Rabiqya Baraba'uqwa says that Rabi'ohsi Baraba'haninah says, he extends the lambs and brings them back in order to request a halt to harmful winds and storms that come from all directions. Similarly, he raises and lowers them in order to halt harmful do's and rains that come from above. Nevermind, sweet and ephemeral recognitions of God's powers goes to this explanation. We are human, we live right here in this world, which means that the things that matter to us are earthly things, like winds and rains and dew. And what really do we pray for if not protection against such completely plausible disasters? The act of Tsunufa, according to this interpretation, is not an almost new age tribute to God's

3:10powers, call it a sky acknowledgement, if you will, but a practical plea to keep the earth safe from meteorological phenomena. The rationalistic street continues. Rabiqya Baraba'haninah says, that is to say, i.e., it can be derived from here that a non-essential Mitzvah helps prevent calamity as waving as a non-essential Mitzvah, even if one failed to waive the loaves he has fulfilled his obligation, and nevertheless waiving halts harmful winds and do's, Rabiqya says, and one should conduct himself similarly with a lulav on the festival of Sukkot, i.e., he should extend and bring back and raise, and lower the lulav for the same reasons. And this mention of the lulav, another thing we shake in all directions, brings us to Rav Acha. The Gammara relates. Rav Acha, Bariqya, would extend and bring back the lulav in this manner and would say, I am here by shooting an arrow in the eye of Satan, as despite Satan's best efforts the Jewish people continue to fulfill Mitzvot joyously.

4:14The Gammara comments, it is not correct to say, because this will induce Satan to come to incite the Jewish people to sin, gloating about his victory over the evil inclination will lead Satan to redouble its efforts to corrupt them. So which of these three explanations is correct? The question, as you know by now, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, is kind of silly, by delivering all three, the rabbis offered us three approaches to religiosity. You can approach religion or spirituality or mindfulness or whatever you want to call it, by seeking out gauzy and reaffirming explanations, beautiful and soothing metaphors about God being everywhere that help you feel connected to God, or the universe, or the force, or whatever it is you believe is in charge. Or you can go full cerebral, seeing your faith as the operating system that helps you download and analyze the empirical data all around you, like precipitation rates or temperatures

5:14or the direction of the wind. And finally, you can perceive of your faith as a shield in a very personal and very real war against the citra-achra, the other side, or the Yitzir-Hara, the evil inclination, or whatever you imagine is out there personally invested in seeing you tempted and ruined and failed. These paths are very different, but for being honest, many of us frequently dabble in all three, feeling metaphysical some days, and matter of fact on others, and waking up some mornings, wondering if we're somehow cursed, and if there's something, maybe some act of waving a sacrifice about, we can do to make all the bad things go away. It's this theological diversity that makes faith so rich and so nourishing, inspiring us each day to rethink our approach to the deepest questions imaginable. This has been Take One.

6:24If you enjoy the show and I hope that you do, you are really going to love the new-ish book by me called How the Tomat could change your life, surprisingly modern advice from a very old book. You can order it now at your local bookstore or directly from the publisher just by clicking the link in this here podcast description, or you know, through that big online store whose logo is a smile. Please go and rate and review Take One on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our weekly newsletter at tabletm.ag slash take one newsletter. Take One is a tablet studio's production, the show is hosted by me, Leah Lieberts, our executive producers Josh Cross, and the show is produced and edited by Josh as well as by Quinn Wall. For more information, go to tabletmag.com slash take one or email us at podcasts at tabletmag.com. I hope we have made your day a little bit more tomatic.