note: I am not holding myself to a literal 140 character "tweet" in this blog - but I am trying to focus a small light on only one remark per Talmud page (folio page, meaning two sides of one page, thus the a and b designation). But there are two delicious comments here I could not resist.
1) in Exodus 11:4 Moses says the Angel of Death will start attacking the Egyptian first born "around midnight." Why not a precise time? Moses knew exactly when midnight would come, but he was afraid that the Egyptian astrologers would make a mistake about when midnight struck and then they would call him a liar. The lesson is: one should always be ready to say "I don't know." (In my experience, one of the hardest phrases!)
2) A ranking of the top angels based on their stamina: "Michael reaches his goal in one flight (without resting), Gabriel in two, Elijah in four, and the Angel of Death in eight. In times of plague, however, the Angel of Death reaches his goal in one."
No comments:
Post a Comment