David Regev · דָּוִ֖דֿ רֶֽגֶֿבֿ

🧵 on Web Browser #UX: #TooManyTabs 𝗗𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗯𝘀 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻? Years ago, I discovered the solution! No browser on the market has truly solved this problem. Part 1: What’s the problem? Part 2: The solution! Part 3: Flow Browser

⁦I used הכי גרסינן¹ for the BT manuscripts. I’m not sure if it includes any Yemenite ones. I also looked at the Parma Mishnah and whatever is available on אוצר כתבי יד תלמודיים². ⁦I also searched online in various places for [מצה על שנגאלו], but I couldn’t find anything useful. Mind you, I researched all this a few years ago, so there may be new information now. ¹ bavli.genizah.org, though I actually used the old Android app, called Bavli Variants. There’s an APK floating around online. ² nli.org.il/he/discover/ju…, though I actually used their older and much better site that seems to be gone now.

@DavidRegev Do you have the Yemenite MS handy as well?

⁦A little דבר תורה for Passover night (if your guests don’t mind technical discussions involving manuscripts). What is Rabban Gamli’el talking about? Rabban Gamli’el requires everyone to mention these three items: א. פסח ב. מצה ג. מרורים See the standard text of the Haggaḏah below. sefaria.org/Pesach_Haggada… I have a few questions: 1. Why is it so important to say these things, such that you haven’t fulfilled your obligation otherwise? 2. Why are we explaining etymologies, rather than something more important? ⁦3. The third etymology doesn’t work. It looks like it’s going to explain the origin of the word ‘מצה’, but it doesn’t. (This one always bothered me.)

⁦There is another question regarding whether the explanations are coming from Rabban Gamli’el himself or from the Mishnah. But this shouldn’t affect my analysis. I could see the explanations being added later on in order to clarify the vague “אמר”. Or perhaps Rabban Gamli’el did that himself. A secondary lesson from all of this is that Kaufmann is an excellent manuscript!

⁦There is some manuscript evidence for this theory. One BT manuscript (Vatican 134) has “על שום” only for פסח. Two others (Munich 95 and JTS 1608) have it for מרור as well. None of these have it for מצה. ⁦It seems that these are intermediate steps between having “על שם” nowhere and having it everywhere. People would only have added it to מצה once both of the other items had it, just to make the language more uniform (even though it makes no sense). ⁦What I have yet to find is a manuscript corresponding to Kaufmann’s base text (according to my reconstruction): no “על שם” anywhere.

With everyone arguing over whether customs are important in Judaism, I think people need to be reminded of something: Halakhah is a legal system. It has rules about how it works, which are recorded in rabbinic literature (Mishnah, Tosephta, etc.). You want to argue that halakhah requires you to observe the same customs your father’s father’s father had halfway across the globe over a century ago? Prove it! Start arguing like a lawyer (or, better yet, like a logician), instead of just yelling on social media. If you’re genuinely interested in this question (rather than just looking to confirm what you “know”), you can start with Josh’s series on halakhah: 👇 ⁦By the way, ‘מנהג’ just means ‘practice’, not ‘custom’. All customs are practices, but not all practices are customs. You can’t just argue from the use of ‘מנהג’ without understanding the context.

אנחנו גם זה וגם זה. מלכות רומי נעלמה ואנחנו נשארנו, ביחד עם כל הספרות שמדברת על "Palestine". עכשיו, זו המילה שלנו. לך תגיד לכל חוקרי התלמוד היהודים שאסור להגיד "Palestinian Talmud" בגלל שיש אנשים שלא מבינים מה זה. אם תעשה את זה, אתה נותן ל-Fauxlestinians לנצח בתוכנית ה-doublespeak שלהם.

@DavidRegev @elongilad הרכבת הזו יצאה מהתחנה. ועם כל הכבוד, אנחנו ממש לא "הפלסטיניים המקוריים". אנחנו בני ארץ ישראל המקוריים, ולא משנה כמה הרומאים היו עצבניים אחרי מרד בר כוכבא.

1/8 Imagine preparing for the Passover Seder, only to realize half the Jews in your city think the holiday doesn't start for another two days. In the year 921 CE, this actually happened. 🧵

@QA_NJ @wtfcetialpha5 I’m not defending it. My point was that it’s not at all the same as what’s going on in Starfleet Academy.

@DavidRegev @wtfcetialpha5 You can call it whatever made up name you want it doesn’t change why it was there (why did they have to “make up for all the miniskirts in TOS”?) and it went away because people realized it was stupid. Be honest.

Star Trek was never woke. It was about the military in space, written by a veteran, with progressive elements and storylines. Not about the gheys and putting Klingons in a dress to send a message about inclusivity. I'm glad your show is rotting and gone.

וזאת הבעיה! אנשים כל-כך רגילים למשמעות החדשה של "פלסטיני", הם שכחו ש"פלסטיני" = "יהודי מארץ ישראל". למה שנשנה את הלשון שלנו בגלל רשעים שרוצים לשכנע את העולם שהם הפלסטינים המקוריים ולא אנחנו? בשבילי, כשאני שומע "פלסטיני", אני חושב על המשנה, על תלמוד ארץ-ישראל, על רבי יוחנן, על גניזת קהיר, על סדור ארץ ישראל… המשמעות האחרת היא המוזרה.

@DavidRegev @elongilad תודה על התגובה דוד. מזכיר שאנחנו בטוויטר, לא בכתיבה אקדמית, כפי שכתבת. לדעתי הביטוי "רבנים פלסטינים" הוא מוזר בכל שפה, בכל תרגום, לכל קהל יעד, ולא משנות הנסיבות.

@QA_NJ @wtfcetialpha5 That’s a skant, not a skirt. It was meant to be a futuristic unisex outfit, to make up for all the mini-skirts in TOS. It also basically disappeared after season 1 (for obvious reasons).

@wtfcetialpha5 TNG put a counselor on the bridge next to the captain like a commissar on a Soviet Navy ship, put a girlboss in charge of security, made the doctor a woman, put a blind man at the helm, put crewmen in skirts, and introduced the Trill to raise questions about gender preferences.

That’s the standard way of referring to the Land of Israel from 135 CE to 1948 in Western academic parlance. There’s nothing weird about it. No one would ever think that this term refers to anything other than Jews living in the Land of Israel. If you let evil people appropriate this term, you let them lay claim to historical information about Jews and pretend that it refers to them. This term is ours! So, yes, Palestinian rabbis, Palestinian Talmud, Palestinian rite, Palestinian Judaism.

@elongilad Great thread, but "Palestinian rabbis"? I mean, come on...

⁦The fixed calendar was one of the last acts of the Great Court (סנהדרין). It was never meant to be permanent, since the correct way to determine the beginning of the month is by witnesses. But that became increasingly difficult, due to persecution, so they enacted the fixed calendar as a temporary measure. The Sages felt that the state of affairs could change soon, and they’d be able to return to the correct way of calculating the calendar. So, rather than tell Diaspora Jews to observe only one day, they told them to continue observing two days like they were used to. After all, the Great Court could go back to the old way by next year, and then the Diaspora would go back to all those doubts about when the holiday falls (which is why two days were observed in the first place). What the Sages sadly didn’t forsee is that the persecution would get so bad that the Great Court would cease to exist, and we’d all be stuck with this temporary measure for 16½ centuries (and counting). If the Great Court were around today, they’d obviously get rid of having two days in the Diaspora, since we have electronic communication now and no longer would we have any doubts as to when the new month was declared in Jerusalem. So, the question is not why we have two days, but why we haven’t revived the Great Court. Yes, this is technically challenging, since it’s not clear how to do this. But getting unity to do this is even harder!

Ok, so why are we still doing 2 days of Chag in the diaspora?? We know when the holidays start and end. Passover should be 7 days with 1 Seder. How do we fix this?

The formatting when you type a Hebrew word into English text.

⁦*cough* “Selling” חמץ.

Indeed. אָמַר רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, שָׁמַעְתִּי, שֶׁמַּקְרִיבִין אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁאֵין בַּיִת, וְאוֹכְלִים קָדְשֵׁי קָדָשִׁים אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁאֵין קְלָעִים, קָדָשִׁים קַלִּים וּמַעֲשֵׂר שֵׁנִי, אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁאֵין חוֹמָה, שֶׁקְּדֻשָּׁה רִאשׁוֹנָה קִדְּשָׁה לִשְׁעָתָהּ וְקִדְּשָׁה לֶעָתִיד לָבֹא: sefaria.org/Mishnah_Eduyot…

@RodgersTed @shevereshtus We're not allowed to bring it outside of the area of the Temple. But we are allowed to bring it in that area whether or not the building is constructed. The reason we don't bring it is that the government won't let us.

What a load of absolute nonsense. Rabban Gamliel said that you were allowed to eat what’s called a gedi mekula on Pesach. A gedi mekula was a young roasted goat that was cooked in a way that resembled (what was different) a Korban Pesach. This is a practice that predated the destruction of the Temple, and the questions as whether you were allowed to continue doing it or not. The Sages decreed you were not allowed to continue this custom that some had after the destruction of the Temple, because people could be confused by it and think you had sacrificed your own Korban Pesach. It was not, in any way, shape, or form, considered a sacrifice, or replacing a sacrifice. Rabban Gamliel absolutely *never* advocated for Jews to make private sacrifices at home. A child in cheder would know this.

I’ve thought about it and have come to a different interpretation of the Mishnah: the concern is not cold dough but dough with a dried-out shell. x.com/i/status/20355… “So, in conclusion, if your dough is hard on the outside, and you have no other doughs made at the same time, and you leave it out for 72 minutes without kneading it, then (and only then) you really need to worry about it having fermented.” If the above is not the case, then it has nothing to do with the clock but with how the dough looks.

Finally, a rant about how chometzphobia: x.com/DavidRegev/sta…

שנה (מקראית) טובה! Some 🧵s about Passover and the unleavened bread 🫓 we eat thereon: First, a simple recipe for making authentic (soft) maṣṣah: x.com/DavidRegev/sta…

⁦That said, it’s possible that “deaf” dough does not refer to cold dough but to something else. I think I have a pretty good suggestion: dough that has hardened on the outside, like earthenware. In other words, it’s not בצק החרשׁ but בצק החרשׂ (original spelling of חרס). This interpretation solves several problems. First, it’s much more of a practical concern. If you don’t keep your dough in a humid environment, it’s a very real possibility that it will dry out on the outside and that this crust will prevent the dough from expanding, all while the inside is fermenting along. Second, it doesn’t violate thermodynamics. Third, it explains clearly why checking another dough would make sense: if you made several doughs at the same time, it’s totally possible for one to dry out on the outside while another doesn’t, due to small variations in the environment. If that other dough is soft on the outside but hasn’t visibly expanded, you can safely assume that neither has the “earthenware” dough. ⁦Amazingly, Safrai’s commentary on the Mishnah says the same thing. ברוך שכוַנתי! sefaria.org/Mishnat_Eretz_… So, in conclusion, if your dough is hard on the outside, you have no other doughs made at the and time, and you leave it out for 72 minutes without kneading it, then (and only then) you really need to worry about it having fermented.

Addendum: It occurs to me that the worry with cold dough is based on a violation of the laws of thermodynamics. If you used cold water to make a dough, that dough should be equally cold throughout. After that time, the outside should always be somewhat warmer than the inside, since heat travels from warmer areas (the air) to colder areas (the center of the dough). Therefore, there’s no possible way for the center of the dough to have risen more than its outside. People in the past didn’t understand how heat worked. They might have noticed that we feel warm when we bundle up. Not knowing that this is because we produce our own heat, they might have thought that the center of a dough would be warmer because it’s “bundled up”. Now, fermentation apparently does produce a small amount of heat. But we’re not talking about yeasted dough here. If there’s any yeast in this cold dough, it’s on the surface, which is the only place airborne yeast can get to. So, basically, even cold dough should not be a concern (though it’s hardly a practical issue anyway). x.com/i/status/17801…

𝗟𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 (חמץ) 𝗶𝗻 𝟭𝟴 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘂𝘁𝗲𝘀? Someone needs to bust this #Passover myth, and the information is not easily found online, so…