I had intended to write about what Jewish folklore has to say about the current moment. After all, when the plague of coronavirus is all the news all the time, it’s tough not to recall that the bible has 10 Big Ones, including, most on-the-nose, the plague of pestilence. There are also the plagues that befell the Jews themselves, for example in the shadow of their worship of the Golden Calf and (as recorded in the Talmud) the plague that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s students for the sin of disrespecting each other—a tragedy that occurred in the spring, exactly this time of year.
But researching this only drew me deeper into a subject I needed escape from. There’s too much death (especially here in New York) and not enough distance. What I needed was a joke. I found it in the Talmud, by way of what ought to be regarded as the sixth book of the bible, The Big Book of Jewish Humor edited and annotated by William Novak and Moshe Waldoks (HarperPerennial, 1981, 1990).
The Talmud is rightly regarded as an exhaustive compendium of legal discussions, disputes, and determinations, so much so that the phrase “Talmudic logic” denotes the most minute hair-splitting possible. Which means that the students who studied—and continue to study—the Talmud for hours every day need(ed) a break. So, interspersed with the debates over ritual sacrifice, civil torts, and Sabbath laws, are stories, anecdotes and, yes, jokes. And they all have a point. Perhaps the point of this joke, from the volume Bava Basra 23b, is that some questions don’t have answers—which also seems on-point for anyone seeking to delve into a divine justification for our current situation:
The Mishnah [core of the Talmud] states: If a fledgling bird is found within fifty cubits of a dovecote, it belongs to the owner of the dovecote. If it is found outside the limit of fifty cubits, it belongs to the person who finds it.
Rabbi Jeremiah asked: If one foot of the fledgling is within the limit of fifty cubits, and one foot is outside it, what is the law?
It was for this question that Rabbi Jeremiah was thrown out of the House of Study.
Be well.