Have you ever seriously wondered if Kansas is really flatter than a pancake? Perhaps you have thought disdainfully that it's just a thing to say; like, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." Well, wonder no more... Kansas is much flatter than a pancake! How do they determine that? Well, first you need a baseline. The baseline of both Kansas and a pancake is flat. Then you measure difference of every point on the pancake (and Kansas) from its own baseline and determine an average (RMS, actually) deviation from baseline and add 1.0. Hence, perfectly flat would be 1.0 (which is why we added the 1.0, so that flat would 1.0 and not 0.0; as that just seems wrong.) When the dust (flour and dirt, respectively) settles, the flatness of a pancake is 0.957, while Kansas is 0.9997.
One more thing: It is precisely those deviations from flatness that are the interesting features of Kansas. The "deviations from flatness" include, after all, buildings, trees, and even people.
That's really the the meaning of the yiddish expression -- איין מאל איז קיין מאל, צוויי מאל איז איין מאל/one time (learning something) is nothing, twice is once. When you start on the topic all you see is a huge expanse of unknown. As I am reviewing this time, I am finding things that I honestly can't believe I missed the first time. Case in point: מים אחרונים/washing one's hand after a bread meal.
I course I knew that the Shulchan Aruch 281:1 states clearly and succinctly that מים אחרונים is an obligation. And I knew, of course, that one is not supposed to talk after washing before bentching and that the Mishna Brura even says if you accidently (or even on purpose) talked that you must wash מים אחרונים again. However (and, yes, I know full well this is not a great excuse), many people are not careful to perform the מים אחרונים ceremony; those who do often just dab a few drops on their fingertips (a practice also decried by the Mishna Brura). This laxity, I suspect, is due to the reason given by Chazal: to wash away a particularly strong salt (מלח סדומית) that can cause blindness if it gets in the eyes. Since we don't have מלח סדומית any more, people don't worry about washing to protect themselves. That's a mistake.
Why? Because Chazal were very careful about making decrees. One is not allowed to make a bracha with dirty hands, but there is no decree that one must wash his hands to make a bracha; it just good sense. When Chazal wanted to encourage (or discourage) a behavior by dint of decree, it was because there are underlying kabbalistic (not pop spirituality, but the real deal) nuances that are at work. What's going on here? Please remember that when Adam and Chava ate from the forbidden fruit, the Torah says "their eyes were opened and they new they were naked." Rashi says over there that even a blind person knows if he is wearing clothes! The Torah is using the expression "eyes were opened" to mean that they had a realization that they were denuded of any mitzvos. Another case: we are commanded to place our t'fillin between our eyes, yet we all know that they t'fillin goes on top of our head. If you follow straight down from the t'fillin, though, you will find the corpus callosum and the crossing of the optic nerves from both eyes! In other words, the t'fillin is actually place directly between the place where vision occurs, rather than the physical organs that collect light and transmit images to the brain.
It follows from all of this (and more) that seeing and vision are related to the experience of understanding. When Chazal said they were so nervous about the slightest possibility of מלח סדומית that they made a decree, they were telling us that there are elements of the physical world -- even nourishing elements -- that can damage our ability to process and understand the world. Therefore, we wash to protect not only our physical eyes, but also (and really, all the more so) our spiritual eyesight.
I originally thought to title this TftD simply: Washing After a Meal is an Obligation; No, Really. Then I realized as I was writing that there is much more going on here; no, really.
One more thing: It is precisely those deviations from flatness that are the interesting features of Kansas. The "deviations from flatness" include, after all, buildings, trees, and even people.
That's really the the meaning of the yiddish expression -- איין מאל איז קיין מאל, צוויי מאל איז איין מאל/one time (learning something) is nothing, twice is once. When you start on the topic all you see is a huge expanse of unknown. As I am reviewing this time, I am finding things that I honestly can't believe I missed the first time. Case in point: מים אחרונים/washing one's hand after a bread meal.
I course I knew that the Shulchan Aruch 281:1 states clearly and succinctly that מים אחרונים is an obligation. And I knew, of course, that one is not supposed to talk after washing before bentching and that the Mishna Brura even says if you accidently (or even on purpose) talked that you must wash מים אחרונים again. However (and, yes, I know full well this is not a great excuse), many people are not careful to perform the מים אחרונים ceremony; those who do often just dab a few drops on their fingertips (a practice also decried by the Mishna Brura). This laxity, I suspect, is due to the reason given by Chazal: to wash away a particularly strong salt (מלח סדומית) that can cause blindness if it gets in the eyes. Since we don't have מלח סדומית any more, people don't worry about washing to protect themselves. That's a mistake.
Why? Because Chazal were very careful about making decrees. One is not allowed to make a bracha with dirty hands, but there is no decree that one must wash his hands to make a bracha; it just good sense. When Chazal wanted to encourage (or discourage) a behavior by dint of decree, it was because there are underlying kabbalistic (not pop spirituality, but the real deal) nuances that are at work. What's going on here? Please remember that when Adam and Chava ate from the forbidden fruit, the Torah says "their eyes were opened and they new they were naked." Rashi says over there that even a blind person knows if he is wearing clothes! The Torah is using the expression "eyes were opened" to mean that they had a realization that they were denuded of any mitzvos. Another case: we are commanded to place our t'fillin between our eyes, yet we all know that they t'fillin goes on top of our head. If you follow straight down from the t'fillin, though, you will find the corpus callosum and the crossing of the optic nerves from both eyes! In other words, the t'fillin is actually place directly between the place where vision occurs, rather than the physical organs that collect light and transmit images to the brain.
It follows from all of this (and more) that seeing and vision are related to the experience of understanding. When Chazal said they were so nervous about the slightest possibility of מלח סדומית that they made a decree, they were telling us that there are elements of the physical world -- even nourishing elements -- that can damage our ability to process and understand the world. Therefore, we wash to protect not only our physical eyes, but also (and really, all the more so) our spiritual eyesight.
I originally thought to title this TftD simply: Washing After a Meal is an Obligation; No, Really. Then I realized as I was writing that there is much more going on here; no, really.
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