Menachot 103 and 104 - Same As It Ever Was

0:00Hey there, and welcome back to Take One, the podcast that brings you just one perfectly ordinary page of Talmud each day. Because today's page is minachot one with three and one of four, sing the praises of the perfectly ordinary. Behold. One of says it is incumbent upon me to bring a meal offering from barley should bring the meal offering from wheat as voluntary meal offerings are brought exclusively from wheat. One who says it is incumbent upon me to bring a meal offering from flour should bring the meal offering from fine flour as it is written his offering should be a fine flour. If one vows to bring a meal offering without oil and without frankincense, he should bring it with oil and frankincense as voluntary meal offerings require oil and frankincense.

1:00What the rabbis are asking? What happens? If some dude wants to go all extra special super fancy and bring a primo, grade A, top of the line, luxury mincha offering, I mean after all, these things are voluntary. Part of some temple time finance hot shots say decides that wheat is for poor losers and that real winners should offer bespoke barley. Again, shouldn't he be allowed to do so as again the whole offering is voluntary? No can do say the rabbis. The rules of the offering are the rules of the offering and you cannot change them. You cannot offer less, but also you cannot offer more. The first glance, this is pretty obvious, isn't having strict rules precisely the purpose of religion? I mean, if everyone could do as they please, there wouldn't be little to bind us together to each other and to tradition. But the insight here goes much deeper.

2:01The rabbis, after all, are master observers of human psychology and they know us mortals all too well. Our urge they understand is always to innovate, to seek out the different, the extraordinary, the new and improved. That's a terrific thing. The sort of person who looks at the offering of fine flour and says, huh, I wonder what will happen if I being barley instead is exactly the sort of person likely to discover penicillin say or figure out a way to go to the moon or write some great and perfect poem capturing big emotions in a few little words. But grow addicted to this form of thinking and what you will have is a ruthless, rudderless society, constantly trying to find the new and perpetually tossing out the old. What you think about it is a nightmare. Imagine a society in which you wake up each morning having completely dismissed all the achievements and all the agreements of yesterday. That person who just yesterday was your hero, uh, he's the villain now.

3:06That virtue that just yesterday ranks so true and inspiring, time to chuck it away today. It's not only a way of life guarantee to drive you crazy, but also one that makes community and society and civilization all but impossible because community and society and civilization all depend on tradition and the knowledge that come what may, some things will forever be true and unchanged. That the 14th of the sun, for example, will always mean that it's pesakh or that the 4th Thursday in November is always Thanksgiving or that the Minha offering will always be made of fine flour mixed with oil and frankincense even or especially if we grow so wealthy we can afford to sacrifice much finer things. It's a lesson us inveterate innovators desperately need to hear. We're all addicted to the new eager for some strange thrill clamoring to break the routine of the same old same old. But the same old same old is what keeps us together and in today's pages of Talmud the

4:10rabbis urges to keep it simple, keep it old school and keep the faith. This has been take one if you enjoy the show and I hope that you do you are really going to love the newish book by me called how the Talmud 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 and Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our weekly newsletter at tablet m dot a g slash take one newsletter take one is a tablet studios production the show is hosted by me lia leeboots our executive producers Josh cross and the show is produced and edited by Josh as well as by quinoa

5:11for more information go to tablet mag dot com slash take one or email us at podcasts at tablet mag dot com I hope we have made your day a little bit more Talmudic.