Shabbat 149: Drawing Lots in the Family, Nebuchanezzer and Sin

We just learned a new Mishna.  In daf 149, the Gemara explains that we cannot read our guests or appetizers from a written list in case we made a change or in case we read from a business document accidentally.  The rabbis also want to ensure that we cannot erase writing from up high or low down.  They consider different types of writing.

 

The Gemara speaks of other tanna’im who argues about the same principle: one may not look in a mirror on Shabbat in case one sees a hair hanging and plucks it.  Rabbi Meir permits looking into a mirror on Shabbat if it is fixed on the wall because while going to get scissors to cut the hair, one will remember that it is Shabbat. 

 

We learned in the Mishna that one may draw lots with one’s children to decide on who gets which portion of food.  Why is this restricted to family members?   The rabbis say that other groups might be less familiar with each other and the action could become a business transaction.  And why do we allow drawing lots with our children and families?  Perhaps it is the same reason that we permit people to charge their families members interest on loans: to teach them how difficult it is to repay a loan taken with interest.  Further, there is no violation of halacha because the person lending actually owns the money of those family members, too.

 

The rabbis tell a story about the evil Nebuchadnezzar who would get other kings drunk and rape them.  He erased laughter and song.  People were afraid – not only of him, but of the places he had been, as if demonic spirits would dance there.  When he was with the righteous Zedekiah, something changed.  Nebuchadnezzar’s foreskin “was stretched three hundred cubits and it surrounded the entire feast”.    The people in Gehenna were afraid that he had come to rule over them there, but a Divine Voice said, “Whom do you pass in beauty? Go down and be laid with the uncircumcised” (Ezekiel 32:19). 

 

The connection between evil and homosexual behaviour is very obvious in today’s daf.  Clearly it is evil to rape, it is evil for a man to be with another man, it is evil for one to destroy laughter and happiness.  Further, having a foreskin is a vulnerability that can (and might!) be used to punish you for your evil deeds.