Snakey's Furnace

And this is Snakey's Furnace
What's Snakey?
Rabbi Yehuda said: Shmuel
That sayings(1) circled him like this snake
And debators found it dirty

On the same day replied Rabbi Eliezer all (the) answers in
the world
And (the debators) didn't accept from him (his arguments)
(He) told them: "If Law is as I say,
This carob tree will prove"
The tree blew a hundred feet (2) off its place
And told her four hundred feet (3)
(They) told him: "Evidence doesn't come from the חרוב"

(He) bounced back and told them:
"If Law is as I say,
The Aquaduct will prove"
The water in the Aquaduct returned backwards
(They) told him: "Evidence doesn't come from the Aquaduct"

(He) bounced back and told them:
"If Law is as I say,
The walls of this court will prove"
Rabbi Yehushua ---them
told them: "if wise students outwin each other in Law
You, what's your nature?"
(The walls) didn't fall due to Rabbi Yehushua's honour
And didn't rise due to R.E.'s hounour
And still lean and stand

(He) replied back and told them
"If Law is as I say,
From the skies proof will come"
Came out a voice and said:
"What have you got with R.E.
that Law is with him"
Even then stood up Rabbi Yehushua on his feet and said:
"Not in the skies [Deutronomy 30](4)
What's 'Not in the skies'?
Said Rabbi Yirmiyah that
Torah has already been given on mount Sinai,
we don't notice a voice as you wrote
on mount Sinai in the Torah [Names 23]
'to go after majority' forgotten?"



Rabbi Nathan wondered
how has divine supervision reacted at the time
Well, God smiled and said:
"My sons outwon me, my sons outwon me"(6)

(The debators) said on that day:
"bring all the purities that R.E. has purified"
and they voted on him and blessed him (7)
and said: "Who will go and tell him?"
Said R.A. (8): "I'll go, just to avoid a case
where an indecent man will go and tell him
and will be found destroying the entire universe...

What has R.A. done? (He) dressed in black and robed himself
and black
And sat in front of him at four feet distance
Told him R.E.: "Akiva, What day is from twodays?" (9)
(R.A.) told him: "It seems to me as if friends depart from
you"
He (R.A.) also tore his clothes and took off his shoes
and dropped down and sat on the ground
his eyes dripped tears
The universe has lost a third of his olives
and a third of his grain and a third of his שעורים
And some say that even the dough in the hands of a woman
lost

But great was that day
that every where R.E.'s eyes were fixed has burnt
and even R.G (10) was coming with a ship
a huge zunammi stood over him to sink him down
(R.G.) said: "It seems to me as if it's all for R.E. son of
Horkenos"
(R.G.) stood on his feet and said:
"Governor of the universe,
it's clear and known before you
that I didn't do it for my honour
nor for the honour of my family's house have I done so
But for your honour, so conflicts won't multiply in Israel
The sea rested from its anger

(Another passage in Aramite is hereby chopped, does anyone
here master Aramite, or shall I seek professional
assistance?)

Since Aramite was just the common tongue around later on
I can try to translate it more freely
less connected to the holified text
Anyways, the end of this story
is of course another story
this time in Aramite
You see, R.G.'s sister was married to R.E.
and eversince R.E. was banished by R.G.'s court
she watched her husband so he won't fall on his nose
(which is roughly how Jews and Muslims prefer to address
their one and only king)
Then on the first day of a new moon (month, that is)
She went out her house to give charity to a poor (and sick?)
man
As she comes back she sees her husband laying down, nose
facing floor
and tells him "Get up, you just killed my brother"
(R.E.) asked her "how did you know?"
(She) told him: "That's what I got from my papa's house -
All the gates are locked except for the gates of deception"

Which means that,
according to Jewish tradition at least,
if someone is angry at you
he will always be heard by God
which is quite a risk for Jews
who are sentenced each and every year ago
and their sins are judged against their good deeds
and the One decides how and when they die
and suddenly someone you didn't even know you've hurt
is falling on his nose
asking for divine revenge
and good luck cheating them upstairs
telling them you didn't do it
or you didn't mean to hurt him
and so orthodox Jews are sometimes very much concerned
about what they say to whom and when
justifying their decisions and apologizing every other day

Then again, modern lifestyle has changed us all
now that one can flame another from the other side of the
globe
pissing off people he didn't even know
getting into virtual troubles with his virtual big mouth
leaving only real insults and blocked accounts
Yes my friends, the Law has not been updated yet to address
mailing lists
but give us a year or two and life will find a way to our
courts

Have a nice day.

The Aquaduct will prove"
The water in the Aquaduct returned backwards
(They) told him: "Evidence doesn't come from the Aquaduct"



(1) Dvarim - 'sayings' or 'stuff'. This is actually the name
of the fifth book of the Torah, the one you call
Deutronomy.

(2) Actually it's not feet but roughly 'elbow', but the
length is roughly the same isn't it.

(3) Strange sentence, ask Daniel.

(4) The biblical reference exists in the original script -
Dvarim 30, the chapter of Nizavim.

(5) strange sentence in Aramite with lots of abbreviations
I'm not familiar with, ask Daniel or tell me and I'll look
for its meaning. It's like a story inside a story, like an
inline link in ancient hypertext.

(6) This is, of course, the summit of the whole story, as it
marks a remarkable revolution in the way Jewish Law is set
after the destruction of the second temple at 70AD. It means
that the biblical principle of setting laws according to
majority's opinion is supreme to the singular case in which
this principle didn't hold. When the Torah was given on
mount Sinai, the whole people heard a divine voice speaking.
Now that the temple is gone and there's no single place
where the chief priest can communicate with God, majority's
opinion outrules every sign of prophecy, even the direct
voice of God. Such a brave statement could have never been
accepted unless the temple was destroyed and the struggle
with Roman Catholicism emerged.

(7) "blessed him" - the nicey nicey way of saying 'cursed
him'. An old biblical trick of avoiding harsh words in a
holy text.

(8) R.A. = Rabbi Akiva - One of the greatest Jewish scholars
of the time. He was recognised as a national spiritual
leader when a second rebellion against the Romans broke out
around 131AD. We managed to keep them out for 4 years, but
the destruction that followed was unbearable. Anyways it
means the whole story happenned sometime between 70AD and
130AD, and my personal guess will be around 120AD.

(9) "What day is from two-days?" - "Ma yom miyomayim"
originally - What is the difference between to-day and any
other day? i.e., why are you dressed in mourning black and
keep a 4 feet distance from me?
R.A.'s mourning rituals are derived from the catastrophic
outcomes of internal conflicts and divisions according to
Jewish heritage, especially after the destruction of the
temple about 50 years earlier, which ended four years of
bloody civil war. It is said that the first temple was
destroyed (in 586B.C.) due to paganism, whereas the second
temple was destroyed due to mutual hatred. What can I say,
these are still the two firstmost causes for bloodshed
today.

(10) R.G. = Rabbi Gamliel - Probably the son of Rabbi Shimon
ben Gamliel, head of the Jewish court in the temple of
Jerusalem, who was smuggled out of beseiged Jerusalem to
meet future-emperor Titus. He was hidden in a coffin as the
fanatic guards of the rebellion forces wouldn't let anyone
out, and of course the Romans wouldn't let anything but
coffins out either. Dropping to Titus' feet and promising
him he'll soon be emperor (those were the days of
Aspasyanus), R.S. managed to secure a refuge for his court
once Jerusalem was conquered, thus insuring the Jewish court
remained active even after the temple was burnt down to
ashes and the ritual sacrifices were ceased. Thus the Jewish
Law lived on though the prophecy was gone with the temple of
Jerusalem and given to babies, scholars and fools.

This story is part of the Babylonian Talmud. To be exact, it
accounts for most of the second page in Section 59 of the
fourth chapter in Baba Metizaa book, which is the 3rd in 6
books of the Talmud.

It is based on two lines of text in section 5.10, under the
'Tools' chapter of the 'Purities' book in the Mishna.
The Mishna is a huge record of judiciary discussions made in
Jewish courts in Israel and Babylon after the destruction of
the second temple. If I'm not wrong it was sealed sometime
in the 5th century and was an issue for fierce debates
between Judaism and early Christianity. Priests preached
against its followers, popes ordered it to be burnt and Jews
were willing to die over keeping it. It contains genuine
relics of the early arguments between diverse cults in
Judaism that has later shaped Maronite Christianity,
Greek-Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Catholicism and several
others.
The continuous composition of laws and traditions by
scholars, documented in open-source scripts to be sealed and
holified later on, is the single most reason the Jewish
heritage survived the diaspora. The fact that any Jew can
argue with scholars that justified their decisions over
thousands of years, is a remarkable feature that made our
laws and habits extremely rich in beauty and wisdom. A paper
can be no more than a piece of clay or wood, but the spirit
of educated debate and arguments over common values, is
something that impressed the whole Islamic world at the
time, giving us the name 'People of the Script'.

Needless to mention my scripts are horrible, my compiler and
I never agree on anything.