I'm asleep on a pile of paper

[sovay]

Well, I guess Tuesday was spring. It was so sunny and mild and so blooming that I walked around my neighborhood taking pictures of flowers and and I looked forward to visiting the Arboretum in the next week or so. And then yesterday, on top of the computer-related emotional roller coaster, the temperature spiked past eighty degrees and the cats melted onto the hardwood and we needed two fans in the windows of the bedroom for me to get to sleep after dark, which made so little difference to the heat that spatch and I both had trouble believing it was one in the morning when it was. Today it is sticky and hazy and distinguishable from August only in that the trees are still in flower instead of that late dry green leaf. I am not looking forward to trying to sleep tonight. I hope our air conditioner is up to it.

Bertie Owen and his twenty-year-old external keyboard are still hanging in there. I am pleased that I was able to finish my interrupted review. I am now trying to decide if I really want to watch Four Daughters (1938) for John Garfield and Jeffrey Lynn now that it's handily on TCM or if it's going to be like that time Seven Sweethearts (1942) happened to me.

spatch found me this excellent Talmudic commentary on incels.

It is too hot.

Comments

[asakiyume]

I found the Talmudic commentary so fascinating that I went to see their explanation for their judgment. It was less forward looking than the judgment, taken in today's context, sounds, but still interesting. Some imagined the woman married; in this case everyone agreed with the judgment, but what, the text asked, if the woman was unmarried?

"But according to the one who says that she was unmarried, what is the reason for all this opposition? Why did the Sages say that the man must be allowed to die, rather than have the woman do as was requested?"

In this case, they say it's no good because if the woman were to satisfy the man, it would disgrace the woman's family. Well then, what if the man will marry her? And then comes this insight:

"The Gemara asks: But if the woman was unmarried, let the man marry her. The Gemara answers: His mind would not have been eased by marriage, in accordance with the statement of Rabbi Yitzḥak. As Rabbi Yitzḥak says: Since the day the Temple was destroyed, sexual pleasure was taken away from those who engage in permitted intercourse and given to transgressors, as it is stated: “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Proverbs 9:17). Therefore, the man could have been cured only by engaging in illicit sexual interaction." (text here)

Very clearly stating that the problem is with the guy, and that no legitimate action will satisfy him.

[cmcmck]

I've always been proud of my Jewish ancestry and that judgement makes me prouder than ever!

[batdina]

thank you/Spatch for the Talmud piece. I love it when the rabbis are pointedly relevant to the present.