Ok. Didn’t actually study Talmud yet, or rather we studied Mishnah but not Gemara. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that I studied excerpts from Leviticus, Nehemiah, and Mishnah Tractate Succoth with my hevruta and good friend Marisa. Naturally, it was outstanding. Marisa and I know approximately the same amount of Hebrew and she’s hard-working, serious, thoughtful, and also silly. A great person to study with. This kind of study is one of the main things for which I came to the Yeshiva.
What did I learn? Leviticus 23 tells us to take (U’Lakachtem) or perhaps take AND bind on the first day of Succoth a fruit from a goodly tree (read:etrog), a date palm branch, the bough of a leafy tree (read:myrtle), and stream-willow (read:lulav) and to rejoice in front of God.
Questions Marisa and I asked about the text from Leviticus. None of these questions were answered in the assigned excerpt.
1) What is meant by “goodly tree”?
2) What are “leafy” trees?
3) How do we distinguish branches (“capot”) from a bough (“[g]anaf”)
4) What is meant by U’lekahtem?
5) What is meant by “rejoice”? In other words: How shall I party, O Lord?
6) How do we observe the festival?
7) What do we do with this stuff once we’ve taken it, after the first day and on it?
What’s a sukkah? How do we make one?
9) How do we define “citizen” (“ezrakh”)? Are women, children and slaves included in that category?
10) What constitutes “dwelling”?
11) Why is it so important for the generations to know that God made us live in tents when He took us out of Egypt?
12) Why doesn’t this tent business just happen on Passover? Why are we remembering living in tents NOW and not at some other moment in the calendar?
Haha, Leviticus called you a sukkah.
Look at #8, sitting so cool. It’s a little unfair to 7 and 9. It’s a good thing there is no number semi-colon or I wouldn’t trust it.