Talmud Commentary: Bavli 1/5. bBetsah 14a (mBetsah 1:7)

@Manuscript evidence

@General observations

Rav Aha Bardela held that a light mortar and pestle of stone may be used to crush salt on a festival day. Although the crushing of salt and spices is allowed on festival days, Rav Aha Bardela, inserting a stringent condition, required that the spices be crushed differently than on regular days. On a festival day, Rav Sheshet, whose blindness was well known, as was therefore his exceptionally keen hearing, heard the sound of a stone pestle pounding salt in a light mortar of stone, the usual way of doing this task. He declared that this sound was not coming from “inside my house,” because he instructed the members of his household not to crush salt on a festival day in the usual manner. The gemara then asks whether they may have leaned the mortar on its side, suggesting that perhaps the pounding sound he heard was indeed coming from his house but via the stratagem of atypically leaning the light mortar on its side to permit the task. But it concludes by stating that Rav Shehshet heard the sound of the pestle striking the light mortar unambiguously, meaning that the spices were being crushed in the usual manner.

@Feminist observations

The term “from my house” certainly refers to the wife of Rav Sheshet.[1] Moreover, as the men in this story are outside the house, it is most likely that it is the women who have remained inside and crushed the spices. That women are closely connected to spices, we have already seen within this commentary (Mishnah 3. mBetsah 1:8).

Here again, the women inside the house adhere to the halakhah, because the crushing of spices is permitted on festival days. Yet, in the face of practical considerations, they did not accept or apply the stringent condition imposed by Rav Sheshet on his family. This is an interesting example of the actual power of women. Although male authority required the crushing of spices in the unusual way, the women opposed this ruling while still adhering to halakhic requirements.

Only in the early Soncino print and in the Vilna print of this text is the son of Rav Aha Bardela mentioned, as being instructed by his father, although not a single extant manuscript witness supports the assertion that Bardela was talking to his son. We, therefore, have to assume that the son is a later, albeit significant, addition to the text. The insertion of a son again shows up the general effort to create a male chain of tradition that is so evident throughout this massekhet: Fathers teach halakhah to their sons. Yet, additionally, another – if silent – female chain of tradition can be observed in the text: Alongside the fathers transmitting the halakhah to their sons, it is the women who self-confidently apply halakhic requirements to their daily activities, sometimes even against the stringent rulings of a male authority.