It’s the final stretch of Berakhot — now’s the time to catch up if you are behind and still want to!
Now, to our daf: In which our title for today’s episode turns the Monty Python skit on its head — because the daf really is about how each individual contributes to the entirety of the human populace, no matter one’s strengths, weaknesses. We are all individuals in our capacity to make a difference, and so on. And Monty Python, of course, is mocking group-think.
Note too that the story of Rav Sheshet on this daf attests to the impressive capacity of human beings to compensate — not to detract from Rav Sheshet’s superlative abilities, but the fact that when one faculty is impaired, others develop to enhance our functioning in the world, despite the impairment. To wit, if you never encounter a passage of Talmud that explicitly mentions that Rav Sheshet is blind (as here), the odds are high that you would never know.
Click here for the Talking Talmud podcast on Daf 58.
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