Brachos 61-How Man Looked at Creation,Money or your Life,R' Akiva and his death, Bathroom Direction - a podcast by Eran Netkin

1. How Chavah was fashioned
There is a machlokes between Rav and Shmuel concerning how Chavah was fashioned:
- One opinion is that man was created as a double figure, male and female, and that Hashem
fashioned Chavah from the female figure.
- The pasuk of בראם ונקבה זכר – He created them male and female is initially brought in
support of this view.
- The other opinion is that she was fashioned from the tail.
- The pasuk of האדם מן לקח אשר הצלע את אלקים' ה ויבן – And He built the side that He had
taken from man, seems to support this view. If the woman already existed, there would have
been no need to build her.
2. The concept of a בינוני
Rabbi Yosi Haglili says that the righteous are ruled by their yetzer tov, the evil by their yetzer
hara, and average people )בינונים )are ruled by both.
When Abaye heard Rava say that he considered himself an average person, he said that by that
standard, not a person in the world could be considered righteous.
3. R’ Akiva’s response to Pappus ben Yehudah
The Gemara relates the story of R’ Akiva’s imprisonment and subsequent execution, during
which— with his dying breath—he proclaimed the אחדof Krias Shema.
Before being imprisoned, as he was giving a shiur, R’ Akiva was asked by Pappus ben Yehudah if
he feared the wicked regime, which had forbidden the teaching of Torah. R’ Akiva answered
with a mashal of a fox trying to persuade fish to save themselves from being pursued in the
water by coming up onto the land. The fish replied that if in the environment that supported
their life they were afraid, shouldn’t they be even more afraid in an environment that was
inimical to their life? Similarly, the Jewish people’s life support is Torah learning, as it says, כי
ימיך וארך חייך הוא – For it is your life and the length of your days. Without Torah learning, we
would be in even greater danger.
Eventually, when Pappus was thrown into prison with R’ Akiva for a false accusation, he said,
“Fortunate is R’ Akiva, who was apprehended on words of Torah! Woe to Pappus, who was
apprehended on account of meaningless words!”
Siman – A saw
The magician successfully sawed the man into two, one half male and one half female but was booed
as a benoini performer because he couldn’t make the fish jump out of the fishbowl.
Key Words – Chavah, בינוני ,Pappus

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