Happy Birthday Lily - may you continue to fly higher and higher!
Astonishingly, the Talmud, completed ca. 500 CE, asks questions about flying towers and flying boxes.
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 106b) asks: “What is the meaning of the verse, ‘…He who counted the towers’ (Isaiah 33:18)?”
Answer: The verse refers to the many questions concerning "a tower flying in the air."
For example: Does passing over a cemetery in a flying tower cause a person to contract ritual impurity like walking though it would?
Another: Is a Cohen/priest (whose holy status means he may not enter a cemetery) permitted to fly over a cemetery in a flying box?
(Excerpted from the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar, http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink)
First question for your table - What do you think? Did these ancient rabbis foresee the future development of airplanes, or did they just have wild imaginations?
Second question - What's your answer? Should a Cohen be allowed to fly over a cemetery?
Shabbat Shalom
No comments:
Post a Comment