- 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 זכר ונקבה בראם – 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 ויבן ה' אלקים את הצלע אשר לקח מן האדם – 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.
- 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.
- Rabbi Akiva and 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 אחד of 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 הוא חייך וארך ימיך – 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!”
