Brains

Sources

GEMARA: The mishna states: If a weasel struck the bird on its head in a place that renders it a tereifa, one must be concerned that the membrane of the brain was perforated. Rav and Shmuel and Levi say: How does one inspect the membrane? After slaughter, one inserts his hand into the mouth of the bird and pushes the nerve tissue with his finger and inspects it. If the nerve tissue emerges and rises out through the hole in the skull, the animal is a tereifa, because this proves that the membrane has been perforated…

Rabba bar bar Ḥana says that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says: Even though the inner membrane of the brain is very thin and not easily visible, its equivalent in the testicles, which are also enclosed in a thin membrane, is conspicuous, as it has an appearance different from the testicles themselves. Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi says that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says in the name of bar Kappara: With regard to the brain, everything inside the skull is considered part of the brain…

The Gemara raises an objection: Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says: One may register for a Paschal lamb to eat the marrow of the head, and one may not register for the purpose of eating the marrow of the thigh bone. The Gemara clarifies: What is the reason one may register for the marrow of the head? It is since one can extract it from inside the head and remove it without breaking any of the bones, which is not the case with regard to marrow from the thigh bone…

§ After discussing different interpretations of the relevant verses, the Gemara addresses the details of the halakhot of the mishna. It first considers the numbers that comprise the structure of the mishna as a whole. The Sage Levi said to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi: Why does the tanna specifically teach the cases of fifteen women? Let him teach the cases of sixteen women, including the case of a rival wife of a forbidden relation. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said to him: Judging by his question…

26. The Rabbi: The expression: By My fires removes all difficulty. It states that offering, bread and sweet savour, which are ascribed to Me, in reality belong to My fires, i.e. to the fire which was kindled at God's behest, and fed by the offerings. The remaining pieces were food for the priests. The deeper signification of this was to create a well arranged system, upon which the King should rest in an exalted, but not local sense. As a symbol of the Divine Influence, consider the reasoning soul which dwells in the perishable body…

Furthermore, another mystical aspect of this verse is that when you read the alphabet in a reverse order i.e. exchanging letters such as א=ת, ש=ב, ר=ג, you will find that the letters of the great and Holy Name of the Lord, the tetragram, i.e. normally י-ה-ו-ה, are instead מ-צ-פ-צ whose combined numerical value is 300, or the same as ש. This is the letter ש written in larger than normal script at the beginning of שיר השירים, the beginning of Song of Songs. The year comprises 300 days on which the phylacteries are worn (after the Sabbath days and festival days have been deducted from the 365…

Rabbeinu Bahya, Devarim 28:10:3

Rabbi Asi says: Four kav of brains from children whose skulls were smashed were found on one stone. Ulla says: Nine kav. Rav Kahana said, and some say that it was Sheila bar Mari who said: What is the verse from which it is derived? “O daughter of Babylon, marked for devastation; happy is he who shall repay you your recompense for what you have done to us. Happy is he who shall seize and dash your little ones against the rock” (Psalms 137:8–9).

'One upon three, three upon seven, and seven upon twelve' (Sefer Yeztirah 6:3). All these organs have one spot in common, e.g. counselling kidneys, laughing spleen [angry liver], sleeping stomach. It cannot be denied that the kidneys have the faculty of giving good advice, as we know a similar circumstance to be connected with other organs. A eunuch is of weaker intelligence than a woman; both lack the beard and sound judgment. The spleen is called 'laughing' because it is its nature to cleanse both blood and spirit from unclean and obscuring matter…

ULTOTAPHOTH’ BETWEEN THINE EYES. No affinity is known to this word. Linguists, however, associated it with the expressions: ‘v’hateiph’ (And speak) to the south; And my word ‘titoph’ (dropped) upon them. The figurative usage thereof is based on the verse: And the mountains shall drop (‘v’hitiphu’) sweet wine. Thus the verse is saying that you should make the exodus from Egypt a sign upon your hand, and between your eyes a source for discourse distilling as the dew upon those that hear it…

Ramban on Exodus 13:16:1

3. The Rabbi: It can be designated by prophetic or visionary means. Demonstration can lead astray. Demonstration was the mother of heresy and destructive ideas. What was it, if not the wish to demonstrate, that led the dualists to assume two eternal causes? And what led materialists to teach that the sphere was not only eternal, but its own primary cause, as well as that of other matter? The worshippers of fire and sun are but the result of the desire to demonstrate. There are differences in the ways of demonstration, of which some are more extended than others…

Days upon which there is no tefillin: And behold we were commanded to be crowned with this crown every day except for holy days - which are themselves a sign for Israel. Hence Israel is crowned through them (the holidays) without any other effort - which is not the case on other days. For it is impossible to acquire the crowns [then] without this effort (of tefillin). But even after this personal effort, the crown that is achieved by them is not on the level of the crown achieved automatically on holy days, but rather much less than it…

Derekh Hashem, Part Four, On the Daily Order of Prayer 8

The school of Menashe taught with regard to the verse: “And you shall bind them for a sign on your arm, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes” (Deuteronomy 6:8): “On your arm”; this is the bicep. “Between your eyes”; this is the crown of the head. The Gemara asks: Where exactly on the crown of the head are the phylacteries placed? The school of Rabbi Yannai say: Phylacteries are placed on the place where the bone above the baby’s brain is soft after birth.

Abraham the author declares: It is the style of those who speak Hebrew to express their thoughts very clearly at times. However, at other times it is their style to say what they must in as few words as is necessary for a person to understand their meaning. Note that words are like bodies and their meanings are like souls. The body is, as it were, a vessel for the soul. Hence all the wise men of all nations are in the habit of preserving the ideas conveyed by a word and are not concerned with changes in wording when the meaning remains one and the same…

Ibn Ezra on Exodus 20:1:2

לא ידעו ולא יבינו They have not known nor understood. The seat of knowledge (רעת) is in those cavities of the brain that are nearer to the forehead; the understanding (בינה) is in the middle one, that is also in the middle of the head.

Ibn Ezra on Isaiah 44:18:1

31. The Rabbi: Because their contents were retained in the minds of a few people, only one of whom was an astronomer, another a physician or an anatomist. If a nation perishes it is first the higher classes which disappear, and literature with them. There only remain the law books which the people require, know by heart, copy and preserve. Whatever element of those sciences was embodied in the Talmudical law codes was thus protected and preserved by the zeal of many students. To these belong everything appertaining to the rules for slaughtering cattle, or making them unlawful to be eaten…

The benoni (intermediate) is he in whom evil never attains enough power to capture the “small city,” so as to clothe itself in the body and make it sin. That is to say, the three “garments” of the animal soul, namely, thought, speech, and act, originating in the kelipah, do not prevail within him over the divine soul to the extent of clothing themselves in the body—in the brain, in the mouth, and in the other 248 parts—thereby causing them to sin and defiling them, G–d forbid.

Tanya, Part I; Likkutei Amarim 12:1

Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: If one reads from a Megilla that was written together with the rest of the Writings he has not fulfilled his obligation. But they hit this halakha on its head, i.e., immediately after reporting this ruling they added a qualification that removed much of its force: They taught this halakha only with respect to reading the Megilla for a congregation. An individual who reads the Megilla in private fulfills his obligation even if the Megilla was written together with the rest of…

The Gemara resumes its story about Titus. The Divine Voice continued: Go up on dry land and make war with it. He went up on dry land, and a gnat came, entered his nostril, and picked at his brain for seven years. Titus suffered greatly from this until one day he passed by the gate of a blacksmith’s shop. The gnat heard the sound of a hammer and was silent and still. Titus said: I see that there is a remedy for my pain. Every day they would bring a blacksmith who hammered before him…

Gittin 56b:15-16

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