Documentation by Naveed Farro
Review of ‘On the path’ written by Cameron Hurst and Paris Lettau for Memo Review here
Ways on the Derech (path)
On the path source sheet | Text compiled by Babs Rapeport
“The path of the glorious holy supernal beard of the Ancient of Ancients” (p.364)
“Come and see!...” (p. 362)
“From the middle, beneath the nose beneath the two nostrils, emerges a single path. Hair ceases on that path.’ Why does it cease?” (Ibid)
“This is the philtrum, the vertical groove running from right beneath the nose to the top of the lip. This “path” is free of hair. Rabbi Hiyya indicated that “hair ceases on this path” so that the divine breath can pass freely down from the nostrils- thereby passing over transgression and passing down to the mouth, which can then declare I have
forgiven.” (Note 147)
”…This path is prepared for passage. So it lies beneath the two nostrils and hair does not grow on this path, on account of ‘subduing iniquities...’” (Ibid)
“What is the difference between one and the other?” (p. 363)
“What is meant by and he went? That a breath of wrath shoots forth from those nostrils, and whoever is found there is ‘gone’ and no longer exists.” (p. 363)
“The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass.” (Isaiah 40:7 as per the Christian New International Version)”
“passing over [transgression], and it is written: a breath passes, purifying them (Job 37:21). ” (p. 364)
“It has been taught: Numerous registrars await that mouth, but it is not revealed to any of them, for it ascends and is crowned and concealed - known and unknown.” (p. 363)
Compiled excerpts from Idra Rabba, Zohar, trans. Daniel Matt (the Pritzker edition, Stanford University Press), vol. VIII and the Christian New International Version of the Book of Isaiah
Having discussed wise speech and the wisdom of Jewish women, the Gemara cites the following story: Rabbi Yosei HaGelili was walking along the way, and met Berurya. He said to her:
“On which path shall we walk in order to get to Lod?”
She said to him:
“Foolish Galilean, didn’t the Sages say: Do not talk much with women? You should have said your question more succinctly: Which way to Lod?”
Eruvin 53b:24, translation from Sefaria
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Ḥananya said as follows:
“In all my days, no person defeated me in a verbal encounter except for a woman, a young boy, and a young girl”.
What is the incident with a young girl?
“One time I was walking along the path, and the path passed through a field, and I was walking on it. A certain young girl said to me: My Rabbi, isn’t this a field? One should not walk through a field, so as not to damage the crops growing there. I said to her: Isn’t it a well-trodden path in the field, across which one is permitted to walk? She said to me: Robbers like you have trodden it. In other words, it previously had been prohibited to walk through this field, and it is only due to people such as you, who paid no attention to the prohibition, that a path has been cut across it”.
Thus, the young girl defeated Rabbi Yehoshua ben Ḥananya in a debate.
Eruvin 53b:18-21 on Sefaria
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