יומא - Yoma (18)
Angels don’t have a colon. But we do. And they need to be looked after.
Yoma 8a ~ God's Name. Tattooed.
On the (not so) odd phenomena of tattooing the Hebrew name of God.
Yoma 10a ~ On the Origins of Nations
How the Talmud and modern science have converged on the same conclusion: We all come from the same place.
Yoma 15b ~ To the Right. Always to the Right
Jews prefer the right hand. So do just about every other religion. And so does the universe.
Yoma 18b ~ Yom Kippur, The High Priest and Nocturnal Pollution
Nocturnal seminal emissions were greatly feared by the sage of the Talmud. But they are as natural as sleep itself.
Yoma 20b ~ Sound Propagation at Night
The rabbis knew sound travels further at night. Here is the physics that explains it.
Yoma 29a ~ Psalm 22 and the Husband Stitch
On the male fantasy of the tight vagina.
Yoma 30 ~ The Talmud, Congenital Penile Malformations, and a Greek Vase
On the various types of hypospadias, a deformity of the penis.
Yoma 34b~ Knives and Quenching
Why the rabbis referenced metallurgy in the rules of Yom Kippur.
Yoma 43a ~ Androgyny and the Fluidity of Gender
On the nature of two mysterious categories known as the tumtum and the androginus.
Why not all gold is “gold.”
Yoma 55a ~ Yom Kippur, Counting, and Why the Chinese Are Good at Math
Why different ways of counting may make us better - or worse - at math.
Why and how there are several different ways to count a “year.”
Yoma 67b ~ Pork, Catfish and Archeological Truths
Did the Jews of the Bible eat pork and dine on catfish? Almost certainly yes.
Yoma 74a ~ Gambling, Addiction and the Rabbi who Lost Everything
The rabbis thought a gambler would make a poor legal witness. And they were correct. Just ask Leon De Modena.
Yoma 83-84 ~ Rabbis and Rabies
Rabies was rightly feared as incurable, though some imaginative interventions were suggested.
Yoma 85a ~ Talmudic Embryology
The Talmudic take on how a fetus develops grows; from its head or from its belly. (Actually it’s neither).
When is a person legally, ethically and Jewishly dead? It depends on how you interpret this page of Talmud.