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"The Lord's way is perfect." Rav said, "God did not give the commandments to Israel except to refine them, as it is said, 'The words of the Lord are pure words' (Psalms 12:7). 'The Lord's way is perfect' means that God's way is perfect beyond measure. Does God care whether He slaughters an animal from the front or from the back? Rabbi Berechiah said in the name of Rabbi Jacob, 'It is written, "And the fat of a carcass and the fat of a torn animal" (Leviticus 7:24). If you have not eaten them in this world, then in the World to Come, your portion of delicacies will be greater, as it is said…

Midrash Tehillim 18:24-25

“After these matters, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying: Fear not, Abram, I am a shield for you; your reward is very great” (Genesis 15:1).
“After these matters, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying…” “The Almighty’s way is faultless; the word of the Lord is refined [tzerufa]. He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him” (Psalms 18:31) – if His ways are faultless, all the more so that He Himself is. Rav said: The mitzvot were given only to refine [letzaref] people through them…

Bereshit Rabbah 44:1

Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan raised a contradiction: It was written: “The precepts of the Lord are upright, gladdening the heart” (Psalms 19:9), but it is also written: “The word of the Lord is refining” (Psalms 18:31), which implies that the study of Torah can be a distressing process by which a person is refined like metal smelted in a smith’s fire. He reconciles these verses as follows: For one who is deserving, the Torah gladdens him; for one who is not deserving, it refines him…

"You are righteous, O Lord, etc." Solomon said (Proverbs 8:8-9), "In righteousness, all the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse. All of them are clear to the perceptive, etc." What is meant by "In righteousness, all the words of my mouth"? Everything that the Lord has spoken from His mouth in righteousness, they are righteous and upright. Therefore it is said, "You are righteous, O Lord, and Your judgments are upright." Just as You are righteous, so are Your judgments righteous and upright…

Midrash Tehillim 119:34

§ The mishna states: A vessel combines all the food that is in it with regard to sacrificial food but not with regard to teruma. The Gemara asks: From where are these matters derived? What is the source for this stringency? Rabbi Ḥanin said: The verse states with regard to the sacrificial donations of the tribal princes: “One golden pan of ten shekels, full of incense” (Numbers 7:14), which teaches us that the verse treats everything inside the pan as one unit, even if the items are not attached to each other.

Rava said: The reason the punishment of lashes is not divided is that we require fulfillment of the verse: “As he conspired to do to his brother” (Deuteronomy 19:19), and were the conspiring witness to receive fewer than thirty-nine lashes, the verse would not be fulfilled. The Gemara asks: If so, in the case of money too, one should not divide the sum between them, as each sought to cause the defendant loss of the entire sum. The Gemara answers: Sums of money paid by the witnesses can combine…

§ Rabbi Akiva taught: If a man [ish] and woman [isha] merit reward through a faithful marriage, the Divine Presence rests between them. The words ish and isha are almost identical; the difference between them is the middle letter yod in ish, and the final letter heh in isha. These two letters can be joined to form the name of God spelled yod, heh. But if due to licentiousness they do not merit reward, the Divine Presence departs…

Sotah 17a:15-16

The Gemara continues to discuss the messianic age. Rabbi Zeira said that Rabbi Yirmeya bar Abba said: In the generation in which the son of David will come there will be indictments [kateigorya], i.e., denouncements and incitements against Torah scholars. When I said this before Shmuel he said: The generation will undergo refinement after refinement, i.e., several stages of cleansing, as it is stated: “And if there be a tenth in it, it shall again be eaten up” (Isaiah 6:13)…

Rav Ashi, and some say it was Rav Kahana, left the study hall to examine this matter. He analyzed the issue and found proof positive that Rabbi Akiva does not hold that there is fifth-degree impurity with regard to consecrated items. He proved this from that which we learned in a mishna: A vessel joins that which is in it into a single unit. For example, if there are fruits in a vessel between which there is no contact and one of them became ritually impure, all of the fruits are impure, as they are joined by the vessel…

Pesachim 19a:5-8

"Test me, O Lord, and try me. Test me like Abraham, as it is written (Genesis 22:1), 'And God tested Abraham and he withstood the test.' Try me like Isaac, who was tested and stood firm. Refine my kidneys; refine me like Joseph, who was refined and found trustworthy. When he was tested, he said, 'I have no strength, please do not judge me harshly,' as it is written (Psalm 143:2), 'And do not enter into judgment with Your servant.' But even so, God did not turn away from him in judgment, but rather wrote about him, as it is written (I Kings 15:5)…

Midrash Tehillim 26:3

purifies the tribes, i.e., clarifies their lineage, He will purify that of the tribe of Levi first, as it is stated with regard to the angel sent forth by God: “And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver; and there shall be they that shall offer to the Lord offerings in righteousness” (Malachi 3:3). Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says: Money purifies mamzerim. Money causes rich mamzerim to become assimilated with Jews of unflawed lineage…

Kiddushin 71a:1-2

But the Holy One, Blessed be He, does not link an evil thought to an action, as it is stated: “If I had regarded iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not hear” (Psalms 66:18). But how do I realize the meaning of the verse: “Behold I will bring upon these people evil, even the fruit of their thoughts” (Jeremiah 6:19)? In the case of an evil thought that produces fruit, i.e., that leads to an action, the Holy One, Blessed be He, links it to the action and one is punished for the thought as well…

Kiddushin 40a:13

Rav Hoshaya strongly objects to this: What is the novel element in this Tosefta? Let the status of unfit roofing be only as strict as the status of empty space. And does space measuring less than three handbreadths in a small sukka render the entire sukka unfit? If less than three handbreadths of space, which has a stringent measure for rendering the sukka unfit, does not render the sukka unfit, clearly the same measure of unfit roofing does not render the sukka unfit…

Sukkah 19a:14-16

Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: Bezalel knew how to join the letters with which heaven and earth were created. From where do we derive this? It is written here in praise of Bezalel: “And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship” (Exodus 31:3); and it is written there with regard to creation of heaven and earth: “The Lord, by wisdom, founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens” (Proverbs 3:19)…

Berakhot 55a:13

§ Rabbi Abbahu says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: With regard to all prohibitions that are written in the Torah, a permitted substance does not combine with a forbidden substance. If one eats a permitted food with a forbidden food and together they constitute the minimum prohibited measure, he is exempt from punishment for this act of consumption. This principle applies to all halakhot except for the prohibitions of a nazirite, who is liable for eating a mixture of that kind…

Nazir 35b:12-36a:1

The Gemara asks: And also according to the Rabbis, isn’t it written: “Anything that is made of the grapevine” (Numbers 6:4), which seems to indicate, as stated by Rabbi Shimon, that one becomes a nazirite only if he vows to accept all the prohibitions of a nazirite? The Gemara answers: The Rabbis could have said to you: There the verse taught that the prohibitions of a nazirite combine with each other. In other words, if a nazirite eats less than an olive-bulk of both grape skins and grape seeds, but together they amount to an olive-bulk…

Rabbi Yosei would say: The completely righteous are not included in this reckoning, nor are the completely wicked. Who, then, are we wondering about? All those in the middle. [As it says in (Psalms 116:4),] “Please, Lord, save my soul” – from the punishments of Gehenna, lest I be among those who go down into it screaming and come up from it screaming, as it says (Zechariah 13:9), “I will bring the third into the fire, and I will smelt them as one smelts silver, and test them as one tests gold.” The House of Hillel say: As it says (Psalms 63:4), “Your kindness is better than life itself…

Avot DeRabbi Natan 41:15

The Gemara elaborates: The halakha that the half-shekel payment dues to the Temple cannot be paid using items of equivalent value is as we learned in a mishna (Shekalim 2:1): When people who live far from Jerusalem wish to send to Jerusalem the shekels that have been levied from their community, they may combine their shekels and exchange them for darics [darbonot], which are large gold coins, due to the hardship of carrying on the journey…

MISHNA: And these are the defects for which the court forces him to divorce her: One afflicted with boils; or one who has a polyp; or one who works as a gatherer, or one who works as a melder of copper, or one who works as a tanner of hides, all of whose work involves handling foul-smelling materials. Whether he had these defects before they got married, or whether they developed after they got married, the court forces them to divorce…

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