Commentary for Berakhot 16:29

Place-names which have no Targum, but should still be read in the Aramaic version.

Difti is identified with Dibitach on the lower Tigris; Neubauer, p. 390.

It is consequently wrong to devote the eve of the Day of Atonement to the reading of the entire Pentateuch. It must be observed as a normal day.

Through old age, sickness or trouble, but not through wilful neglect.

According to B. Batra 14 b, the statement in Deut. x. 2 is intended to teach that reverence should be shown even to the fragments of the first tables of stone. Similarly one must respect the old, though they be broken by years or trouble.

Of cutting the hand.

Some blood may drip on to the table and make the meal repugnant to the diners.

It is probable that "Aramaean" has been substituted for "Roman" for fear of the Censor.

It is disrespectful not to enter and join in the Service. Blau, Das altjudische Zauberwesen, p. 150, n. 4, suggests as the original reason for the prohibition : "der Weg soll nicht gekreuzt werden."

Blau, op. cit. pp. 47 f., thinks that a reference to witchcraft is here intended, and the "dead child" mentioned below was the medium through which the sorceress worked.

The bed would then be like that of a heathen who never reads the Shema'.

See fol. 61 a.

Because in these circumstances it would not appear disrespectful.

Because "walls have ears"; Levit. R. xxxii. §2.

M.: Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel.

Sexual intercourse.

This bitter outburst is due to the persecution of the Persian Jews under Shapor II. See S. Funk in M. G. W. J. xlix. p. 539.

Although it is before dawn, "when thou risest up" applies.