Talmud Bavli
Talmud Bavli

Musar for Sanhedrin 181:1

אמרה ליה ברתיה שבקיה ואנא מהדרנא ליה שני יוצרים יש בעירנו אחד יוצר מן המים ואחד יוצר מן הטיט איזה מהן משובח א"ל זה שיוצר מן המים א"ל מן המים צר מן הטיט לא כל שכן

Thereupon his [the emperor's] daughter said to him [the Rabbi]: 'Let me answer him: In our town there are two potters; one fashions [his products] from water, and the other from clay: who is the more praiseworthy?' 'He who fashions them from water, he replied.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' This being far more difficult. ');"><sup>1</sup></span>

Shenei Luchot HaBerit

The Torah tells of Abraham giving gifts to the sons of his concubines (Genesis 25,6), and Sanhedrin 91a describes these "gifts" as שם טומאה, i.e. Abraham did not want them to refer to Satanic forces by the name of G–d (Torah Temimah on that verse). The reason that the word פלגשם in that verse is spelled defectively, without the letter י to indicate the plural ending, is to allude to the name i.e. שם of the קליפה. Read פלג-שם, the name divided, and you have a hint of the dichotomy of forces, which is what סטרא אחרא and טומאה is all about. In the future this process will be reversed and טומאה will vanish.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Full ChapterNext Verse