Our Gemara on Amud Beis discusses the prevailing awareness at that time that vessels with liquid in them left open and unguarded can become contaminated by snake venom, as the snake is attracted to it and might have taken a drink.  The Gemara says it is forbidden to have one’s animal drink from it, and Rashi says perhaps you will slaughter the animal and eat it, thus exposing someone to the poison.

However, this seemingly contradicts a teaching in Gemara Chulin (58b) which permits one to eat an animal which drank from the left open water, and there is no concern of danger (see Rashi ibid.)  There are various answers given by the commentaries (see Bach and Taz YD 116:6), however a creative and interesting answer is given by Nachal Eshkol (III:20), which is that our Gemara is discussing where you gave the animal to drink, while Gemara Chulin is discussing where the animal drank spontaneously of its own accord.  What is the difference?  Animals possess certain instincts that are superior to man, and they can sense danger, as Rashi (Bamidbar 22:23) notes regarding Bilaam’s donkey that saw the angel. Therefore, the animal would not drink poisonous water. 

This relates to what we discussed in yesterday’s daf, that they are matters we are not aware of and our bias blocks perception.  Animals do not have a need, nor the intellect, to organize reality along certain lines. They do not possess psychological defenses and do not need to deny issues or craft narratives to make sense of their lives.  Of course, for the most part this is a disadvantage because it is a human trait to dream, imagine and build. After all, we have gone far, from the steam engine, the Wright brothers to Elon Musk, who will one day take us to Mars in fulfillment of the directive to conquer the world (Bereishis 1:28), may he live long and well! However, this need to craft a narrative and create reality also blocks perception of reality.  This is why the Gemara Bava Basra (12b) teaches: “Rabbi Yoḥanan said: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to imbeciles and children.”  And we find another teaching about intuition that is just below conscious perception in Megilla (3a): “Ravina said: Learn from this incident that with regard to one who is frightened for no apparent reason, although he does not see anything menacing, his Mazal sees it, and therefore he should take steps in order to escape the danger.”

The upshot of this is that we should not have disdain for intuition.  It is true, that instinct is not empirical fact and can be triggered by all kinds of false stimuli: Is that knot in your stomach because something feels wrong, or is it just indigestion?  You won’t know for sure, but like any other human skill and trait, mindful awareness and practice increases ability.  My father Z”L had finely honed intuition, bordering on Ruach Hakodesh.  There are countless stories, I will just say one. One time a student came late to his class, and sheepishly slunk to seat in the back. My father never would allow students to be disengaged and always used humor, wit and compassion to disarm them.  He called out, “Nu,…did she say Yes?”  He was flabbergasted - how did my father know that he was late because he proposed to his Kallah to be?  Later my father would try to put together the bits and pieces of hints that triggered his instant assumption.  That was the interesting thing. My father never left it as is, rather he would retrospectively study his hunches to try to see what brought him to his seemingly prescient conclusions.  He also later discovered that he was one of a small percentage of the population that could naturally read micro-expressions, discovered and studied by researcher Paul Ekman.  Ekman later cataloged the facial action coding system, which allowed him to train people and actually learn how to use it consciously.    

Learn to use your intuition, God gave it to you for a reason.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

Do you like what you see? Please subscribe and also forward any articles you enjoy to your friends, (enemies too, why not?)