For the source text click/tap here: Moed Katan 11
To download, click/tap here: PDF
The Gemara presents a number of rules regarding the consumption of fish in the last mishnah of the first perek.
It establishes that it is more healthful to eat old fish rather than fresh fish, and that it is harmful to drink water immediately after eating fish. Tosafos comment that the first of these guidelines – that old fish is preferable to fresh fish – applied only in Talmudic times.
In the new Perek we review how we are permitted to work on the Moed if refraining from work would cause financial hardship.
Our daf explores what 'financial hardship' means. It uses a number of situations to explore the fences built around this concept of financial hardship. Coincidentally, one of those examples is a fence.
Beyond financial hardship, the rabbis are concerned about related issues. One regards communal service: is a person permitted to work on the Moed if s/he is not working for him/herself but for the community? Further, if a person must work in order to survive day-to-day, and not to prevent financial hardship, is his or her work permitted?
We review further the laws of mourning in times of joy (Rav Soloveitchik's profound analysis) then reviewing recent halachic analyses of 'alternative" medicine (without diving into the COVID rabbit hole yest obliquely referencing recent unproven therapies and anti vaxxers).