For the source text click/tap here: Moed Katan 25
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The mishna teaches that only the relatives of the deceased rend their clothes. The Gemara asks: And is this the case even if the deceased was a Torah Sage? But isn’t it taught otherwise in a baraita: When a Torah scholar dies, everyone is his relative.
We review the idea of the misas neshika... the kiss of death reserved for the righteous.. and cite a hesped for the Rov that evoked such memories.
Having discussed our daf’s minhagim on the death of a teacher and a Rebbe at the “moment of death” when one tears kriah, and having discussed the “kiss” the misas neshika in the bible and in midrash/Zohar, we now turn to the most infamous kiss of all… the betrayal by Judas Iscariot and how that fateful kiss has informed antisemitic tropes from the Church to Hitler for a millennium….