Rabbinic Shabbat dinner etiquette etc.

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: When the Rabbis Got Together for Shabbat Dinner, Drama—and Law—Ensued. In the Talmud, examples of real-life rabbinic behavior and the intensely personal nature of lawmaking.

Even so, most of this week’s reading managed to stay far away from the concrete details of Passover. The mishna on Pesachim 99b begins with a brief sentence about eating on the day of the Seder: “On the eve of Passover, adjacent to mincha time, a person may not eat until dark.” These few words are the springboard for eight full pages of Gemara, in which the rabbis talk primarily not about Passover at all, but about Shabbat. In the process, the text gives several examples of real-life rabbinic behavior, dramatizing the intensely personal nature of Talmudic lawmaking.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.