In order to completely understand the next portion of what later became the Talmud, Moses first learned it four time from God. Then Aaron would enter the tent of Moses, sit right across him, and Moses would teach him the portion. Then Aaron would sit to the side of Moses, the two sons of Aaron would enter, and Moses taught them. Then the rest of the Sages would come in, and Moses taught them. Then the rest of the people were taught by Moses.
By now, Aaron has heard it four times. Moses would leave, and now Aaron teaches everybody. Then Aaron leaves, and his sons teach. The the sons leave, and the Sages teach. Thus everybody gets a chance to hear the lesson four times. Why would not Moses teach all the time? – To give that distinction to the others.
Rabbi Preida had a student to whom he would have to repeat the lesson four hundred times before he understood it. One day, Rabbi Preida had to go to do a mitzvah, so he taught the student the usual four hundred times and was preparing to leave, when the student told him that he did not understand it this time, since every minute he was saying to himself, “Soon my teacher will leave.” Rabbi Preida said, “Sit and I will teach you,” and taught him another four hundred times. A heavenly voice asked him, “Do you want that four hundred years be added to your life, or that you and your generation merit the life in the World to Come?” Rabbi Preida chose the World to Come, but God himself intervened and said, “Give him both.”
The residence area (techum) around a city is drawn as a rectangular, following the city's outlines. Houses that protrude beyond the rectangular shape of the city itself add to the techum, since measuring begins from them.
Art: Gerrit Dou - The Bible Lesson
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