Shabbos Daf 156 שבת דַף 156

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1. How a person’s nature is determined

It was written in Rebbe Yehoshua ben Levi’s ledger how a person’s nature is determined based on the day of the week he was born. For example, one born on Sunday will be a man of one nature without one trace of any other nature in him. Rav Ashi that this means that the person’s nature will either be all good without a trace of bad or all bad without a trace of good. The Gemara explains the reason a person born on Sunday will tend to extremes is because דאיברו ביה אור וחושך , on Sunday, the first day of creation, light and darkness were created.

Rebbe Chanina said to the students who read the ledger they should go and tell Rebbe Yehoshua ben Levi, לא מזל יום גורם אלא מזל שעה גורם – It is not the celestial sign of the day that influences a man’s nature, rather it is the celestial sign that dominates at the hour of one’s birth. For example, one born during the hour of Mars will be a spiller of blood. Rebbe Ashi says that he is destined to either be a blood letter, thief, shochet or mohel.

2. Is there mazal for Yisroel?

•Rebbe Chanina holds that mazal determines one’s level of intelligence and wealth and that יש מזל לישראל – mazal applies to Yisroel, which Rashi explains to mean that even tefillah and tzedakah cannot change it.

•Rebbe Yochanan holds, אין מזל לישראל – The celestial signs hold no sway over Yisroel, which Rashi explains to mean that tefillah and tzedakah can change one’s mazal.
Their machlokes only refers to individuals as they both agree on a national level אין מזל לישראל .

Rav Yehudah in the name of Rav brings a proof that אין מזל לישראל from when Avraham questioned who was going to inherit him given that he knew astrologically that he was not destined to have a son. HaKadosh Boruch Hu told him, צא מאצטגנינות שלך שאין מזל לישראל – Go outside of your astrology for the celestial signs hold no sway over Yisroel.

3. צדקה תציל ממות

The Gemara brings a number of incidents that illustrate, אין מזל לישראל. In one case, Avleit, a non-Jewish astrologer, had said a certain man was going to die, and Shmuel said if the man was Jewish he would live. When the man returned alive, Avleit threw off this man’s pack of reeds and found a snake cut in pieces. Shmuel asked the man what he had done to make him deserving to be spared from death. The man explained that he saved a man who forgot to bring bread to a group meal from embarrassment by pretending to take bread from him. Shmuel told him he did a mitzvah, and expounded, וצדקה תציל ממות– And charity saves from death; ולא ממיתה משונה – and not just from an unusual death, אלא ממיתה עצמה – but even from death itself.