We recently had some work done on our garage. In 2021, when we purchased our new home, which was built in 1913, the inspector marveled at the garage, which was an early, purpose-built building meant for cars as compared to the converted carriage houses nearby.<\/p>\n
There are still outbuildings in the neighbourhood, now used for cars or workshops, which contain horse stalls, but our garage, the inspector said, was special. That said, it\u2019s narrow and the floor\u2019s broken. It had the remains of both an old knob and tube electric panel and a chimney. Once, we imagined, a chauffeur warmed the space with the woodstove every winter to keep the car running.<\/p>\n
When the contractors who fixed our house so we could live in it came back to work on the garage, things became complicated quickly. It turned out it was not just a couple rotten boards. Long ago, someone had cut important structural supports to put on larger heavier garage doors, likely when cars themselves became larger. A little stabilization project became a multi-week event, complete with new concrete footings all the way around the building and new structural supports. The garage no longer sits at a dangerous tilt. Our kids can go inside without danger.<\/p>\n
This expensive project doesn\u2019t mean that we\u2019re suddenly using the garage in Winnipeg this winter. The concrete floor is still broken, the doors are narrow and the whole thing needs a coat of paint. All of those renovations will have to wait, because winter\u2019s here. I\u2019ve just cleaned snow off the car, parking on the street again this morning. This experience was one of those reminders that, in life, unexpected things happen, and that we make the best decisions we can in the moment, and roll with it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This brought me to what I\u2019ve been studying in Bava Batra, the talmudic tractate I\u2019ve been studying as part of Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud a day). Lately, what I\u2019ve been learning has to do with death-bed gifts and inheritance. There\u2019s an understanding that, if someone is on their death bed, they can give their property as a gift without the legal formalities that would normally be required. Also, the rabbis rule that, if a person miraculously does not die, their promises and gifts can be retracted. In other words, if you gift everything to your brother on your death bed, but then you don\u2019t die, you can keep your home and fields.<\/p>\n On page 153, there\u2019s a woman who gives away her property as a gift as she\u2019s dying, but, by some miracle, she recovers. She goes to Rava, a wealthy rabbi who headed a school in Babylonia, and asks for her property to be returned. After all, she is still alive and needs her belongings back. But Rava says that the \u201cgift\u201d cannot be returned. His ruling doesn\u2019t align with the rest of the rabbis or the law.<\/p>\n Obviously, this unnamed woman is upset and protests. Rava then has his scribe, Rav Pappa, create a ruling that, on the surface, looks like it\u2019s in this woman\u2019s favour, but references a text that indicates that this woman should just leave, without her property. Rava assumes this woman won\u2019t notice his trickery, but this (unnamed) woman is smart, and angrier than ever.<\/p>\n Left with no other options, the woman in question resorts to a curse. Given the time, roughly 1,670 years ago, curses, amulets and magic were all used, and, in this case, the curse works. The woman curses Rava, says his ship will sink. Rava, somehow trying to trick the curse, soaks all his clothes in water to avoid it. Readers: the curse works, and not the tricks. Rava\u2019s ship goes down. Rava drowns.<\/p>\n Later, medieval commentators wonder why the curse worked. The woman felt angry for good reasons. Rava had robbed her of her property. Rava\u2019s ruling also had shamed her, and it was meant to trick her into leaving. This woman was clearly wronged. Sometimes, when a curse punishes the correct target \u2013 the later rabbis conclude a curse has strong power.<\/p>\n Long ago, someone really wronged our property, this garage, when they cut the structural supports. Given how unstable it was, it could have killed someone. Thankfully, no one was on their death bed here and apparently there were no curses. I did wonder whether we were expecting a miracle to fix this historical structure, or whether an expensive demolition was in order. It\u2019s sometimes hard to undo a bad decision, but we were able to afford to repair a bad situation, which was created by someone else\u2019s bad judgment.<\/p>\n People often seek the easiest way out \u2013 through tricks or pulling a fast one. Finding the best way forward sometimes means enduring jackhammering, structural work and funding a costly repair. Maybe if we hadn\u2019t asked \u201cour guys\u201d to check out the garage, we wouldn\u2019t have known the danger. Once we did, though, we couldn\u2019t ignore it. Once the garage project started, even though this huge expense wasn\u2019t in the budget, we had to deal with it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Hanukkah is coming up. Although our kids will still get treats and gifts, my husband and I will celebrate getting our garage back. Unlike this powerful, smart, unnamed woman who was wronged in Bava Batra, we didn\u2019t lose all our property. We rolled with the unexpected, and now have a safe space, instead of a precarious risk. All this worked out better for us than for that unnamed woman long ago \u2013 and we didn\u2019t even have to curse anybody.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Joanne Seiff <\/b>has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/i>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We recently had some work done on our garage. In 2021, when we purchased our new home, which was built in 1913, the inspector marveled at the garage, which was an early, purpose-built building meant for cars as compared to the converted carriage houses nearby. 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