My wife, who thank God is my also my best critic, asked if I could write about why I named this blog, "The Three Fold Cord." It is based on a Mishne in tractace Kiddushin that goes as follows:
תלמוד בבלי מסכת קידושין דף מ:
Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Kiddushin, 40b
Anyone who engages in mikra [Bible], mishna, and derekh eretz [basic decency], he does not quickly sin as it says, “The three-fold cord will not quickly be broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:12) Everyone who does not have mikra, mishna, and derech eretz is not of civilization.
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כל שישנו במקרא ובמשנה ובדרך ארץ לא במהרה הוא חוטא שנאמר והחוט המשולש לא במהרה ינתק וכל שאינו לא במקרא ולא במשנה ולא בדרך ארץ אינו מן היישוב:
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The actual quote about the three-fold cord is from Ecclesiastes 4:12, and our Rabbis use it in many manners, by I particularly appreciate this one. It is the reason that many of my posts come in three parts. Though the three parts are not each focused on a separate aspect mikra, mishna, and derekh eretz, I like to think each is incorporated aspect each week. I understand mikra to mean Bible, but more broadly our earliest sources and traditions. I understand mishna to mean our adaptation of our earliest sources to the current time and place (whether that be third century Roman Empire or twenty-first century America), and derekh eretz to be how be put it all together in our conduct as members of a larger world and a small piece in God's creation. I also understand each to mean its literal meaning as well (אין יוצא מידי פשוטו), so I often try to include a bit of each.
