Menachot 89 and 90 - Spend or Save

Take One Daf Yomi

Tablet Magazine

Judaism, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 565 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2026

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

On today's pages, Menachot 89 and 90, the rabbis debate how the sages arrived at the precise amount of oil needed to keep the Temple menorah burning through the night — and two completely opposite methods emerge. One school started small and added more each night; the other started lavishly and scaled back. One says the Torah protects the people's money, the other says you don't act like a pauper in God's house. The Talmud, true to form, refuses to pick a winner. So which approach should we follow with our own money? Listen and find out.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, and welcome back to Take One, the podcast that brings you just one frugal page of Talmud each day.
0:19.5	And on today's pages, Menachot 89 and 90,
0:22.6	we see two seemingly oppositional approaches to how to navigate our way through life,
0:29.6	financially speaking. As we learned earlier on in our track date, the candelabra in the temple
0:34.3	had seven candlesticks and each required a total of half a logue of oil
0:40.0	or about one cup to keep it burning through the night but how pray tell that the rabbis arrive at this
0:46.0	very specific amount this precisely is the subject the rabbis are discussing on today's pages
0:52.4	and it should come as no surprise that they are, well,
0:56.8	in disagreement. Two opinions emerge. Let's examine them at length. How did the sages reach the
1:03.5	conclusion that half a log of oil is needed, the Talmud asks. There are those who say that the sages
1:09.1	calculated it by initially using a large quantity of oil more than necessary to burn throughout the night, and then decreasing the quantity by a small amount each night until they saw that at the end of the night there was no oil remaining.
1:23.1	And there are those who say that they calculated it by initially using a small quantity of oil
1:28.4	and then increasing the quantity each night until they saw that the quantity was sufficient to allow the lamps to burn throughout the night.
1:35.3	The Gamar elaborates, the one who said that they calculated it by increasing the quantity each night holds,
1:40.7	that they did so in accordance with the principle that the Torah spared the money of the
1:45.9	Jewish people so the sages wish to minimize the financial cost of their experimentation and the one who
1:51.9	said that they calculated it by decreasing the quantity each night holds that in the temple one's
1:57.1	actions should not be motivated by a concern for the financial cost as in a place of wealth,
2:03.6	there is no poverty. In other words, one opinion is that the sages placed a small amount of oil in the
2:08.9	menorah on the first night and added just a bit every night until they reached the amount that was
2:13.8	just enough because while the tour is frugal with the money of the Jewish people.
2:17.6	It did not want to waste resources needlessly.
	...

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