Talmud as a Jewish 'Canterbury Tales'

Before Seinfeld, there may not have been a widely accepted term for “double-dipping”—the social infraction, immortalized by Jason Alexander on the show, of dipping an already-bitten chip into a communal dip. But if the name was missing, the concept existed—in fact, as Daf Yomi readers saw in this week’s reading, it was already a problem in Talmudic times. On one occasion, we read in Nedarim 49b, two sages, Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Yehuda, were eating porridge together; one of them used a fork to scoop porridge out of the serving bowl, and the other used his fingers. (The Talmud doesn’t specify which man used which technique.) The former said to the latter, “For how long will you keep feeding me your filth”—as if to say that the dirt from his fingernails was getting into the porridge. To which the latter replied, “For how long will you keep feeding me your spittle?” In other words, the rabbi with the fork was guilty of double-dipping—eating off the same utensil he dipped into the porridge and thereby getting his saliva in the food. When George Costanza did the same thing, then, he could have defended himself by saying he was following Talmudic precedent.