[Avodah] Tzvei dinim to bitel torah

[T613K at aol.com]

>>FWIW, the bit about studying math in the bathroom has to be a  legend.
Outhouses have a nauseating smell and no lighting. You don't sit  there
and read. It's anachronistic, a mental image that is only  plausible
after indoor plumbing.<<

Tir'u  baTov!
-mi



>>>>>
You may be right, but it's possible that people got used to the smell of an  
outhouse, and that cracks in the walls let in enough light to read, at least 
by  day.  Also people used to use chamber pots in their bedrooms, and then  
empty them outside. (My grandmother had a porcelain chamberpot that she brought  
with her to NY from Poland -- it came in  handy in an apartment with only  one 
bathroom, when a small grandchild just couldn't wait.)
 
The following is anecdotal but possible evidence that the Vilna Gaon  /could/ 
have done some reading in the throne room, aka the Little Library.
 
I have a book about famous literary insults and put-downs, and in it there  
is a story about Voltaire.   He wrote to someone he greatly  disliked:  "I am 
sitting in the smallest room in my house.  Your  letter is before me.  
Presently it will be behind me."
 
Voltaire was a contemporary of the Vilna Gaon.


 

--Toby  Katz
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