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other teachers to share any Baraita you have learned, even if you don’t understand them, even if they appear to contradict the Mishna or another Baraita.”
    â€œ
Especially
if they appear to contradict the Mishna or another Baraita,” my brother Nachman interjected.
    Father nodded. “My son is correct, for it is only by a thorough discussion of the reasoning behind the different Mishna and Baraita that we can resolve any apparent contradictions and thus make the law clear,” he said. “If you learn how to do this well, the exilarch may appoint you to one of his courts, where it will be your decision that metes out justice.”
    Since there were no more questions or comments, he continued wherewe’d left off the day before. “The Mishna we’ve been studying deals with various activities that may impinge on neighbors’ property rights, some of which are permitted and others prohibited.”
    The students nodded their readiness to begin. Previously we had learned that it was forbidden to set up a bakery, dye shop, or cattle barn under another’s storehouse because the smoke and stink would damage the goods stored above. Today we’d study a section on whether those sharing a courtyard may limit what vocations the other residents could practice there.
    I girded myself for what I feared would be a difficult topic.
    As always, Father first quoted the Mishna: “No one may restrict another’s livelihood by claiming ‘I cannot sleep because of his noisy hammer, his noisy millstones, or his noisy children.’”
    Then he had the students repeat it with him until he was satisfied that they all knew it. The Mishna was in Hebrew, but everyone here in Bavel spoke Aramaic, so Father next asked who needed any words explained.
    This time I understood the Hebrew, since all the words were also in the Torah, but I wouldn’t have asked for help in any case. Elohim had commanded us to: “Teach these words diligently to your sons, recite them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise up…that your days and the days of your sons may increase.” Even though “sons” could also be read as “children,” girls were still considered exempt from Torah study. So I sat quietly near Grandfather and avoided drawing attention to my presence.
    When nobody had a question, Father sat back, placed his hands on his stout belly, and asked, “We see that carpenters and millers may practice their professions despite the neighbors’ objections. But whose occupation is the Mishna referring to by ‘noisy children’?”
    Rami spoke first. “A teacher, and the noisy children are his students.”
    My brother Nachman promptly challenged this. “But our Sages taught in a Baraita: If a courtyard resident wishes to become a mohel, a bloodletter, or a teacher of children, the other residents
can
prevent him.” He emphasized the word “can.” “So the Mishna’s noisy children can’t be a teacher’s students or it would conflict with this Baraita.”
    One of my nephews asked Nachman to repeat the Baraita, and he did so. Again I understood all the words, but I also knew, despite being a girl and the youngest in class, that a Baraita was not supposed to contradict the Mishna. This was the part of Father’s lessons I liked best: when he and his students worked to resolve seeming contradictions.
    Abba’s hand shot up in protest. “But our Sages mandated that every town must provide teachers for its children. So how can anyone in the courtyard object to a teacher?”
    Father’s brown eyes warmed with pleasure at his students’ vigorous arguments. “Rami is correct. We are indeed discussing teachers here,” he said. “Nachman has quoted a teaching from our Sages that allows a courtyard to prevent teachers, while Abba has pointed out that the