In
Talmudic times, the most honored class in the community were the
scholars; a retentive memory was thus a particularly prized gift.
It was natural, then, that superstitions should have accumulated
on the subject. The following selections are taken from the Babylonian
Talmud, Nezikin, Tractate Horayot 13b.
Five
things make learning to be forgotten:
eating what had
been nibbled by a mouse or by a cat;
regularly eating
olives;
eating an animal's
heart;
drinking water
in which somebody has washed;
and placing one
foot over the other while washing them.
Five
things restore learning to the memory:
bread baked on
coals;
soft-boiled eggs
without salt;
frequent drinking
of olive-oil and spiced wine;
and drinking the
water which remains from kneading dough;
dipping the finger
in salt and eating it.
Ten
things are bad for memorizing study:
passing beneath
the bridle of a camel;
and how much
more so passing beneath the camel itself;
passing between
two camels or two women, or being one of two men between whom a
woman passes;
passing under
a place where there is the foul odor of a carcass;
passing beneath
a bridge under which water has not flowed for forty days;
eating bread
not sufficiently baked;
eating meat
from a soup-ladle;
drinking water
from a conduit which passes through a cemetery;
