As if coffee were some kind of anxiolytic.

Though Paul's Mexican coffee may have some "special" ingredients that fit the bill.

(As for me, I can't swallow either coffee or liquor, so I'm just over here worrying retroactively about the identicon mix-up and other existential quandaries.)

There was something I read, or saw, or I think it was actually a lecture I listened to (on Youtube, no doubt) about how Jewish law was distinguished from ancient Greek law by its lack of necessary connection with rationality, arrived at by way of revelation rather than by any intrinsic properties of the statutes themselves. The red heifer was brought up as an example. But that was a long time ago and now I have no idea what that was or whether it's correct. Any ideas?

@Susan Now there's a WotD! But ... do I detect a hint of sarcasm? Could it be that there is the intimation that coffee is, in fact, an anxiogenic? Hmm...

@Susan ("Retroactive worrying" is an interesting existential concept in itself. By "liquor" do you include beer and wine? I think my general usage restricts "liquor" to distilled drinks.)

@Susan I know a bit of a literature on the "red heifer" (involving what I recall as a not very salubrious exchange between Sanders and Neusner), but cf. anyway Neusner's Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism (hits on "rational" at link, see p. 7).

(Looks like Google's URL shortener finally got a make-over -- with an improved UI/UX, I think.)

@Davïd Will do. Right after I wrote that I found in my Youtube history what I was thinking of, though, which was Christine Hayes talking about this book.

@Susan Interesting - haven't seen that one yet. I suppose the talk on Youtube is easy enough to find.

Probably. I have two in my history -- not sure if they're the same or which I'm thinking of.

@Susan Thanks.

@Davïd I don't drink alcohol at all. As for retroactive worrying.... clearly I don't have enough psychoactive substances in my life. ;-)

@Davïd Took me a while to figure out what word you were talking about. Caffeine is a stimulant, so yes, although people without an anxiety diathesis (how do you feel about that one?) generally find it more helpful than harmful. As do I, actually, just not in coffee form.

I grew up in a region with coffee plantations. The poorest breakfast included a cup of coffee. And in our family the typical breakfast was coffee and bread.

@PaulVargas Interesting.... even as children you drank coffee?!

@Susan Yes indeed! :)

@Davïd Not especially, but I had actually meant to ask you (or maybe I did? if so I don't think you answered...nah, can't be, you always answer all of my questions... :-P ) whether this comment is just wrong.

It now seems to me that the exact opposite is true -- that the feminine pronoun is expected where there is no explicit antecedent, where Greek would use neuter. מה זאת עשית .... or even that very verse: שמעו זאת -- but maybe that's only the demonstrative.

@PaulVargas There's obviously something in our brains that gets us to like disgusting things if our parents fed them to us when we were little, but .... yuck! (The coffee, not the bread. I like bread.)

@Susan But the coffee was very weak, no strong coffee. Sometimes with a little bit of milk.

@PaulVargas Milk makes everything better.