Avot306

30:
Our previous shiur exhausted the list of ten items proposed by Tanna Kamma. However, our mishnah adds four more items that, according to "some", were also created at the very last moment just before that very first Friday became the very first Shabbat.

31:
The sages of the Talmudic era – both in Babylon and in Eretz-Israel – believed that our world was inhabited by myriads of invisible and immaterial creatures which they called in Hebrew shedim. This term is usually translated as 'imps', but any similar term will do. It was assumed that these creatures were malevolent; for this reason they were also termed mezikin – trouble-makers. In the Gemara [Berakhot 6a] Abba Binyamin, a Tanna, is quoted as saying that if we were permitted to see them with our eyes no person would be able to withstand them. On this the Babylonian Amora Abbayé, comments that

And Rav Huna adds that

It seems that after God created Adam and Eve He started to create other creatures, but He 'didn't have time' to finish the task before Shabbat began (!), and that is why they have no physical existence. I think that these comments suffice for the 'imps'.

32:
The death and burial of Moses are described in two short verses in the last chapter of the Torah:

The text certainly seems to be suggesting that Moses was buried by God, and that is the simple explanation given by Rashi in his commentary on this verse. For Rabbi Yishma'el the thought was so outrageous that he preferred to ascribe the pronoun in the phrase "he buried him" not to God but to Moses: Moses buried himself! However, if the non-physical Deity personally saw to Moses' funeral arrangements, the grave must have been specially created "on Erev Shabbat at twilight."

33:
The reference to Abraham's ram is, of course, to the ram that Abraham handily found 'caught in a thicket by its horns' [Genesis 22:23] and which he sacrificed instead of his son, Isaac. That ram, say "others", was no ordinary ram: it was ordained right from that "Erev Shabbat at twilight" that that particular ram would be caught in that particular thicket at that particular time.

To be continued.

In Avot 303 we discussed the rod that was created on Erev Shabbat at twilight. I wrote: A rod as wondrous as this must surely have been created on Erev Shabbat at twilight between the Friday of creation and Shabbat.

Art Evans objects:

But it was Aaron's rod that made the first miracle (Ex 7: 8-10). And then Phoraoh's wise men had rods that performed similarly (11-12). Of course Aaron's rod was stronger and swallowed the rods of the wise men. For turning the waters of Egypt to blood Aaron's rod was again used (19-20). Were all of these rods made on that Erev Shabbat?

I respond:

A midrash [Yalkut Shimoni on Psalm 110, number 869] says that they were the same rod: