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What most likely got this rumor started is that Brachos does have and lots of pages with minimal commentary. Brachos does in fact (according to my calculations) take the record for most Talmudic text per page. words/daf letters/daf words letters daf mesechta ברכות 63 273260 70254 4337.46 1115.14 ...

Artscroll is currently making travel-sized paperback English Gemaras. Each only has about 1 or 2 chapters. Size: 7" x 10" There's also a "personal-sized" paperback Oz Vehadar. Size: 6.5 X 9.5 Blum Edition paperback travel Gemara. Size: 5.25" X 8.25" Historically, after WWII the Vaad Hatzalah printed pocket sized Gemaras for survivors in the refugee ...

I think I remember learning in elementary school that the Moon and the Sun had, as they have now, the same angular diameter when viewed from the Earth, and they also had coronas of equal size, so their total sizes, including coronas, were equal. When the Moon complained about their equality, literally in terms of a "crown" (which a corona resembles and which ...

The explanation referenced in my answer here (I'm still looking for the underlying source - it must be in some maamar or sicha) seems to indicate that the "diminishment" is closer to your second possibility - though focusing not so much on the moon's waxing and waning, but on the fact that it is not self-luminous but receives its light from the sun. (Is ...

If you're just looking for long talmudic text, there are others in Brakhot with little commentary: See Brakhot 56b, 58. Difficult sugyas with little Talmudic text and plentiful Tosafot/Rashi are qualitatively longer (and scarier!) than the more aggadic, pshat texts. There are a few in Niddah that make you hold your breath when you first turn the page onto ...

Rashi (Baba Batra 75A) explains that both @DoubleAA and @ba are correct. The Talmud (Chagiga 12A) says that Adam was created as tall as one end of the heavens to the other (also described as from earth to the heavens), but after he sinned G-d made him smaller. Rashi (Baba Batra 75A) explains that when G-d made Adam smaller, he shrunk him to 100 Cubits.

According to Sefer Hayovelim the height was 13 parsa, 5433 amos and 2 zratot. (Source) This would come out to about 52.5 km. There are sources (such as) that take only the amos, because 50 km is unbelievable, and it doesn't really work out with the way the verse is built (חמשת אלפים וארבע מאות ושלושים ושלוש באמה עלה גבהו, ושתי זרתות ושלוש עשרה פרסה). ...

Mine says 35, and by measuring it, that's in millimeters (the bayis, not the titura). So yours is probably 4 cm = 40 millimeters. (I've heard this size called "daled al daled." I used to think that meant four etzbaos, but that's definitely not the case - an etzba is 20 mm according to R' A.C. Naeh, and about 26 mm according to the Chazon Ish, so tefillin ...

The numbers 34 or 4 found on the batim cases refer to the millimeter measurement of the upper cube of the batim. hence 34mm or 4, referring to 34mm. To follow the opinions of the Rishonim that hold the batim should be 2 'etzbaos (thumb widths) many will be more strict than the Shulchan Aruch, who says that there is no shiur to tefillin. Most hold that the ...

I would say its luminosity diminished. For most heavenly bodies, the angular size is too small to be resolved by the eye, but the brightness varies by orders of magnitude, so when we say some object is greater or lesser than another, we almost always mean luminosity. As another option, recall that the Moon was created by a collision of a Mars-sized object ...

from here, quoting R. Isaac of Homil (a hebrew biography can be found here): The moon, when she was first created, was a glistening jewel. She did not merely reflect light, but rather transformed it and brought out its inner beauty, much as a precious stone glistens with a secret, hidden light all its own. In her own way, the moon was greater than the ...

When the moon was first formed it was much closer to Earth. Over the past 4.5 billion years the moon has been slowly drifting further away, and as a result it would have first appeared 15x larger in the sky than it does today.

The whole point of that story was that young David, without armor, without a sword felled the big champion well-armed dangerous giant with only a slingshot and the power of G-d. Which is what this passage presage in the Middle East right now. Israel has always been outnumbered and outsized and has prevailed with the help of G-d. The 'giant' was a giant ...

This site has an explanation and a program to help you figure out sizes. While This site gives a basic outline of Tefillin in general and sizes according to whichever custom you wish to follow.