Beitzah 15

On our daf today, Rabbi Eliezer is teaching the entire day of the festival. Slowly, one group at a time, the students begin to leave him to go home and eat, drink and celebrate the day. Eliezer gets upset and says, “They abandon the eternal life of Torah and engage in the temporary life of eating.”

Now, as a rabbi, I know the feeling of seeing someone walk out of services when you’re preaching or a class when you’re teaching – it’s hurtful. It makes me wonder if I’m not doing a good job. So here, I can’t help but think that, perhaps Eliezer is carrying on too long and when people begin to leave, he is being defensive and judgmental of them to protect his pride.

Rabbi Eliezer says: A person has no way of fulfilling the mitzva of a Festival correctly apart from either eating and drinking, thereby fulfilling the mitzva of joy in a completely physical manner, or sitting and studying Torah, thereby emphasizing only the spiritual; and those who did not engage in Torah study to the fullest extent acted inappropriately.

Eliezer wants them to choose Torah over the physical. He makes it an either or – when really, the day can have both:

Rabbi Yehoshua says: There is no need for such a dichotomy; rather, simply divide it: Half to God, Torah study, and half to yourselves, engaging in eating, drinking, and other pleasurable activities.

If we would give even half to God! Imagine what the world would be like.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah – May you be sealed for blessings in this New Year.