Eliezer the Younger was wearing black shoes, as is the custom of mourners, and was standing in the marketplace of Nahardea. Officers of the House of the Exilarch asked, “What is different with these shoes?” He answered, “Because I am mourning over the destruction of Jerusalem.”
They asked, “Are you so important?” and imprisoned him for haughtiness. He said, “I am a great scholar.”
They asked, “How do we know?” He said, “Ask me a question, or I will ask you.”
He confused them with questions about damage payments for cutting budding dates, and they released him.
Art: A Pair Of Shoes by Van Gogh
4 comments:
The picture is perfect, and the story is strange. Perhaps an answer can be deduced from a statement you once made that you understand the Talmudic scholars as Zen masters.
The painting is by Van Gogh.
If you find a story strange, it is good, because surprise means you are learning something new. But the story seems simple to me. Mourning for the destruction of the Temple is excessive display of piety, or TMI, and they suspected him of being false. If he were a great scholar, keenly aware of what the world is missing without the Temple, it would be OK.
They imprisoned him – that may seem too much, but the officers of the Exhilarch were rough people anyway.
He suggested that they should ask him anything, and he would answer, or else he can ask them. They could not ask anything – they didn't know all that much.
How did he confuse them?
Eliezer: A person who cuts down another's' budding dates, what does he pay?
Officers: He pays the value of the budding dates, which are not worth anything were they to be sold in their current state
E: But they will eventually become ripes dates!
O: So he pays the value of the ripe dates.
E: But he did not take ripe dates from the owner, so he should not have to pay more than the damage he actually caused.
O: You tell us how much he pays!
E: The damage is evaluated in relation to a field sixty time larger than the damaged one, that is, he pays how much he reduced the value of the field at the moment of the damages, when its dates were unripe.
O: Who says as you do?
E: Why, Shmuel is alive an his court is in existence.
They sent the query to Shmuel, and he responded to them that Eliezer argued correctly.
Upon this, they released him.
This seemed strangely out of order. The discussion of the dates is more in line with the preceding and following comments. I'm wondering if this is some kind of interlude meant to discipline students, who believe they're doing well, but don't yet have the, um, standing, to "wear black shoes."
Matt, you are getting the knack of it if you are looking for moral lessons. The story seems unexpected, but it is inserted because of the very complicated discussion that preceded it. There were a few possible ways to estimate damages for destroying unripe fruit, and it was not clear what the final decision would be.
In this story, apart from demonstrating the mastery of the logical argument – see the other comment for this page here, where I have it spelled out – we are also taught the final ruling by indirectly asking the court. There is a rule that “maase rav” - actual ruling is the best teacher. In this story they asked the court of Shmuel, and their answer was accepted. The reason for this is because anybody can speculate, but when asked, “is this the final ruling” he may renege.
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