[Avodah] 15 fruits- [RavAviner] Parashat Beshalach 5768

[Michael Poppers]

In Avodah Digest V25#25 (or as CBers might say, double quarters), RJR
quoted:
> ...It says in the Jerusalem Talmud (end of Kiddushin), "Rav Bon said: In
the future a person will have to give an accounting for all that his eyes
beheld, but he did not eat."  Rav Bon?s intention was not that a person
should be a glutton and eat everything in his sight; rather he should
endeavor to taste everything (obviously everything that is permissible) at
least once.  And it also relates that Rabbi Eleazar was concerned about
this idea, and he would save his money in order to eat each of the year?s
new produce.  Similarly, the Mishnah Berurah (Orach Chaim 225:19) writes,
"It is meritorious to eat a little from each year?s new produce. The reason
is in order to demonstrate the preciousness of Hashem?s creation." He does
not mention, however, that one must eat fifteen types of fruit. <
To conflate w/ the "Alps" thread, RSRH wrote (quoted from CW VolVIII, the
initial two paragraphs of the long essay "From the Notebook of a Wandering
Jew"), "How could you think, dear N., that your letter would still find me
within my four walls? 'The winter is over, the blossoms are showing, the
time for singing has come;' could your friend stay in the house?  No, my
dear.  Even as a child I envied our forefathers when, on the Seder night,
my father presented them to me with their feet sandalled, their loins
girded, the wanderer's staff in their hands, the bread-bundles on their
shoulders; I would have given the sweetest charoses for a drink of bitter
water if I could have wandered thus for forty years with them in the
desert.  I almost believe that all you homebodies would one day have to
atone for your staying indoors, and when you would desire entrance to see
the marvels of heaven, they would ask you, 'Did you see the marvels of God
on earth?'  Then, ashamed, you would mumble, 'We missed that opportunity.'
{new paragraph --MP} "How different were our Rabbis in this respect.  How
they breathed and felt, thought and lived in God's marvellous Nature.  How
they wanted to awaken our senses for all that is sublime and beautiful in
Creation....How they wanted to demonstrate to us that every creature was a
preacher of His power, a monitor of our duties; what a Divine revelation
they made of the book of Nature."  If RLK (who noted RaMCHaL's views some
digests ago), RMM (who posited that RSRH must have disagreed w/ RaMCHaL's
views on p'rishus), et al. have a good handle, l'aniyus da'tam, on shitas
ba'al M'silas Y'sharim, I would like to hear how they explain that TY sugya
l'shitaso.  Again, for my part, there is no machloqes between RaMCHaL and
RSRH: the sugya doesn't say what effort one must expend in order to
"behold" a given item/aspect of this world, nor (to repeat what I wrote
before) does it say one must indulge in "beholding"; and I don't understand
RaMCHaL as advocating blocking oneself from any form of "beholding."
Rather, he notes as a basic axiom in MY 13 (as he begins outlining ways in
which a person can improve from being a "tzaddiq" to becoming a "chassid")
that re those aspects of this world which are "muchrach lo mei-eizeh ta'am
sheyihyeh," a person would be a "chotei" rather than a chassid should he be
"poreish" from them.

Gut Voch/Shavua Tov and all the best from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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