[Avodah] Hilchos BINGO

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jun 04, 2009 at 10:27:17AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: R Chanina ben Dosa's wife specifically asked for a withdrawal from
: their "retirement account", so that's what she got, and thought better
: of it.   But gemilut chasadim is one of the mitzvot "she'adam ochel
: perotehen ba'olam hazeh, vehakeren kayemet la'olam haba".

Actually, she asked for wealth not knowing it would be taken from their
olam haba. See Taanis 24b. Recall she was married to the man who lived
off carob, and who couldn't afford to tell his daughter to spill the
vinegar out of the Shabbos licht and fill it with oil.

R' Chaim Volozhiner associates the three legs of the table in this
story with the mishnah (Avos 1:2) of the 3 amudei olam. After all, the
aggadita about his living off carob includes a bas qol saying that R'
Chanina ben Dosa supported the world.

The golden leg they received was the amud of gemillus chassadim. Until
now, they had reason not to give more charity -- they had nothing more to
give. The story as R' Chaim understands it (I wouldn't say this about R'
Chanina ben Dosa on my own), suggests that R' Chanina would have been
unable to practice charity as he was worthy to had he had the opportunity.
That's why he lost the qeren.

Iyov was a rich man who was able to learn how to be a tzadiq and an ani.
RCV describes RCbD as someone who was poor because he (or perhaps his
wife) wasn't able to learn how to handle the challenges of ashirus.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
micha at aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke