[Avodah] Kabdehu v'Chashdehu

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Jul 05, 2013 at 06:35:40PM +0000, Henry Topas wrote:
: The expression Kabdehu v'Chashdehu is used often in Israeli politics.
: I have been looking for the makor of this phrase and all I have found is
: the notion that it is learned out from an incident recorded in Masechet
: Derech Eretz Rabbah (4) about Rabbi Yehoshua (Ben Levi).
: 
: Is there another source or a more recent source which would actually
: show the phrase as indicated rather than the need to use a drush?

The Bar Ilan web site turned up Ency Talmudit vol 6, "derekh eretz",
fn 523. The paragraph of the main text begins "People should always
be thought like listim before you, and honor them like Raban Gamliel. And
a maaseh with R' Yehoshua" (here R' Yehoshua honors his guest, but
then takes away the ladder from the room in which the guest was sleeping
to prevent theft. And in fact, the guest found out about the lack of
ladder the hard way, while trying to sneak down to rob his host. The
footnote cites
    Derekh Eretz Rabbah pereq *5* (emphasis mine)
    Kalah Rabasi pereq 9
    And c.f. Rashi Taanis 23b d"h "delo bediqaso".

The he.wikisource.org edition of the Rashi
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%AA%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA_%D7%9B%D7%92_%D7%91
also says it's pereq 5. I gave up before finding it in DER, assuming
that you already had that source and simply either typoed or had a
non-standard pereq division.

But while the footnote uses the idiom, Kalah Rabasi and Rashi discuss
the idea, not the wording. Judging from Rashi, the idiom in his day
was from DER: "kol adam yehei be'einekha kelistim" (without "chashuvim",
as per the ET text).

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha at aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
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