[Avodah] Sobering Thoughts for Purim

[Eliyahu Grossman]

It is an interesting story, and I recently heard 2 tellings about this. The
first was very disappointing because the Rav who gave it turned out to be an
Importer of fine Italian wines and was hawking his product as part of the
shiur! (oy gevalt!)

Another brought forth the point that one may certainly concur that Rabbi
Zeira's refusal to come to the seuda the following year does speak of
something. 

Perhaps it tells us that one should be careful with whom you drink, since
the worst can come out in some people. (the common phrase 'when wine goes in
wisdom departs' (so if you want to keep wisdom in, keep wine out - from the
same Midrash) is sometimes rendered by the heavy drinkers as "when wine goes
in, wisdom comes out', although it's a twist of the Hebrew verb
"yud-tzaddi-aleph", and it hasn't been my experience!). Perhaps it does seem
to have a disconnect between Rava and Rabba (I have wondered if a
transcribing change took place between the names, but probably not), but it
does begin with AMAR RABBA, which we traditionally hold, in many cases, to
mean that it's a point of view of the majority (rather than "Rabbi x omeir",
which indicates a machlochet, as in "Rabbi Yishmael omeir...").

But most people don't finish the sentence "until you don't know the
difference between...", and the reality is that there is no difference! So I
suppose this means that any amount of drinking is acceptable (or in my case,
coming from a family of addicted alcoholics, I use grape juice).

Eliyahu Grossman
Efrat, Israel

<-------------[Snippet from Original Post]---------------->
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:53:08 -0400
From: Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org>
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Sobering Thoughts for Purim

The part that I don't understand is that the gemara doesn't end there,
though. The gemara continues with the story of "qam Rabah shechiteih leR'
Zeira". Reading the gemara naively, I would have concluded the masqanah
is not to hold like Rava.

-Micha