[Avodah] Moshe Rabenu got rich from the shivrei luchos

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 07:00:14PM -0400, David Riceman via Avodah wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 09, 2021 at 12:47:35PM -0400, David Riceman via Avodah wrote:
>>> Once you construe shivrei luchos as a metaphor shouldn't you also construe
>>> wealth as a metaphor (Avos 4:1)?

> > But then what's the message?...

> The message is that it applies to spiritual goods as well as physical
> goods. MR (RMR?) got luchos rishonos -- Torah -- only for the benefit
> of klal yisroel. If they didn't deserve he should have been willing to
> continue without it. As indeed he was.

That veered from our topic. We are discussing the maamar Chazal that
says that Moshe Rabbeinu only got rich through selling the pieces of
sapir he chiseled to make the luchos sheniyos.

Rav Shimon Shkop offered the nimshal that we too should see making money
as a side-effect of the work on our middos that is necessary to turn
our neshamos into an effective "writing surface" for the Torah.

You challenged that nimshal, saying MRAH's wealth too should be open to be
treated as a mashal. And so I read your earlier reference to Ben Zoma's
"eizehu ashir" as saying that the nimshal should be "Just as Moshe only
learned to be sameiach bechelko through whatever it is chiseling the
2nd luchos means..."

If you kept R Shimon's "whatever it is chiseling means" then you just
have a self-evident truth: One can only learn to be happy with their
lot by working n their middos.

But we weren't discussing the first luchos or being willing to give
it up. (I like the Meshekh Chokhmah's idea: Because from the way they
related to Moshe as evidenced by replacing him with the Eigel, they would
be idolatrous in their veneration of the luchos too!) We were discussing
specifically getting rich by selling the extras off the 2nd luchos.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 29th day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   4 weeks and 1 day in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Chesed sheb'Hod: When is submitting to another
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                     an act of kindness?