Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Levels Of Eating "Together" And Why It Matters

Here is one of my favorite jokes about racism: A row broke out on a bus in the old south during the 50s (middle of last century).  They fight was over a passenger of color wanting to sit in a seat in the "persons of no color" section.  The bus driver we fed up and declared, "No more fighting!  This is ridiculous!  There's no white, there's no black; everyone on this bus is green!  Got it, y'all?!"  Everyone murmured their agreement and felt appropriately castigated.  The bus driver then announced, "Good.  Now, dark green in the back, light green in the front."

Let's analyze this joke.  במאי קמיפלגי/what is the source of their disagreement?  There must have been a sign at one row that said, "Dark green section."  מר סבר too exclude light green, but dark green can sit ahead of that row also; מר סבר dark green may only sit there and no where else.  Certainly, though, had there been two signs, "Light green here" and "Dark green here", there would have been no room of misunderstanding and the argument could have been avoided.  (Though the world would have lost a good joke.)

The gemara (Brachos 42b) makes a דיוק in the mishna on 42a that said that when people are reclining at a table for a meal, then one person should bentch for all.  The דיוק of the gemara is: reclining, yes; not reclining (ie, sitting), no.
Aside: During the times of Chazal, civilized people ate at a formal meal reclining on special couches.  The only remnant of that practice now is at the Pesach seder when eating and drinking should (at some points must) be done reclining.  Tosafos already notes that our sitting is there reclining and so you really need to know something to understand how these topics apply to our meals today.  Moreover, when they ate together at a formal meal, then one person said birkas ha'mazon and was motzi everyone else; similar to the way we do kiddush.
Tosafos (dh הסבו אין לא הסבו לא) exclams, "What the hey!?"  (My free translation.)  The immediately preceding clause of the mishna has said explicitly, "if they are sitting, then each bentches for himself."  You don't need to make a דיוק  when the words are right there in front of you!  (Ah... so that's the relevance of the joke... very clever.)  Tosafos says that one must interpret the mishna as talking about something besides not reclining; the mishna that said "sitting" meant "sitting for some other reason than eating".  The gemara then brings as contrast a baraisa that says that if a group is traveling and eats on the way -- even if they all eat from one loaf of bread -- each benches to himself, but if they sit together to eat -- even though each has his own bread -- one benches for all.  From cholent of practices (take a look, it's really cool), the gemara discusses four levels of eating together.

  1. Sitting and reading or playing cards or doing homework or whatever and at some point they eat.  Maybe they brought their own lunch/snack, maybe mom brought snacks.
  2. Sitting at a cafeteria.  You are eating at a table with other people, but not together.
  3. At work and someone says, "Hey, it's a beautiful day!  Lets go to the park and have lunch."
  4. Eating at a formal meal; a wedding, siyum, shabbos, etc.
Nowadays we don't recline and we don't have one person say birkas ha'mazon for all.  We do, however, make a zimun and sometimes one person will say al ha'michya for everyone else.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק