Shabbat 118: What Portion Should We Receive? The Rabbis Brag

We learn that one who is poor but has enough to eat two meals over the course of a day is discouraged from taking from the community's charity plate.  If a person has enough food to last a week, which counts as fourteen meals, they should not take money from the charity plate, either.  We are supposed to honour Shabbat with food and drink, but we are encouraged to "not be beholden to another being" by taking charity.

Someone who is visiting or travelling over Shabbat should be given their sleeping needs, which is interpreted by Rav Pappa as a bed and cushions.  That person should be provided with three meals, including the one that is taken with him when he leaves.  It is assumed in this case that the traveller brought his own meal for Friday.

Rabbi Yochanan says in the name of Rabbi Yosei that we are given a "boundless portion" when we do not violate Shabbat with our feet, by working, and we speak properly, we don't go our own way, attend to our own goals, and honour and take delight in Shabbat.  Some of the suggested delights in Shabbat are a dish of beets, a large fish, and the heads of garlic.  Even small fried fish would be considered to be delights.

Rav Yehuda offers an interpretation:  We observed our first Shabbat in the dessert improperly: some Israelites did not collect two portions of Manna (Exodus 16:27), and... "Amalek came and fought with Israel in Refidim" (Ex.17:8).

We are told that the rabbis speak about the portion that they would like to receive.  For example, some would like to receive the portion among those who seat others in the study hall and not those who cause others to stand.  Another: "May my portion be among those who die on the path to perform a mitzva".  The rabbis then begin a conversation where each speak of his positive qualities. Here are some examples:

• Rabbi Yosei: I engaged in relations five times and I planted five cedars in Eretz Yisrael (his sons); when the rabbis asked about why he did not fulfil his wife's conjugal rights, it was suggested that he did so again.  One son, Menachem, was also known as Vardimas because he was as beautiful as a rose
• Rabbi Yosei: I called my wife my home and my ox my field because they were the essence of those places
• Rabbi Yosei: I never looked at my circumcision due to modesty
• Rabbi Yehuda NaNasi, did not insert his hand below his belt due to modesty
• Rabbi Yosei: the walls of my home never saw the seams of my robe due to modesty (he would change under his bedsheets)
• Rabbi Yosei: I never violated the words of my friends; I'm not a priest but if my friends tell me to go up to the priest's platform, I do so.  I have never said something about a person and then retreated from it
• Rav Nachman: I should be rewarded because I have eaten three meals on Shabbat beautifully
• Rav Yehuda: I should receive my reward becauseI have been considerate during prayer
• Rav Huna son of R. Yehoshua: I should receive my reward because I never walked four cubits with my head uncovered
• Rav Sheshet: I should receive my reward because I have fulfilled the mitzva of phylacteries magnificently
• Rav Nachman: I should do the same because of my fulfillment of the mitzvah of ritual fringes

Rav Yosef says to Rav Yosef son of Rabba: what was your father especially vigilant about?  The answer: the ritual fringes.  The Gemara teaches that one day Rabba was climbing the stairs when one of the strings was severed and he would not descend until he put a new string on the garment. 
Abaye returns to the earlier conversation and says, I should receive my reward because when I see a young Torah scholar who has completed a massechet, I make a feast for the Sages.