Nedarim 50: Stories about Our Rabbis

We are told the story of Akiva's marriage to the daughter of Bal Kalba Savua.  This father was so upset about the marriage that he vowed his daughter would not benefit from his food should she go through with it.  They did marry and they did live in poverty.  Elijah visited them in the form of a peasant who did not even have straw to lie on; the straw that Akiva would place on his wife's head and wish it could be a crown, a Jerusalem of Gold.  Akiva spoke of how lucky they were to have straw.

She then encouraged Akiva to learn Talmud for 12 years.  On his return, he heard her speaking with a man who was chastising her as a widow whose father was right to push her away.  Akiva's wife retorted that if her husband listened to her, he would be gone another 12 years - and Akiva turned around and learned for 12 more years.

When he next returned, Akiva was with 24000 pairs of students.  His wife, in the clothes of a very poor woman, went to greet him, but was not recognized and was turned away.  She kept on, saying that "a righteous man regards the life of his beast" (Proverbs 12:10).  Akiva then saw her and said that what is my and your Torah is hers, acknowledging her influence.  When her father realized that Akiva, this celebrated man, was his son-in-law, he dissolved his vow.

We are then taught that Akiva went from abject poverty to extreme wealth for six reasons:

1. money from Kalba Suava, his father in law
2. money that he found in the abandoned ram of a ship
3. money found in a log that sailors brought to him in place of a larger purchase
4. money from a lady who lent him money with G-d as his guarantor and then found money a bag of jewellery in the sea, believing that this money was her investment back from G-d
5. money from Turnus Rufus's wife, who converted to Judaism though her husband was ruler of Judea during the bar Kochba revolt and ultimately finished off the Temple and murdered Akiva
6. money from Ketia bar Shalom, a Roman minister who fought with the Jews against the Romans

We are then told a number of stories of rabbis who came into wealth in different ways.

• Rav Gamda paid sailors to bring him something of value and they returned with only a monkey - a monkey who escaped and hid over valuable pearls, which were all gathered and brought to Rav Gamda

• Rabbi Yehuda bar Chananya was criticized by the emperor's daughter for being so ugly while knowing Torah so well.  He instructed her to keep her wine in silver instead of ceramic vessels. She did and the wine spoiled.  He told her that beauty impairs Torah study.  But what of handsome scholars?  They would be even more learned if they were ugly, he replied.  Our notes teach that good looks force us to think about our looks more than our studies. 

• A woman was found guilty in Rav Yehuda of Nehardea's court, and she asked if Rav Shimon would have found her guilty.  Did you know him? What does his look like? he asked.  Short, potbellied, dark, and large-toothed. Rav Yehuda excommunicated her for this disrespectful description and once gone, her belly split open and she died for disparaging a Torah scholar.

We end our daf with information about treating stomach ailments.

• Turemita eggs, eggs that are boiled and then place in hot and cold water 1000 times so that they shrink and become hardened, are exempt from vows forbidding one to benefit from another's food.

• Lesions adhere to turemita eggs as they do not digest, and those lesions can be used to diagnose illness

• Shimon used cabbage stalks to diagnose his ailments, though his family believed him to be dying as his distress from swallowing the stalks was so great

• One strain of foods, such as a type of figs, cannot be eaten if one is working with a different strain of food, such as a different type of fig

• A man took his friend to court after the slave he bough from his friend only taught him 800 and not 1000 recipes for fig compote.  Yehuda haNasi stated that we have forgotten prosperity (Lamentations 3:17) for we have not seen it with our own eyes.

• Ben Kappara was not invited to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's son Shimon's wedding, though he wrote that 24000 myriad dinars were expended on the chupa.  He convinced HaNasi to invite him by saying that people who do not perform G-d's will will be rewarded in kind, but those who perform G-d's will will be rewarded.  After being invited, Ben Kappara said that if those who perform his will (are wealthy like you), how much more so will they  be rewarded in the world to come?!

Some of these stories offer morals that are beautiful and meaningful.  Others are more distasteful.  A wonderful daf to chew on!