Baby, you are a rich man TB Shabbat 25

Do you remember the Beatles’ song, “Baby, you’re a rich man”? Today’s daf TB Shabbat 25 discusses who is rich. Ben Zoma teaches “Who is rich, one who is happy with this portion.” (Avot 4:1) Rabbi Meir seems to agree with Ben Zoma. Nevertheless three tannaim share their opinion who is truly rich.

“Incidental to the discussion of prosperity, the Gemara mentions that on a similar topic, the Sages taught: Who is wealthy? Anyone who gets pleasure from his wealth, that is the statement of Rabbi Meir. The letters mem (Meir), tet (Tarfon), kuf (Akiva), samekh (Yosei) are a mnemonic for the tannaim who expressed opinions on this matter. Rabbi Tarfon says: A wealthy person is anyone who has one hundred vineyards, and one hundred fields, and one hundred slaves working in them. Rabbi Akiva says: Anyone who has a wife whose actions are pleasant. Rabbi Yosei says: Anyone who has a bathroom close to his table.” (Sefaria.org translation)

Rabbi Tarfon was a wealthy man. I don’t know whether he had a hundred vineyards and a hundred fields and a hundred slaves working them, but his wealth probably did color his decisions. In the Mishnah TB Shabbat 24 we learned: “And the Rabbis permit lighting with all oils for lamps as long as they burn properly; with sesame oil, with nut oil, with turnip oil, with fish oil, with gourd oil, with tar, and even with naphtha [neft]. Rabbi Tarfon says: One may light only with olive oil in deference to Shabbat, as it is the choicest and most pleasant of the oils.” (Sefaria.org translation) Rabbi Tarfon could easily afford the most expensive oil to light his Shabbat lamp and then perhaps mistakenly thought that everybody could afford olive oil for the purpose of kindling a Shabbat lamp.

Rabbi Akiva owes his scholarship to his wife Rachel. When Akiva married the daughter of Ben Kalba Sabua, a wealthy citizen of Jerusalem, Akiva was an uneducated shepherd in Ben Kalba Sabua's employ. When they married Ben Kalba Sabua disinherited her. They lived in dire poverty. Rachel stood loyally by her husband during the period of his late initiation into rabbinic studies after he was 40 years of age and in which Akiva dedicated himself to the study of Torah. When his father-in-law recognized him as one of the great sages of the generation, he gave him half his wealth. No wonder he believed a rich man was one who married a woman of valor. According to the tradition when Rabbi Akiva return home after 24 years of study in the yeshiva, he gave Rachel a piece of jewelry called “Jerusalem of gold.” Dr. Shalom Paul, one of my teachers, teaches that this piece of jewelry was like a Tierra.

Rabbi Yossi was one of Rabbi Akiva’s five disciples. “After having been ordained in violation of a Roman edict, Yossi fled to Asia Minor, where he stayed till the edict was abrogated. Later he settled at Usha, then the seat of the Sanhedrin. As he remained silent when his fellow pupil Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai once attacked the Roman government in his presence, he was forced by the Romans to return to Sepphoris, which he found in a decaying state. He established there a flourishing school; and it seems that he died there.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_ben_Halafta

As part of the leadership Institute for Hebrew school principals we visited Israel. Our tour took us to Sepphoris. We entered an excavation of a rich person’s home. It could have been a Roman house or a Jewish home who emulated Roman architecture. There was a bathroom off the dining room with a sign reading “Who is rich? Anyone who has a bathroom close to his table.”

By Rabbi Yossi’s I must be super rich standard because I have three bathrooms accessible from my dining room. I’m sure many of you are a rich person too.