A bird in your hand TB Beitza 10

Both Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai agree that live animals have a higher muktze stringency than other types of muktze. Nevertheless, the first Mishna on our daf TB Beitza 10 teaches with regard to rejoicing on the Festival, the opinion of Beit Shammai is stringent and that of Beit Hillel is lenient. “Beit Shammai say: One may not take fledgling doves from a dovecote on a Festival, unless he shook the ones he wished to take while it was still day, thereby preparing them. And Beit Hillel say: It is not necessary to shake; rather, it is sufficient if one stands the day before and says: I will take this fledgling and that one.” (Sefaria.org translation)

We are commanded to rejoice on our Festivals. We should avoid anything that diminishes our joy on these holy days. I believe the more one prepares for the holiday, the greater enjoyment he experiences on those days. That is why both Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel agree that you must designate the doves you want to eat before the holiday and not on the holiday itself.

Since food is permitted to be prepared on the festival, why couldn’t you just choose the doves you want on the holiday? The Gemara provides us with a very interesting answer. “However, on the Festival it is prohibited, as sometimes those that seemed to him to be fat ones will be found to be thin, and thin ones will be found to be fat, and he will move an object that is not suitable for him, thereby transgressing the prohibition against moving muktze objects. Alternatively, sometimes they will all be found to be thin, and he will leave them all, and he will come to neglect the rejoicing of the Festival. If, however, one announces the day before: I will take this one and that one, he will indeed take only those fledglings, thereby enhancing his Festival joy.” (Sefaria.org translation)

When a person has too many choices, he could become paralyzed and not be able to choose any. Alina Tugend writes in the New York Times:

“There is a famous jam study (famous, at least, among those who research choice), that is often used to bolster this point. Sheena Iyengar, a professor of business at Columbia University and the author of “The Art of Choosing,” (Twelve) to be published next month, conducted the study in 1995.

“In a California gourmet market, Professor Iyengar and her research assistants set up a booth of samples of Wilkin & Sons jams. Every few hours, they switched from offering a selection of 24 jams to a group of six jams. On average, customers tasted two jams, regardless of the size of the assortment, and each one received a coupon good for $1 off one Wilkin & Sons jam.

“Here’s the interesting part. Sixty percent of customers were drawn to the large assortment, while only 40 percent stopped by the small one. But 30 percent of the people who had sampled from the small assortment decided to buy jam, while only 3 percent of those confronted with the two dozen jams purchased a jar.

“That study ‘raised the hypothesis that the presence of choice might be appealing as a theory,’ Professor Iyengar said last year, ‘but in reality, people might find more and more choice to actually be debilitating.’” (https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/your-money/27shortcuts.html)

I guess you could say that bird in your hand is better than two in the dovecote