The pleasure of doing mitzvot - Pesachim 4b

"They asked: What if one rents a house to his neighbour in the presumption of its having been searched, and [the tenant] finds that it has not been searched? Is it as a mistaken agreement or not? — Come and hear! For Abaye said: It is unnecessary of a town, where payment is not made [to others] for searching that a person is pleased to fulfil the mitzvah personally; but even in a town where payment is made for searching [it is okay], because one is pleased to fulfil a precept with his money."
-Pesachim 4b

Abaye divides towns into two types - those who do not pay people to fulfil mitzvot for them, and those who do. One could imagine that this is to say that there are those who love doing God's commandments, and those who find it onerous, or too difficult, and would rather just pay and be done with it.

In fact Abaye is not making this distinction - he assumes that all Jews are excited to fulfil God's word, in this case the commandment to search one's house for chametz, and thus even those who pay for other people to do it for them, are still excited to spend their money in this way.

I like that Abaye does not put a value judgement on paying others to do things for you, but recognises that people live in different socio-economic realities, with different cultural norms about how to fulfil one's obligations. Nevertheless these distinctions don't affect what should be at the heart of every Jewish person - a love of God and God's mitzvot.

While I am among the many people that complain that being Jewish is too expensive (and see my post yesterday about the nature of complaining), I hope that I can live up to Abaye's assumption, and be pleased to use my money for the sake of fulfilling the commandments.

What better use could there be?

The Right to Complain - Pesachim 3b

Two disciples sat before Rav. One said, 'This discussion has made us like an exhausted 'other thing' (i.e. a pig)' while the other said, 'This discussion has made us like an exhausted goat'; and Rav would not speak to the former.
-Pesachim 3b

It's been a long time since I posted anything here, and I must confess that the primary reason is that I didn't make it through Eiruvin, and just decided to pick up again with Pesachim. I've been rather extraordinarily busy but Daf Yomi is exciting and fun, and I missed it.

So let's see how we do.

I loved this teaching from Pesachim, on the subject of speaking with 'clean' language, but what I loved about it in particular, is that complaining is not the problem. It's fine that Rav's students complain that the discussion has left them exhausted - but not all complaining is healthy, and some types of complaints, those inappropriate to the setting, can exclude you from the group.