R' Eliezer Ben Hurcanus sacrifice for Torah study [🎥]

(1) There is a story about R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus,43Gen. R. 42:1; ARN, A, 6; B, 13; PRE 1-2. who was a child of the palace.44Lat.: palatium; Gk.: palation. Now his father was connected with the government and with matters of the army commander.45Gk.: stratelates or perhaps stratiotes. One day R. Eliezer's father went to another place. When he had realized that they46It is unclear whom “they” represents. were coming, he had said to his children: Let us rise and flee from them. He immediately called his servants and attendants. He said: Bring me the cattle and the camels. They loaded the vessels upon the cattle. Then Hyrcanus and his sons fled. R. Eliezer, however, did not go with his father. Instead, he fled to Jerusalem. Moreover, he took with him no loaf of bread, no money, nothing at all. Rather he entered Jerusalem as a pauper. Then he saw Rabban Johanan ben Zakkay sitting and teaching Torah, with his students sitting before him < as they studied > the chapter. When they had finished the chapter, he told them haggadah. Then afterwards he would tell them a mishnah. He (Eliezer) entered and sat by Rabban Johanan ben Zakkay. He spent two or three weeks before him; but when he came to speak to the < regular > students, they smelled a foul odor from his mouth. So they hid and said nothing. Again he came to speak, but they hid and said nothing. Again he came to speak, and < again > they hid and said nothing. Rabban Johanan ben Zakkay knew that his mouth odor was not from something bad which he had in his mouth, but from hunger, since he had not been eating anything. Rabban Johanan ben Zakkay said to those students: By your lives, you should look into the thing so as to know what is the matter with this student, whether he is hungry and what he is eating. So they went around through all Jerusalem and asked innkeepers:47Gk.: pandokeus. Is there a haver lodging48Gk.: xenos. here? They said to them: No. They came to a certain woman. They asked her: Is there a haver lodging here? She said to them: Yes. Does he have anything in here? She said to them: He has a single sack. They said to her: Show it to us. She immediately brought it to them. They opened it and found dirt in it, for he would put his head in it and suck as on a wine bag. They went and told Rabban Johanan ben Zakkay, who was astonished over the matter. Then he saw < that there was > righteousness with R. Eliezer in that he had not sought out someone at once and said: Give me something. In that very hour he designated a great deal of money for him, so that he would eat good food like that to which he had been accustomed in his father's house. So he ate and drank well until the odor from his mouth was cured. He spent a year before Rabban Johanan ben Zakkay, then two, then three years, until R. Eliezer's father returned to his place. When he had returned to his place, he remained there a month, then two months; but his son, R. Eliezer, did not come. He became angry and said: I left him, and he went to Jerusalem. {R. Eliezer's daughter also said to her father:} [R. Eliezer's brothers also said to their father:] Look at your son, Eliezer! What has he done? He has forsaken you and gone to Jerusalem to eat fattened < meats >, while you have moved away from your home and gone after him.49The reading in Codex Vaticanus Ebr. 34, “gone to a lodging house,” would make more sense here. If something bad (i.e., your death) had happened, would he not have jumped to obtain an inheritance? How great a difference there is between us and your son! We have given our lives for you and did not forsake you, but he did not come to see you in your trouble. Yet now, if he hears that something has happened to you, he is going to come unto us and share < the inheritance > with us. In that very hour he said to them: By thus and so, he is not inheriting anything from me. They said to him: Before you die, should you < not > disinherit him? He said to them: Summon me a tablet.50Gk.: pinax. They said: It will not be of any use. There is a certain nasi in Jerusalem whose name is Rabban Johanan ben Zakkay, {he has helped me.} [and he is helping him.] After you die, he will surely come and say: Who will say that his father disinherited him? Then we shall bring out the document, but he will say: It is a plaston51The word is Greek. {i.e., a forgery}. You made it, and I will not believe it until we go to court. He said to them: Inasmuch as you have told me this, < even though > Rabban Johanan ben Zakkay is praising him, I am disinheriting him. In that hour his sons mounted him in a basterna52The Latin word denotes an enclosed litter or sedan chair that is carried by mules. {i.e., a carriage}, and he entered Jerusalem on the eve of the Sabbath. He said: I am not disinheriting him < anywhere > but [on the Sabbath] in the academy. When? When the whole congregation will be assembling. He went in to sit down in the academy, and all Israel entered according to their custom to hear the sermon that R. Eliezer was preaching in public < from > upon the seat of honor, with the hazzan standing before him. His father saw him wrapped in his tallit with tefillin on his head.53On R. Eliezer wearing tefillin on Sabbath eve, see Sanh. 68a. He immediately saw the one whom he thought had departed for bad ways. When he saw him sitting upon the throne and preaching, Hyrcanus stood upon the bench54Lat.: subsellium. and said before the people of Jerusalem: I only went up to Jerusalem to cast you out, Eliezer my son, and also to remove you from your inheritance. Now behold, I am giving you two portions more than your brothers. And on what subject was R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus preaching at that time? Our masters have said: On this subject (in Gen. 14:1): NOW IT CAME TO PASS IN THE DAYS OF AMRAPHEL. R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus began: This text is related (to Ps. 37:15): THEIR SWORD SHALL ENTER THEIR OWN HEART. This whole subject is what there is at the beginning of the parashah.55See above, 3:7.