Many look forward all year to the holiday when some people get so drunk – or sleepy – that they don’t know the difference between blessed is Mordechai and cursed is Haman. Before we reach that point, we might as well take the opportunity to winnow some observations about wine discussed in the Talmud in two pages studied around the world last week, discussing very conscious decisions involving wine (See Sanhedrin 70 as well as 72).
Daf 72 notes that “….The sleep and wine of the wicked is beneficial to them and beneficial to the world,” presumably more than just pleasant on the surface to the wicked, but preventing them from carrying out bad acts that could be harmful to the world, not merely to many members of society locally or nationally.
Furthermore, as noted on daf 70, wine allows evildoers to even be “rewarded” in this world for their limited positive deeds, with no rewards left for them in the world to come.
More specifically, Rav Hanan noted (daf 70) that wine was created in the world only to comfort mourners and to reward the wicked (as discussed above). Rav Hanan justifies his comment by citing Proverbs 31:6, which states, “Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish (the wicked), and wine to the bitter of soul (mourners).”
By contrast, good people will do good things and not do bad things that drunken people do, and will be rewarded in the world to come.
To support this contrast, excessive sleep and drinking of wine, according to the Talmud (back to daf 72) by the “righteous” (presumably, by people who were otherwise righteous or who were righteous until they engaged in such excesses) is detrimental to them and detrimental to the world (preventing them from carrying out good acts). (Purim, of course, allows a variation of such behavior for the righteous, but only for one day and only in a limited way.)
The Talmud in these pages goes into various requirements for a “rebellious son” (see Devarim 21: 18-21) to be designated as such, most notoriously not just having resisted parental discipline in general but also having resisted discipline when it comes to eating and drinking. Before some of us feel this is getting too close to home for comfort, it should be noted that Jewish tradition applies so many prerequisites for this terrible designation that it has been said that no son in human history has ever been defined and punished for attaining such a status.
In fact, even the type of wine they may drink, as well as its quality and consistency, and the length of time the wine was removed from a vine, may exempt them from candidacy, and even if the wine was drunk at a seudat mitzvah (a meal associated with a mitzvah), such as the Purim seudah, this is enough to enable the candidate to evade the designation.
And now, to the promised Purim puns in the daf:
Rav Kahana (daf 70) cited Jeremiah 31:12 “They shall come and sing joyously on the height of Zion, they will stream to G-d’s bounty, upon grain, upon wine, and upon oil….” The word for wine is written tirash (without the letter vav) but we read it as tirosh (with the letter vav). It can be explained as follows: if one is deserving (drinking in moderation), he becomes a leader (rosh, as in rosh kollel or rosh hamemshala, l’havdil) but if he does not merit (drinks excessively) he becomes poor (a different kind of rosh).
The cup of the Talmud flows over here with plays on words relating to wine. Rava (daf 70) refers to perhaps the most famous and beloved statement about wine, “And wine that gladdens the heart of man” (Psalms 104:15). The word could be read as meshamach (makes a person crazy or feeling desolate) but we read it as mesamach – gladdens the heart. Again, if we drink in moderation, it gladdens the heart (and incidentally may serve other health benefits), but if one drinks excessively, it leads to craziness or feelings of desolation, and, as indicated elsewhere on the same page of the Talmud, it leads to bloodshed – wine being the color of blood, of course, and people who are drunk can often be violent.
Nowadays, there is more than enough violence around even without drunkenness. And, of course, an all too contemporary translation of violence happens to be chamas (Hamas). Let us hope and pray that by the time Purim comes around, the Mashiach will have arrived, or, at the very least, Hamas will be no more of a threat than Haman is now.
