R' Yisroel Gordon refered me to the hakdama of the margolis hayam on sanhedrin where he offers a very interesting analysis of this story.
His approach is that Ilfa excelled in learning more than R' Yochanan even after R' Yochanan was appointed as Rosh Yeshiva. Ilfa had no choice but to involve himself in business. Ilfa understood based on the gemara in Eruvin 55a that the ability to learn for hora'ah and halacha l'ma'aseh is not found by the businessman. But this affords the businessman like Ilfa the luxury and opportunity to focus on the depths of Torah and not having to flip through kitzur halachos seforim since he is not being consulted for pesak on a regular basis. Although Ilfa did not have the opportunity to teach Talmidim and study with Talmidei chachamim, he managed to record much of his learning in writing to pass on to the future generations (he cites menachos 70a and Yerushalmi in ma'asros 2:4 where they checked the notebook of Ilfa to figure out the din).
If anyone is familiar with the life story of R' Reuven Margolis, he seems to be comparing himself to Ilfa.
6 comments:
Very interesting.
How did you understand Ilfa's intention of boasting that he can find a source in the Mishna for any braisa? Assuming ha'hoo sabba refers to Eliyahu Hanavi, Ilfa must have been trying to convey an important message for Eliyahu to play his advocate in proving Ilfa's claim.
Rabbeinu Chananel says that his message was that he should have been appointed the rosh yeshiva bec. he know more than r' yochanan, despite the fact that he is a businessman.
you see from this gemara a very important message - being a ba'al ha'bas is l'greiusa. Even if Ilfa is more talented in torah, since he was a ba'al ha'bas he can't be the rosh yeshiva! :)
there are 2 explanations of this gemara in tosfos. 1 that ilfa said that he could've been the rosh hayeshiva and the 2nd that the people told ilfa that if he would've stayed he would be the rosh hayeshiva.
a "mussarnick" would perhaps say this: If Ilfa would have stayed he could have become the rosh hayeshiva, what he lost when going to work isn't the knowledge unnecessarily, as we see that he was very knowledgeable, maybe what he lost was that now he had to prove himself. what he lost was something of his character traits!
if it was the charachter traits that he was lacking, when did that happen. Perhaps before and that is why only Rav Yochanan heard the malachim and not Ilfa.
I was thinking like Avromi. It reminded me of the story of Dovid Hamelech's eldest brother, Eliov, who was fit to be king except that his prediliction to anger disqualified him. His anger only showed later, but Hash-m already knew he lacked the qualities necessary for a king. It could be that Ilfa's brash actions of jumping on the mast and challenging everyone showed that he did have the more even keel personality required to serve as rosh yeshiva. If this is the case, Eliyahu Hanavi played the straight man for Ilfa to retain the cavod toraso that Ilfa still deserved.
i would add that perhaps Ilfa was the bigger "baal kisharon" as his name sake means that he teaches others and perhaps this is what he was saying, just as the Braysos are included in the mishna so too what Rav yochanan knows is included in mine. (the death wish has to come in to this also somehow).
Also, similar to to avrumi and aron, the sefas emes says that when g-d told abraham lech lecha he was really speaking to the whole world just that only Avrohom heard...
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