RaYBaSH’s Ponderings of the Perkei Avot
Chapter 3:14
By: Yehudah ben Shomeyr
“Rabbi Dosa the
son of Hurkinas would say: Morning sleep, noontime wine, children's talk and
sitting at the meeting places of the ignoramus, drive a person from the world.”
There is a Yiddish
Proverb that says something to the effect, that if you lose and hour of sleep
and or sleep in and extra hour, that you’ll be chasing that hour all day long.
And if you make
Beer’thirty at noon ; well
you might as well chalk that day up as a wasted day, after that it’s gone and
you’ll never get it back.
Ah, children’s
talk. It’s healthy as a child for it stimulates the imagination and allows us
to dream and aspire, but when we do this as grown men, if we are not careful it
becomes empty words and wishful thinking; and empty threats. Remember also as
kids we use to say, “Oh yeah! Well my Daddy can beat up your Daddy!” Or, “I’ll
get my big brother after you!” OR, “I bet you I can jump over those
mountains!.... Can so!”
The last part, “sitting
at the meeting places of the ignoramus,” I can relate to! I use to work at a
factory and at break time I would try to eat my lunch and read Torah or some
commentary of the Torah; but it was near impossible for the jokes, the barbs,
and the talk was as that of drunk men, childish and ignorant. But I will not
lie it was very entertaining and titillating to the flesh and if I was not
careful I’d find myself forfeiting my “life (Torah)” and taking myself out of
this world and my responsibility for Him in it, to their world, a place of
“vanity” as King Solomon would say.
These things
mentioned above are a quick and effortless way to loose and waste your life.
Shalom,
-- Yehudah ben
Shomeyr
