Ilfa Gets a Job: Hunger and the Search for Authenticity

§ The Gemara relates another story that involves an unstable wall. Ilfa and Rabbi Yoḥanan studied Torah together, and as a result they became very hard-pressed for money. They said: Let us get up and go and engage in commerce, and we will fulfill, with regard to ourselves, the verse: “Although there should be no needy among you” (Deuteronomy 15:4), as we will no longer be complete paupers. They went and sat under a dilapidated wall and were eating bread, when two ministering angels arrived¹. Rabbi Yoḥanan heard that one angel said to the other: Let us knock this wall down upon them and kill them, as they abandon eternal life of Torah study and engage in temporal life for their own sustenance. The other angel said to him: Leave them, as there is one of them whose time of achievement stands before him, i.e., his time has yet to come. Rabbi Yoḥanan heard all this, but Ilfa did not hear the angels’ conversation. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to Ilfa: Did the Master hear anything? Ilfa said to him: No. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to himself: Since I heard the angels and Ilfa did not hear, I can learn from this that it is I whose time of achievement stands before me. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to Ilfa: I will return home and fulfill with regard to myself the contrary verse: “For the poor shall never cease out of the land” (Deuteronomy 15:11). Rabbi Yoḥanan returned to the study hall, and Ilfa did not return, but went to engage in business instead. By the time that Ilfa came back from his business travels, Rabbi Yoḥanan had been appointed head of the academy, and his financial situation had improved². His colleagues said to Ilfa: If the Master had sat and studied, instead of going off to his business ventures, wouldn’t the Master have been appointed head of the academy?³ Ilfa went and suspended himself from the mast [askariya] of a ship, saying: If there is anyone who can ask me a question concerning abaraita of Rabbi Ḥiyya and Rabbi Oshaya, and I do not resolve hisproblem from a mishna, I will fall from the mast of this ship and be drowned. Ilfa sought to demonstrate that despite the time he had spent in business, he still retained his extensive Torah knowledge.

Reigned – they had nominated R. Yohanan to serve as Rosh Yeshiva, since the custom was whomever is the Rosh Yeshiva they would finance him as one of their own and enrich him.

They said to Ilfa – they said this in challenge: “if you would have stayed, Ilfa, do you really think you would have instead become Rosh Yeshiva?” And some interpret that they said this straightforwardly, referring to Rabbi Yohanan, saying: If you, Ilfa, would have sat, Rabbi Yohanan would certainly not have reigned.