Pt1 R' Yehuda HaNasi and Bar Kappara: Talmudic Stories of Humor, Wealth, and Reflection (Nedarim 50b-51a)
This is the first part of a two-part series. See outline below. For an extended story embedded within this sugya, see my recent piece here. This series covers the rest of the stories in the sugya.
Outline
Lost Goodness and the Marvel of Fig Compotes: R' Yehuda HaNasi’s Reflection
R' Yehuda HaNasi’s Wedding Feud: His Lavish Wedding For His Son and Bar Kappara's Rebuke
R’ Yehuda HaNasi's Suffering and Bar Kappara's Antics
Ben-Elasa and the High Priest's “Lulian”-style Haircut
The Passage
Lost Goodness and the Marvel of Fig Compotes: R' Yehuda HaNasi’s Reflection
The Talmud recounts an incident where a man gave his slave to a friend to learn how to prepare a thousand types of fig compote (לפדי), but the friend only taught him 800.
The man brought the case before R' Yehuda HaNasi, who remarked on the lost opulence of the past, referencing Lamentations 3:17, and lamented that his generation had not even witnessed such abundance, marveling at the idea of so many variations of fig compote.
ההוא גברא,
דיהב עבדא לחבריה
לאגמוריה אלפא מיני לפדי,
אגמריה תמני מאה.
אזמניה לדינא לקמיה דרבי.
אמר רבי: אבותינו אמרו ״נשינו טובה״, אנו אפילו בעינינו לא ראינו.
The Gemara relates: There was a certain man
who gave a slave to his friend
so that the friend would teach him how to prepare a thousand varieties of compote from figs.
However, he taught him only eight hundred.
He therefore brought his friend for judgment before R' Yehuda HaNasi.
R' Yehuda HaNasi said: Our forefathers said: We have forgotten prosperity (see Lamentations 3:17). They forgot the opulence they enjoyed in better times, but they at least experienced it. By contrast, we have not even seen it with our eyes. R' Yehuda HaNasi had not imagined that so many types of compote could be prepared from figs.
R' Yehuda HaNasi’s Wedding Feud: His Lavish Wedding For His Son and Bar Kappara's Rebuke
R' Yehuda HaNasi hosted a lavish wedding for his son, R' Shimon (רבי שמעון ברבי), spending an extravagant sum of 240 million1 dinarii on the canopy (בית גננא).
However, he did not invite Bar Kappara, who felt insulted.
In response, Bar Kappara confronted R' Yehuda HaNasi, stating that if those who act improperly (by implication, referring to R' Yehuda HaNasi for excluding him) receive such wealth, those who follow God's will must be rewarded even more.
Moved by his words, R' Yehuda HaNasi invited Bar Kappara, who then remarked that if those who perform God's will are so rewarded in this world, their reward in the World-to-Come (עולם הבא) will be even greater.
רבי עבד ליה הלולא לרבי שמעון ברבי,
כתב על בית גננא:
עשרין וארבעה אלפין ריבואין דינרין נפקו על בית גננא דין,
ולא אזמניה לבר קפרא.
אמר ליה: אם לעוברי רצונו כך — לעושי רצונו על אחת כמה וכמה.
אזמניה,
אמר: לעושי רצונו בעולם הזה כך — לעולם הבא על אחת כמה וכמה.
The Gemara relates: R' Yehuda HaNasi made a wedding for R' Shimon, son of R' Yehuda HaNasi.
Someone wrote on the canopy:
24,000 myriad dinars were expended on this canopy,
and nevertheless R' Yehuda HaNasi did not invite bar Kappara to the wedding.
The insulted bar Kappara said to R' Yehuda HaNasi: If to those who transgress God’s will, i.e., you who act improperly, their reward is such, as R' Yehuda HaNasi was very wealthy, all the more so those who perform His will are to be rewarded.
Upon hearing his reaction, R' Yehuda HaNasi invited him.
Bar Kappara then said: If to those who perform His will their reward is such in this world, all the more so will they be rewarded in the World-to-Come.