Yom haAtzmaut

A short but very appropriate quote from today’s Yerushalmi Daf Yomi:

ר הושעיא: רומס הייתי זיתים עם רבי חייא הגדול. ואמר לי, “כל זית שאת יכול לפשוט ידך וליטלו, אינו שכחה.”
א”ר יוחנן, “מכיון שעבר עליו ושכחו הרי הוא שכחה.”

Rabbi Hoshiah: Once I was picking olives with Rabbi Chiyya the Great. He said to me, “Any olive that you can reach back [while harvesting] and pick, is not [sufficiently forgotten to be required to be given to the poor as] shikhechah.”

Rabbi Yochanan said, “Since he passed it and forgot it, it is shikhechah.”

— Peah 6:4, Vilna ed. 30a

Heikhal haTorah - Yeshivat PonevezhYom haAtzmaut 5767

Rabbi Chiyya, the compiler of the Tosefta, was an oleh from the city near Sura in Bavel (Menachos 88b), who went to learn under Rabbi Yehudah haNasi. And he would pick olives in Israel. Mizrachi or Poalei Agudah would be proud to claim such a role model.

(By the way, why is he called “haGadol — the Great”? When he went to raise money, Rabbi Elazar ben Padas wrote the following to the communities where Rabbi Chiyya would arrive, “Behold, we are sending you a great man. His greatness is this — he is not ashamed to say ‘I don’t know’ “. [Y-mi Chagiga 7:1; Vilna ed. 7a])

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