Talmudic Tips: Beer – not your cup of tea?



Purim night 1984 aged 17. Arrived home after a Purim Spiel slightly less able to walk in a straight line than generally acceptable. My parents were very upset. My grandfather who was a doctor, told me some horror stories of people who went to bed drunk and choked to death on their own vomit. I suppose I was quite traumatized by the whole experience and my attitude towards drinking was more or less determined from those days. Since then, I have never overindulged to that extent (not even close).

And now to the gemara I would like to relate to this topic (not intended to be Halacha LeMaase):

Rav Chisda opens the topic and asks: May one make Kiddush on date beer?
After some discussion, the gemara brings this story:

Levi sent to Rebbi beer made by pouring water on dates 13 times; Rebbi found it to be extremely tasty - he said that it is fit to make Kiddush on it and say over it all songs and praises; at night he had stomach pain (due to the laxative affect of the dates) - he said - is it fit to say Kiddush on something that causes as much pain as this beer?!

(Pesachim 107a acc. to Rashbam)

According to the story above of Rebbi and his reaction to date beer, it sounds like an adverse feeling towards a drink may make it invalid for him to say kiddush over.

A person may enjoy being a little tipsy but getting sickly drunk on a certain drink on Purim is likely to influence to some extent a person’s negative attitude towards the drink. And it may be the case that the alcohol we drink on Purim (whether our favourite is wine, beer or whisky) is the same alcohol we drink for kiddush on Shabbat and Yom Tov and for Havdalah.

And so we are in danger of damaging the “spirit” of the drink, its value in our eyes, and possibly even invalidating its use for holy purposes (pardon the pun)!

If we put this in more general terms, we could say that we are put on earth to try and raise the holiness of the material world. Not to reduce the possibility for holiness. That goes for the way we treat our food, our homes, our bodies and our world.

Bring more kedushah to the world, do not lessen it!

Purim Sameach!!

Please comment - was my conclusion too much of a jump? What other lessons could we learn from the story?

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