Our Gemara on Amud Aleph uses an interesting idiom to describe how Rav Hamnuna came to understand a halacha from Rabbi Chanina: “ivla li,” which literally translates as “caused me to swallow.”

Rashi (ibid): “He made it tasty (or perhaps better translated as ‘he seasoned it’) and taught it to me.”

I saw a fascinating lexical sensitivity in Rashi on the Hebrew language website “Portal Daf Yomi”. A similar phrase comes up in Berachos (24b), also involving Rav Hamnuna—but here he is the teacher. Rabbi Zeira was in a quandary because he had a habit of sneezing during the Shemoneh Esre, and there was an existing teaching that if one “sneezed” in Shemoneh Esre it was considered a bad sign. In the end, Rav Hamnuna clarified for Rabbi Zeira that the “sneeze” in that teaching was referring to flatulence. However, there is another teaching that sneezing in Shemoneh Esre is a good sign; this sneeze is the regular kind. Rashi on that Gemara does not explain the phrase at all but notes that Rav Zeira valued the teaching because he indeed sneezed often in Shemoneh Esre, and through this teaching, it turned out to be a good sign.

Apparently, in the case of Rav Zeira, the pleasure was straightforward and did not require an explanation, while in our case we needed to understand what made Rav Hamnuna enjoy the teaching so much. In our Gemara, Rashi seems to be working with the metaphor of swallowing. If we imagine that certain food is harder to eat unless it is seasoned properly, then the object of the metaphor is that he made a difficult-to-understand teaching easier to comprehend by “seasoning it.” Or alternatively, when a food is seasoned, it becomes interesting and spicy. From the context of our Gemara, without getting into technicalities, there was an interesting spice and hidden twist implied in the teaching. Rav Hamnuna appreciated its cleverness.

The idea that Torah is ingested and the metaphor of eating is meaningful. When a person consumes food, it becomes not just a source of nutrition but actually a part of them. Torah too, when consumed properly, is not merely an elixir of life, but somehow becomes integrated and part of one’s biology. There is learning Torah, and then there is absorbing Torah.

The Pri Tzaddik (Rosh Chodesh Sivan 2) elaborates on the theme of deeply absorbing Torah by way of an example from a famous Midrashic story (Yalkut Shimoni 556; Vayikra Rabbah 16:2):

“There was an incident involving a certain peddler who would go around the towns near Tzippori, announcing and proclaiming:

“Who wants to buy the elixir of life?”

Rabbi Yannai heard him. He was sitting and expounding in his triclinium (study hall). He said to him, “Come up here—sell it to me.”

The peddler replied, “You don’t need it—neither you nor those like you.”

Rabbi Yannai pressed him, so he went up to him. The peddler took out a bound book of Tehillim and showed him this verse:

“Who is the man who desires life…? Guard your tongue from evil” (Tehillim 34:13).

Rav Yannai as remarked, “All my days I was reading this verse, yet I did not know where it was truly pashut—plain and direct—until this peddler came and made it known to me.”

Pri Tzaddik remarks on an irony present in this story. The one who had the most insight into the verse was the rochel, the peddler. Peddlers were so synonymous with l’shon hora that the biblical Hebrew word for the verb of gossip is “to act as peddler,” as found in the verse (Vayikra 19:16): “Do not be a gossiper (peddler of negative information) among your neighbors.” In other words, Pri Tzaddik surmises that the peddler in this story was a baal teshuva from l’shon hora—he truly absorbed the words of the pasuk and became a different person, so much so that he merited to have insight and teach this verse to Rav Yannai. He indeed became an absorbent Jew.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R, LMFT, DHL is a psychotherapist who works with high conflict couples and families. He can be reached via email at simchafeuerman@gmail.com