Kiddushin

and [this] brings him to the world to come!1 R. Abbahu said: E.g., my son Abimi has fulfilled the precept of honour. Abimi had five ordained sons2 in his father's lifetime, yet when R. Abbahu came and called out at the door, he himself speedily went and opened it for him, crying, ‘Yes, yes,’3 until he reached it. One day he asked him, ‘Give me a drink of water.’ By the time he brought it he had fallen asleep. Thereupon he bent and stood over him until he awoke. It so happened that Abimi succeeded in interpreting, A song of Asaph.4 R. Jacob b. Abbahu asked Abaye: ‘I, for instance, for whom my father pours out a cup [of wine] and my mother mixes it5 on my returning from the school, what am I to do’?6 — ‘Accept it from your mother,’ he replied: ‘but not from your father; for since he is a scholar, he may feel affronted.’7 R. Tarfon had a mother for whom, whenever she wished to mount into bed, he would bend down to let her ascend;8 (and when she wished to descend, she stepped down upon him).9 He went and boasted thereof in the school. Said they to him, ‘You have not yet reached half the honour [due]: has she then thrown a purse before you into the sea without your shaming her?’ When R. Joseph heard his mother's footsteps he would say: ‘I will arise before the approaching Shechinah.’ R. Johanan said: Happy is he who has not seen them.10 R. Johanan's father died when his mother conceived him, and his mother died when she bore him. And Abaye was likewise. But that is not so, for Abaye said, my Mother told me. . ! — That was his foster-mother. R. Assi had an aged mother. Said she to him, ‘I want ornaments.’ So he made them for her. ‘I want a husband.’ — ‘I will look out for you. ‘I want a husband as handsome as you.’ Thereupon he left her and went to Palestine. On hearing that she was following him he went to R. Johanan and asked him, ‘May I leave Palestine11 for abroad?’12 ‘It is forbidden,’ he replied. ‘But what if it is to meet my mother?’ ‘I do not know’, said he. He waited a short time and went before him again. ‘Assi’, said he, ‘you have determined to go; [may] the Omnipresent bring you back in peace.’ Then he went before R. Eleazar and said to him, ‘Perhaps, God forbid, he was angry?’ ‘What [then] did he say to you?’ enquired he. ‘The Omnipresent bring you back in peace’, was the answer. ‘Had he been angry’, he rejoined, ‘he would not have blessed you’. In the meanwhile he learnt that her coffin was coming.13 ‘Had I known’, he exclaimed: ‘I would not have gone out.’ Our Rabbis taught: He must honour him in life and must honour him in death. ‘In life’, e.g., one who is heeded in a place on account of his father should not say: ‘Let me go, for my own sake’, ‘Speed me, for my own sake’, or ‘Free me, for my own sake’, but all ‘for my father's sake.’ ‘In death’, e.g., if one is reporting something heard from his mouth, he should not say: ‘Thus did my father say’, but, ‘Thus said my father, my teacher, for whose resting place may I be an atonement.’14 But that is only within twelve months [of his death].15 Thereafter he must say: ‘His memory be for a blessing, for the life of the World to come.’ Our Rabbis taught: A Sage must change his father's name and his teacher's name, but the interpreter does not change his father's name and his teacher's name.16 Whose father? Shall we say, the father of the interpreter?17 — Is then the interpreter not obliged [to honour his parents]? — But, said Raba, [it means] the name of the Sage's father or the name of the Sage's teacher. As when Mar, son of R. Ashi, lectured at the college sessions; he said [to the interpreter]: My father, my teacher [said thus], whereas his interpreter said: Thus did R. Ashi say. 18 Our Rabbis taught: What is ‘fear’ and what is ‘honour’?19 ‘Fear’ means that he [the son] must neither stand in his [the father's] place nor sit in his place, nor contradict his words, nor tip the scales against him.20 ‘Honour" means that he must give him food and drink, clothe and cover him, lead him in and out. The Scholars propounded: father's asking him how he could afford them, he answered: ‘What business is it of yours, old man; grind (i.e., chew) and eat!’ On another occasion it happened that a man was engaged in grinding in a mill, when his father was summoned for royal service. Said his son to him, ‘Do you grind for me, and I will go in your stead, the royal service being very hard.’ functions. the question arises, surely the superscripture should have been, ‘A dirge of Asaph’? By divine inspiration Abimi explained it that Asaph uttered song because the Almighty had allowed His wrath to be appeased by the defilement and other indignities which the Temple had suffered. Otherwise, only the total destruction of His people would have sufficed. So Rashi, quoting some anonymous commentators. Tosaf., quoting the Midrash, explains it otherwise. services for him. Also, it was a form of self comfort for not having known his parents. whom they whispered their statements and who in turn spoke them aloud to the assembled congregations frequently with embellishments of their own. Now, the Sage, when whispering to the interpreter a teaching he heard from his father, must not refer to his father by name but by the formula ‘my father and teacher’; but the interpreter need not do so. etc. it is translated: he must not make a decision in deference to his view, i.e,, if his father differs from another scholar, he must not even say: I agree with my father. — These last two, however, hold good only in the father's presence, but otherwise he may state his view freely; yet even then, it is preferable that he should avoid mentioning his father's name when refuting his view, if possible.