Rich in Assets → Rich in Fame
The other day, there was a brayta which took a series of Aramaic expressions and related them to various Torah scholars.
Thus, in Bava Batra 145b:
תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: עַתִּיר נִכְסִין עַתִּיר פּוּמְבֵּי – זֶה הוּא בַּעַל הַגָּדוֹת. עַתִּיר סְלָעִים עַתִּיר תְּקוֹעַ – זֶהוּ בַּעַל פִּלְפּוּל. עַתִּיר מְשַׁח עַתִּיר כְּמָס – זֶהוּ בַּעַל שְׁמוּעוֹת. הַכֹּל צְרִיכִין לְמָרֵי חִטַּיָּא – תַּלְמוּד.
§ The Sages taught in a baraita: There are different types of Torah scholars. There is a scholar who is wealthy in figurative property and wealthy in public renown; this is the master of homiletics. There is a scholar who is wealthy in coins and wealthy in houses; this is the master of dialectics. There is one who is wealthy in oil and wealthy in hidden stores; this is the master of halakhic traditions. Everyone is dependent on the owner of wheat; this is the master of Talmud, who understands the reasons behind the rulings and traditions.
I noted yesterday that this for wheat discussing a master of “Talmud” is an overcorrection. While subsequent fixes from the censored Vilna text of “Gemara” should be restored to “Talmud”, this is the first instance and indeed should read “Gemara”, meaning a master of traditions, upon whom everyone is dependent. This as contrasted to the reasons and analysis, as in the English translation above. See my post about this.
The connection of this passage to the surrounding passage is free-association, to the word Pumbi from the preceding brayta: תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: עָשָׂה עִמּוֹ בְּפוּמְבֵּי, וּבִקֵּשׁ לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמּוֹ בְּצִנְעָא – יָכוֹל לוֹמַר לוֹ: בְּפוּמְבֵּי אֶעֱשֶׂה עִמְּךָ, כְּדֶרֶךְ שֶׁעָשִׂיתָ עִמִּי.
I am not sure I like the translation given above, because it is an “and” rather than a “therefore”. I’ll explain in a moment why that’s my preference, but I would want to render it as:
עַתִּיר נִכְסִין עַתִּיר פּוּמְבֵּי : One who is rich in assets → will therefore be rich in fame
עַתִּיר מְשַׁח עַתִּיר כְּמָס: One who is wealthy in oil → will therefore be wealthy in houses (? whatever that means?)
הַכֹּל צְרִיכִין לְמָרֵי חִטַּיָּא: Yet all need the master of wheat
At the daf shuir the other day, someone asked me how this could be a brayta when it was in Aramaic. I answered that there are some Aramaic braytot — these are the really early ones, rather than the late ones. But, this wasn’t even really an Aramaic brayta. Yes, there is lots of Aramaic text, but it is then being interpreted by a Hebrew Tannaitic layer.
That suggests to me that there is some preexisting text — something like Wisdom literature, that was really old and contained aphorisms. And this brayta is giving a midrashic interpretation. That older text stands on its own, without saying that X = a baal aggada and Y = a baal Mishnah, and Z = a baal Tradition.
If so, this is akin to other canonized and non-canonized Jewish texts. For instance, the way Mishlei is pulled apart. Even though on a peshat level these aphorisms have meaning, we often hardly pay any attention to that surface level, and instead reinterpret it to mean something completely tangential, often Torah related. We do the same for Divrei Hayamim, sometimes even excluding from consideration the peshat level. I’ve written in the past that it was effectively only canonized for the midrashic content, what we can deduce from the weird phrasing. And for non-canonized texts such as Ben Sira, which we find a little later in our sugya on 146a.