The pun of portion / lot; historical background about circuses

I gave the daf on Avodah Zarah 18. A few thoughts. First,

אָמַר לוֹ: מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם יְרַחֲמוּ. אָמַר לוֹ: אֲנִי אוֹמֵר לְךָ דְּבָרִים שֶׁל טַעַם, וְאַתָּה אוֹמֵר לִי ״מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם יְרַחֲמוּ״? תָּמֵהַּ אֲנִי אִם לֹא יִשְׂרְפוּ אוֹתְךָ וְאֶת סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה בָּאֵשׁ! אָמַר לוֹ: רַבִּי, מָה אֲנִי לְחַיֵּי הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא?

Rabbi Ḥanina ben Teradyon said to him: Heaven will have mercy and protect me. Rabbi Yosei ben Kisma said to him: I am saying reasonable matters to you, and you say to me: Heaven will have mercy? I wonder if the Romans will not burn both you and your Torah scroll by fire. Rabbi Ḥanina ben Teradyon said to him: My teacher, what will become of me? Am I destined for life in the World-to-Come?

אָמַר לוֹ: כְּלוּם מַעֲשֶׂה בָּא לְיָדֶךָ? אָמַר לוֹ: מָעוֹת שֶׁל פּוּרִים נִתְחַלְּפוּ לִי בְּמָעוֹת שֶׁל צְדָקָה וְחִלַּקְתִּים לַעֲנִיִּים. אָמַר לוֹ: אִם כֵּן, מֵחֶלְקְךָ יְהִי חֶלְקִי וּמִגּוֹרָלְךָ יְהִי גּוֹרָלִי.

Rabbi Yosei ben Kisma said to him: Did any special incident occur to you which might serve as an indication? Rabbi Ḥanina ben Teradyon said to him: I confused my own coins that I needed for the festivities of Purim with coins of charity, and I distributed them all to the poor at my own expense. Rabbi Yosei ben Kisma said to him: If that is so, may my portion be of your portion, and may my lot be of your lot.

There are two puns.

1. He asks whether he will get (a portion) in the World to Come. Rabbi Yossi ben Kisma asked about good deeds, and he said that after a money mixup, וְחִלַּקְתִּים, he distributed the money to the poor. The same shoresh of חֶלְקִי is Rabbi Yossi ben Kisma’s response, but here it means next-world portion.

2. The money was purim money. What is a Pur? As the megillah tells us, this is the goral. Thus, his goral / lot.

Second, I feel like required reading for this daf, and the condemnation if not outright forbidding of theatres and circuses, is the book / essay by Tertullian, who lived from 160 CE - 240 CE, called De Spectaculis, "The Spectacles". That is about between the time of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and Rav.

This is not IMHO sefarim chitzonim, even though it is a religious work written by a church father. Even if it is, the purpose of reading it is not to admire the reasoning (as in the recent daf with Yaakov the min), but to understand the metziut, just what was happening in these theaters and circuses. As well as how someone mustered some of the same verses to condemn them. Read it all, but here is a short excerpt, where Tertullian invokes moshav leitzim.

Fortified by this knowledge against heathen views, let us rather turn to the unworthy reasonings of our own people; for the faith of some, either too simple or too scrupulous, demands direct authority from Scripture for giving up the shows, and holds out that the matter is a doubtful one, because such abstinence is not clearly and in words imposed upon God's servants. Well, we never find it expressed with the same precision, You shall not enter circus or theatre, you shall not look on combat or show; as it is plainly laid down, You shall not kill; you shall not worship an idol; you shall not commit adultery or fraud. Exodus 20:14 But we find that that first word of David bears on this very sort of thing: Blessed, he says, is the man who has not gone into the assembly of the impious, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of scorners.

Way way back on parshablog, I put forth an argument about the permissibility of modern-day circuses. It is not a matter of bittul torah or frivolity, even though these are nominally being invoked. These were ideas invoked in the context of these horrific cultural institutions, full of idolatry, murder, barbarity, and sex. Even the accoutrements or related “neutral” entertainment would be something to strongly discourage, because of the association.

A short excerpt:

It is thus important to understand the terminology of the gemara as it was intended at the time it was used. This is a potential pitfall, as Latin and Greek may be found at the base of many English words, and one might assume that they mean exactly the same thing that they mean today.

And another one:

I believe the answer is that the word נתחשב [in the gemara] should not be translated as "conspire." Rather, it means perform feats of skill. As I noted before, Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi referred to תחבולה. Soncino rendered this as an evil planning - that is, the act of consipiring. Artscroll meanwhile, translated this as "trick or strategem - feats of skill." That is, the performances mentioned in the brayta about the sorcerers and enchanters, or of bukion and mukion, lulion and mulion, blurin or salgurin performing in the karkom.