Ben Zoma and the Gracious Guest

David Ben-Ami

Good morning, and welcome. We're in the month of Cheshvan, the quiet stretch of the Jewish year. The festivals of Tishrei are behind us, and nothing is marked on the calendar until Chanukah. What's left is ordinary life: the kettle, the commute, the dishes, the unanswered messages. That is exactly where today's teaching does its work.

David Ben-Ami

Our passage is Pirkei Avot, chapter four, the first mishnah. Ben Zoma asks four questions. Who is wise? One who learns from every person. Who is strong? One who masters his own impulse. Who is honored? One who honors others. And then the one I want to stay with this morning: Who is rich? He who rejoices in his lot. In Hebrew, hasame'ach bechelko.

David Ben-Ami

Let's look at that word, chelek. It means a portion, a share, even a parcel of land with its boundaries marked. So Ben Zoma isn't praising someone who has a lot. He's praising someone who is glad about the specific portion that is actually theirs: this home, this work, this family, this body, on this ordinary Monday. For his proof, he quotes Psalm 128: "When you eat the fruit of your labor, you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you." Notice the verse is about eating. It's about something very plain.

David Ben-Ami

A word about Ben Zoma himself. Shimon ben Zoma lived in the early second century, around the time of Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai. We never call him Rabbi. The commentator Bartenura explains that he didn't live long and was never formally ordained, so tradition calls him by his father's name. And yet the Talmud, in Berakhot 57b, says that if you dream of Ben Zoma, you can expect wisdom. A man without the title, who left a very large mark.

David Ben-Ami

Now, how did Ben Zoma actually live this out? The Talmud, in Berakhot 58a, tells us. He was standing on the steps of the Temple Mount, looking out over an enormous crowd. And he said a blessing: "Blessed is the One who knows all secrets, and blessed is the One who created all these to serve me."

David Ben-Ami

To serve me. Honestly, that sounds like the most entitled sentence in the Talmud. A crowd of thousands, and he says they're here for him? But the Gemara anticipates our reaction, and it explains. Ben Zoma would say: think how much work the first human being had to do before he could eat a single piece of bread. Adam plowed. He sowed. He reaped, bound the sheaves, threshed, winnowed in the wind, sorted the grain from the chaff, ground it, sifted it, kneaded it, and baked it. Only then did he eat.

David Ben-Ami

And Ben Zoma continues: "And I wake up in the morning and find all of this already prepared for me." The same with clothing. Adam had to shear, launder, comb, spin, and weave before he had a garment. "And I wake up and find it all ready." All the nations, he says, come early to the door of my house, and I find everything already before me.

David Ben-Ami

So the crowd on the steps wasn't there to serve him by command. Each person in it was a thread in a great weave of labor, farmers and millers and weavers and carriers, and Ben Zoma could see that every thread ended, in some way, at his table. He wasn't boasting. He was astonished. His blessing is a kind of amazement that the world is so full of hands.

David Ben-Ami

And then the Gemara gives a parable about two guests. Ben Zoma says: the ore'ach tov, the good guest, what does he say? "How much trouble my host went to for me! How much meat he brought, how much wine, how many loaves. Everything he did, he did for my sake." But the ore'ach ra, the bad guest, what does he say? "What did this host do, really? I ate one piece of bread. I ate one cut of meat. I drank one cup. Whatever he went to the trouble of doing, he did it for his wife and his children."

David Ben-Ami

Same table. Same food. The only thing that differs is the eye of the person sitting there. And I think this is how Ben Zoma understands wealth. The rich person isn't the one with the fuller table. It's the one who can see how much work, and how much love, went into the table that's already there.

David Ben-Ami

Some of you may remember our earlier teaching about Hillel the Elder, who treated his soul as a cherished guest, an achsanai, living inside his body. Ben Zoma gives us the other side of it. Hillel asks us to be a gracious host to our own soul. Ben Zoma asks us to be a gracious guest in the world. First we make room for ourselves, and then we learn to receive well what everyone else has prepared for us.

David Ben-Ami

There's a Hebrew phrase for this discipline: hakarat hatov. Literally, recognizing the good. It doesn't mean pretending that everything is fine. It means refusing to overlook what is simply, quietly there. In a month with no holidays, no special candles, nothing marked, hakarat hatov may be the whole festival.

David Ben-Ami

So here is one practical thought for today. Before the first sip of your coffee or tea, or the first bite of breakfast, pause for thirty seconds. Don't say anything grand. Just trace it back silently. The soil and the rain. The hands that picked it or harvested it. The driver, the baker, the person who stocked the shelf. Then take your first sip as an ore'ach tov, a guest who has noticed his host.

David Ben-Ami

And let me close with a blessing. May the One who gives us our daily bread open our eyes to the quiet riches already in front of us. May we be given menuchat hanefesh, a settled and restful mind, with the portion that is ours today. And may we walk through this day with the warmth of a gracious guest, grateful to the hands that prepared the table, and glad to be seated at it. Amen. Have a good morning.