Do we criticize Rabbanan for eating so much Ginosaur?
a) Didn't the Rabbanim have a chashash for being called "Raavtanuta" like with the perusah of bread?
b) If you wish to say for Ginosaurs there is no chashash for being a 'raavtan' then we still have the issue of 've nishmartem me'od la nafshoteichem." The Rabbanan put themselves in danger by overeating Ginosaur- hair falling out, becoming delirious.
c) Is there an issue of Baal tashchis?
d) Even if its not a technical Issur that they are ohver on, is their Ginosaur hunt something we want talmidei chachamim doing? Can we criticize their action and still respect them to the utmost?
Thanks so much for teaching.
Aharon Arazi, Boston, USA
Here are a few ideas which may not answer your questions completely, but which ought to lighten them somewhat.
I imagine that the attraction of the Tana'im and Amora'im to the fruit of Ginusar is based on the Chazal that one will have to give reckoning for every species in the world from which one failed to benefit. G-d created it, so we are obligated to partake of it. And if this is all the more true of the best fruit of Eretz Yisrael, which the Torah describes as 'a land flowing with milk and honey'. Maybe that is what Rashi means when he defines the fruit of Ginusar as 'more Chashuv than bread'.
Perhaps they also wanted to benefit from the goodness of Hash-m in order to appreciate Him better. What's more, imagine the devotion of the B'rachah after such an experience (indeed, there is a famous maxim that Tzadikim eat in order to recite a B'rachah).
Finally, it is possible that they wanted to get a taste of the best in this world, in order to realize all the more, how wonderful will be the pleasures of Olam ha'Ba (like we say in connection with Shabbos at the end of Birchas ha'Mazon.
The Gemara explains that the fruit of Ginusar did not satisfy, which explains why once one started eating it, one became totally obsessed with it, and had great difficulty in stopping (since one did not realize how much one had eaten, and carried on and on, until one became intoxicated by it, like an alcoholic drinking liqueur).
It is also worth taking a look at the R. Ya'akov Emdin Siddur (page 123 Madreigah 7, note 3, who explains this Sugya and various other similar Sugyos, in a Kabbalaistic manner).
Kol Tuv,
R. Eliezer Chrysler