More Discussions for this daf
1. The animals which may be used to make Tefilin 2. Water from the Dead Sea 3. Rav's curses
4. Tosfos 5. Refu'ah concerning Rok 6. מניין למילה שבאותו מקום
7. אין כותבין לא על גבי עור בהמה טמאה
DAF DISCUSSIONS - SHABBOS 108

mwax asked:

machlokes rashi and tosfos re story of rav coming to bavel.question lefi tosfos why is kovod for rav dependant on his chochmoh if shmuel already knew that a adam godol was coming?

mwax, balt,md

The Kollel replies:

Shmuel heard a rumor that an "Adam Gadol" was arriving. He therefore wanted to find out if the person was really an Adam Gadol, or just someone whom people say is an Adam Gadol. It is similar to saying that a prominent Rabbi is arriving in town. The Rabbi might be very charismatic and therefore able to give good speeches on the amount of Torah that he knows, but this would not qualify him as a Talmid Chacham who has a vast knowledge of Torah. The amount of Torah which Shmuel would give depended on finding out both the quality and quantity of knowledge of the arriving Talmid Chacham.

All the best,

Yaakov Montrose

mwax responded:

and lefi rashi that he knew he was a gavra rabah why test his chochmah?

The Kollel replies:

I don't see a difference between Rashi and Tosfos on this point. Rashi merely states to check whether or not he is a Chacham (DH "Tahi"), while Tosfos states that the result of the test of whether or not he is a Chacham would be how Shmuel would honor him (DH "Rach"). Accordingly, the answer above would apply to Rashi as well, with Rashi possibly having a different reason for the test aside from how much honor to accord Rav (i.e. knowing whether or not to ask him questions in learning, in what areas of Torah was he knowledgeable, etc.).

All the best,

Yaakov Montrose