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Judy:
You're reading through romanticizing eyes. R. Zera was on the road a
lot...a latter day road warrior traveling between Israel and Babylonia...she
was obligated.
Shalom Rabbi Judy et. al.
Indeed R. Zera's wife, and hence all women from the edict, became obligated to say what we today called the second Hanukah blessing, upon seeing a lit Chanukeah.
R. Zera was a very serious rabbi and took the law and the emergence of Judaism quite seriously.
He is mentioned in the Talmud Bavli in almost every Tractate and yet, the only time it is mentioned he went to Israel, was his first (and last time) when he made alliyah there.
Before going, he fasted for a series (but not in continually) 100 days so he could forget the Bavli dialectic method and be 'pure' to learn the Palestinian Talmudic method of learning.
He had to keep his plans for emigration from his teacher R. Judah who disapproved of anyone leaving Babylon, which was considered the seat of higher learning, and of course, which today even, we use as 'the' Talmud and not the one from Palestine.
When he reached the Jordan River, he was so impatient to cross, he crossed wearing all of his clothes. A non-believer scoffed at him to which he replied " Why should I not be impatient when I pursue a blessing which was denied even to Moses and Aaron."
He made his living selling linen and was so honest he consulted R. Abbahu how far he could ethically go in improving the look of his linen without rendering himself liable to the slightest degree of a charge of fraud.
We do not know his wife's name, but they were married during Sukkoth.
In the Tractate Rabbi Abrams begin this interesting discussion , on Shabbat 77b, R. Zera and R. Judah engage in one of the most humorous debates in the Talmud concerning everything from chicken's eyelids, the short tails of camels.
However R. Zera is quoted as saying he did not believe in laughing until the Messiah comes and creates a world of peace and justice. (Sanhedrin 59b).
Was he then serious when he asked : ''If a piece of meat resembling a donkey, falls from heaven, may it be eaten?'' To which R. Abbahu called him a yarod (an ostrich looking bird) and said,'' anything that comes from heaven is kosher.'' Zera's point was that a vulture could be carrying carrion, and drop it, and that would literally be traif.(road kill).
Rabbi Yirmiyah was always trying to get Rabbi Zera to laugh, by asking him the silliest of questions.
He asked R. Zera once "what is the law is the father receives an animal born from a woman as a token of betrothal. Is the person considered married to the animal?" ( R. Meir had ruled that if a woman aborts a fetus that looks like an animal (deformed) it is a valid abortion, and she is as ritually unclean as if she aborted a healthy fetus. Yirmiyah question is absurd because such an unfortunate child in that time would not live).(Niddah 23a).
Yirmiyah was temporarily expelled from the Talmudic academy for his silly questions to Zera (Bava Batra 23b).( E.g.: The law is if a chick is found with in 50 cubits of its cage, it belongs to the owner, if it is found 51 cubits from the cage, it belongs to the one who found it. R. Yirmiyah asked: " what if one foot is with in 50 cubits and the other is with in 51 cubits?")
R, Zera was not one to hold his tongue either. He was known to rebuke his fellow rabbis and others. He once witnessed R. Abbahu swimming in a lake on Shabbat and brought this to the Academy's attention. While a guest at the Exilarch's home, he rebuked a slave, over changing feathers in pillows on the Sabbath. (Shabbat 55a) On the other hand, he lived in a rough neighborhood in Palestine and prayed for, but never rebuked, the sinners near him. To them, he lead by example. When he died, not having anyone to pray for them, they repented.
He took the mitzvoth seriously, and once he and Rabbah got seriously smashed on Purim (one is to get so drunk on Purim that one cannot distinguish the between the names Haman and Mordechai ), and Rabbah slit his throat with a knife, accidentally. R. Zera almost died but Rabbah prayed and R. Zera survived. (Megillah 7b)
R. Zera found his students studying Torah on Shabbat. He rebuked them and told them they were violating Shabbat by studying, as Shabbat is a time for pleasure, and they should go home and 'eat, drink and be merry."
"Ashrénu ma tov chelkénu umanayim gorolénu. "We are fortunate, how good is our portion, how pleasant our lot, and how beautiful is out heritage!"
Many Blessings,
Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal
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