Our Gemara on Amud Aleph Tell us the story of the great Sage Rav Chanina ben Dosa and his wife. Despite having the documented ability to perform outright miracles and provide sustenance for everybody else, he and his wife lived in total poverty and deprivation. In one interesting Interlude, we see his wife making a fake cooking fire on erev Shabbos to make it look like she was cooking food. The Gemara tells us that she was embarrassed to look as if she had no food, but regardless, a particularly cruel neighbor picked up on it and snooped in her house, as if to catch and humiliate her. The Gemara tells us that a special miracle occurred and the oven became filled with bread. 

There are a couple of points worth considering in this story. It is easy for us to villainize the neighbor who apparently was seeking to taunt Chanina ben Dosa’s wife. However, we must be careful ourselves to avoid using our wealth or material success to shame another. Another interesting point in the story is despite the exemplary piety of Chanina ben Dosa’s wife, as a few stories on the page show, she was embarrassed. More notably, she took steps to avoid her embarrassment by making a fake fire. Shame and embarrassment are one of the most painful feelings and even great people are not immune to them, and furthermore, they are entitled to take steps to protect themselves even if it is a mild falsehood. Even more striking is that they refused to be supported financially through miracles, yet a miracle of bread popping out of nowhere occurs to save them from embarrassment.  Thus embarrassment is even worse than starving. One final point, the Gemara uses the Hebrew word “aktarta” to describe the smoke of her fake cooking apparatus. It is particularly ironic because the Ketores in the Temple was known to have a special merit to bless a person with wealth (Yoma 26a). It would seem, the kind of wealth that Chanina ben Dosa and his wife sought had nothing to do with material matters.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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