Carpe diem Talmudic style

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Irrelevance of Pleasure: As the rabbis remind us again this week, the law is the law—whether it pleases you or not. Excerpt:

Last week, I discussed the Talmud’s declaration that “the world is a wedding,” a brief celebration that should be enjoyed to the full while it lasts. But what kind of enjoyment are the rabbis talking about? The passage in question mentions food and drink; but as we learned in this week’s Daf Yomi reading, the supreme earthly pleasure for the rabbis is always Torah study. This becomes clear in Eruvin 65a, when we hear about the study habits of Rav Chisda, whose daughter once asked him: “Does the master not need to doze a little?” Chisda replied with the Talmudic equivalent of “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”: “Soon [that is, in the grave], there will come days that are long [for the purpose of sleeping] and short [for the purpose of Torah study], and we will sleep very much.”

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.