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How can the Gemara (גמרא) say wine was created only to comfort mourners when it serves positive mitzvah (מצוה) purposes and was created before sin existed? Wine's true function is connecting a person to their inner da'as - their essential self. This explains both its potential danger (overconnection to physicality) and its spiritual utility in times of loss or disappointment.
This shiur examines the Gemara (גמרא) in Sanhedrin 70b which states that wine was created only to comfort mourners (l'nachem aveilim). Rabbi Zweig begins by questioning this assertion, noting that wine serves many positive mitzvah (מצוה) purposes - Kiddush, Yom Tov celebrations, and other religious observances. He also raises a chronological difficulty: if wine was created on the third day of creation before any sin occurred, how could it have been created specifically for comforting mourners when there was no death or mourning yet? The shiur develops an innovative interpretation centered on the concept of da'as (knowledge/awareness). Drawing on the Targum Yerushalmi's explanation that "bereishis bara" means God created with His "rosh" (head/wisdom), Rabbi Zweig suggests that wine's primary function is to connect a person to their inner self - their da'as. This explains why wine might have been the Eitz HaDa'as (Tree of Knowledge), as all three opinions of what constituted that tree (grapes, wheat, figs) are from the shivat haminim that represent connection to one's essence.
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Sanhedrin 70b
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