Labor Is Honorable
b. Nedarim 49b
When R. Judah would go to the study hall he would carry a pitcher on his shoulder [to sit on], saying, “Labor is great, as it brings honor to the laborer [who performs] it.” [Similarly,] R. Simeon would carry a basket on his shoulder, saying, “Labor is great, as it brings honor to the laborer [who performs] it.”
b. Bava Batra 110a
Rav said to Rav Kahana, “Skin a carcass in the market and take payment, but do not say: ‘I am a great man and this matter is beneath me.’”
Translation adapted from the Noé Edition of the Koren Talmud Bavli.
Notes
Words in brackets appear in the original translation.
Credits
From Koren Talmud Bavli, Noé Edition, trans. Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz (Jerusalem: Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019). Accessed via the William Davidson digital edition, sefaria.org. Adapted with permission of Koren Publishers Ltd.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.
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