We will now introduce a fascinating insight from the Chasam Sofer, zy”a, in Drushim V’Aggados, where he addresses the following passage in the Gemara (Ta’anis 5b):
,יצחק לרבי נחמן רב ליה אמר ,בסעודתא יתבי הוו יצחק ורבי נחמן רב" שמא ,בסעודה מסיחין אין ,יוחנן רבי אמר הכי ליה אמר ,מילתא מר לימא רבי אמר הכי ,ליה אמר דסעוד בתר ,סכנה לידי ויבא לושט קנה יקדים ."מת לא אבינו יעקב ,יוחנן
Rav Nachman and Rabbi Yitzchak were sitting and eating a meal together. Rav Nachman said to Rabbi Yitzchak: Let the Master say a matter, i.e., share a dvar-Torah with me. He said to him, thus did Rabbi Yochanan say: One may not speak during a meal, lest the trachea will precede the esophagus, and he will endanger his life, i.e., if the food enters the trachea instead of the esophagus, he could choke. After they had eaten, he (Rav Yitzchak) said to him (Rav Nachman), thus did Rabbi Yochanan say: Yaakov Avinu did not die.
In his own inimitable way, the Chasam Sofer explains that Rabbi Yochanan’s statement—“one may not speak during a meal, lest the trachea will precede the esophagus, and he will endanger his life”—conveys two distinct messages to two distinct groups. To simple, average people like us, it means exactly what it says—that it is risky to speak while eating.
To consummate tzaddikim, the elite who have purified their physical bodies to resemble heavenly beings, Rabbi Yochanan was conveying a totally different message. For them, eating is a sacred avodah akin to offering korbanos. Hence, there is no need for them to speak divrei-Torah during a meal. Doing so might lead them to the erroneous conclusion that their act of eating is not important to Hashem; when, in point of fact, Hashem considers consummate tzaddikim’s avodah of eating to be like Torah-study.
Thus, with regards to these tzaddikim, Rabbi Yochanan taught: “One may not speak (divrei-Torah) during a meal, lest the trachea will precede the esophagus”—for perhaps one might attach greater importance to the study of Torah with the trachea than to the avodah of eating with the esophagus. “And he will endanger his life”—he will run the risk of minimizing and belittling, chas v’shalom, the avodah of eating with kedushah and taharah, because of the false assumption that studying Torah is the primary avodah to the exclusion of the avodah of eating.
Therefore, when Rav Nachman asked Rabbi Yitzchak לימא" "מילתא מר—to give over a dvar-Torah—he understood that his colleague, due to his extreme humility, underestimated his avodah of eating. Hence, he asked Rabbi Yitzchak to say a dvar-Torah during the seudah. This elicited the response: "לושט קנה יקדים שמא ,בסעודה מסיחין אין ,יוחנן רבי אמר הכי". In other words, a venerable tzaddik such as yourself need not prioritize the value of Torah-study performed with the trachea over the avodah of eating performed with the esophagus. This is the gist of his sacred remarks.
