Rabbi Pinḥas said: The way of the world is that when a person launders his garment during the rainy season, how much exertion must he expend until he dries it! But people sleep in their beds and the Holy One blessed be He releases a little wind and dries the land. Rabbi Avin said: Come and see how much Israel exerted themselves for the mitzva of the omer, as we learned there: They harvested [the barley] and placed it in the baskets, and they brought it to the Temple courtyard.
And they would singe it in the fire in order to fulfill the mitzva of parched grain. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir. The Rabbis say: They would beat it with reeds and with cabbage stalks so that it would not be crushed.2This beating was done in order to separate the grain kernels from the stalks, but it was not done in the normal manner of threshing, so as not to crush the kernels. They placed it into a hollow vessel, and this vessel was perforated so that the fire would take hold of it in its entirety.
They would spread it in the Temple courtyard, and the wind would blow upon it. They would bring it a mill for grits. Why all this? In order to produce from it one-tenth of an ephah [of barley flour] that was sifted through thirteen sifters.3Mishna Menaḥot 10:4.
Rabbi Levi said: You plowed, sowed, hoed, trimmed, reaped, sheaved, threshed, and placed the grain in piles, but if the Holy One blessed be He would not release a little wind to winnow, from where would you derive sustenance? That is, you give Me only the wage for the wind. That is, “What is the advantage for he who toils for the wind?” (Ecclesiastes 5:15).4The verse is interpreted to mean: What is the advantage, or reward, for one who goes through all this toil in order to bring the omer offering?
The wind that God brings is sufficient reward. Rabbi Shimon ben Rabbi [Yehuda HaNasi] married a woman. Rabbi [Yehuda HaNasi] invited all the rabbis, but he did not invite bar Kappara. [Bar Kappara] wrote on the gate of [Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s] house: ‘After your rejoicing you die. What profit is there for your rejoicing?’
Rabbi [Yehuda HaNasi] went out and looked at it. He said: ‘Who is it that we did not invite who wrote these words?’ They said to him: ‘Bar Kappara.’ He said: ‘Tomorrow, I will make a feast for him.’
He made a feast and invited him. When the guests entered they sat down to eat. When the food would be brought in, [bar Kappara] would say three hundred parables about the fox, and [the food] would grow cold and the guests would not eat anything. Rabbi [Yehuda HaNasi] said to his attendants: ‘Why is the food going out but [the guests] are not eating?’
They said to him: ‘There is a certain elder there, and when food is brought in, he says three hundred parables about the fox and it grows cold.’ Rabbi [Yehuda HaNasi] went up to him and said to him: ‘Why are you not allowing the guests to eat?’ He said: ‘So you would not say that I came to eat. Rather, it is because you did not invite me with my colleagues.’5The reason I was insulted is not because I missed the first feast but because I was excluded from my colleagues.
In Kohelet Rabba (1:3) bar Kappara concludes his statement with the verse: “What profit is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:3), which was the basis of his writing ‘what profit is there for your rejoicing?’. Following this incident, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and bar Kappara reconciled.