Avot182

7:
Who despises the holy days: the term used, mo'adot is not the term that is generally used to indicate the regular festivals – Passover, Tabernacles etc. It is hardly conceivable that someone who is still "possessed of Torah" would desecrate the major festivals. The term mo'ed usually indicates the intermediate days of the festivals, and this is probably the meaning intended here. (It certainly is the meaning ascribed to the term here by Rabbi Ovadya of Bertinoro in his commentary on our mishnah.)

8:
The Torah [Leviticus 23:7-8] requires us to celebrate the festival of Pesaĥ for seven days, but only the first and the last days are stated as being sacred:

The days in between are called ĥol ha-mo'ed – the non-sacred days of the festival. (The same applies to the days between the first and eighth days of Sukkot.) Because special extra sacrifices were offered on all the days clearly the intermediate days were not intended to be completely secular. According to accepted practice these intermediate days are to be observed as days on which there is still celebration by having more festive meals that usual on a weekday and by avoiding all secular work that is not unavoidably necessary. (There is a tractate of the Talmud, Mo'ed Katan that seeks to determine what acts fall into such a category.) Clearly, someone who goes about their regular business on these days, treating them as completely secular, as if the festival itself did not exist is, according to Rabbi El'azar at least, bringing the intermediate days of the festival into disrepute.

To be continued.

I am still trying desperately to reduce the backlog of messages that has accumulated. Concerning the permission for a bigamous marriage with the assent of one hundred rabbis which we mentioned in Avot 176, Ed Frankel writes:

Readers may not realize that this exception is still used today in extenuating circumstances. Several years ago I was witness to a second marriage for a husband whose first wife was left "non compos mentis" during childbirth. He continued to care for her, even though she was permanently hospitalized. Their child and he made regular visits to Mommy. Still, she was never to be cured, and if he did not take a second wife, her state meant he was never to have a wife at home again. While I believe that he was required to obtain a secular divorce, her state also left her unable to take a get, were he to wish to give one. I remember when he received his right of 100 rabbis. The joy for himself and son was palpable. I just wonder where one finds 100 rabbis to agree to this kind of thing in this day and age.

I respond:

The Israeli rabbinate helps in such matters. While we should be delighted that the cup is half full let us not forget that it is also half empty: a woman who is left in similar circumstances has no redress whatsoever.

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Still in connection with "fear of sin", Jacob Chinitz writes:

The variety of theological opinion pointed out here, was confirmed by Solomon Schechter in his Nature of Jewish Theology. There Schechter not only illustrates variety based on different authors in the texts, but glories in the very contradictory characteristics of Talmudic thinking per se. To quote a sample of this approach:

And again:

A parallel to the discussion in the Bet Midrash Virtuali about fear of sin and wisdom, perhaps?