Avot211

5:
Perhaps we should ask ourselves why Rabbi Eli'ezer ben-Ĥisma thinks that "birds' nests" [Kinnim] – the laws that govern problems that are associated with sacrificial birds – are "veritable halakhot", as opposed to others which he considers to be of less import. Perhaps we should also ask ourselves why he links this aspect of halakhic activity with the rules and regulations that determine the start of a woman's menstrual period.

6:
The Torah [Leviticus 12:1-6] orders:

We might well ask what sin a woman commits through childbirth that she is required to bring a sin offering. The Gemara [Niddah 31b] suggests that when a woman is in labour in her pain she may well vow that never again will she be intimate with her husband – a vow that she will regret and even ignore after the child is born. To me it seems more likely that this offering is connected with a sense of gratitude for a safe delivery, because we have been told [Mishnah Shabbat 2:6] that

Women would bring one of these birds for each safe delivery. However, it was not easy for a woman – usually blessed with many children to take care of – to make the journey to Jerusalem to make the offering; so most women would save up their offerings, as it were, and when they next came to Jerusalem they would offer one bird for each safe delivery since the last time. This means that most women would have to offer several birds.

7:
When we studied Tractate Tamid we noted that the largest and outermost court of the Bet Mikdash was known as the Court of the Gentiles because even non-Jews were permitted entrance into that court. The Court of the Gentiles housed a market in which people could buy animals, birds and grains for the sacrifices that they wished to offer. Businessmen being businessmen in all climes and in all ages sometimes they took advantage of a situation. One such situation was that the cost of pigeons and turtle-doves always seemed to rise steeply just before the festivals, when women came to Jerusalem on pilgrimage with their families.

8:
One sage who decided to put a stop to this outrageous price hiking was Rabban Shim'on ben-Gamli'el (who died during the great rebellion against Rome). On one occasion, we are told [Mishnah Keritot 1:7], the cost of a 'birds' nest' [a pair of birds] in Jerusalem reached one golden dinar each! (That was about the equivalent of 25% of an ordinary working man's monthly income!)

Thus it seems to me that in our present mishnah Rabbi Eli'ezer ben-Ĥisma is saying that dealing with problems such as that dealt with by Rabban Shim'on ben-Gamli'el is a very important part of the work of a true sage.

To be continued.

Concerning Avot 207 Derek Fields writes:

You write at the end of your Shiur: God gave us the Torah and God gave us the ability to acquire wisdom. We must use our wisdom to understand Torah: for if there is no wisdom there is no fear of Heaven, if there is no fear of Heaven there is no wisdom. Surely, it is also true that we must use our "fear of Heaven" to understand our "wisdom." Understanding scientific fact tells us nothing about the morality of that fact. Torah was given to us, not to educate us about science, but to allow us to make moral judgements in the world that God created.

On the same subject Art Kamlet writes:

Wisdom/fear seems to be a paraphrase of Job 28:28: "fear of the law, that is wisdom" in answer to "Where shall wisdom be found?" (28:12) Where does Job's advice that "We cannot find out the Almighty (37:23)" fit with this lesson of how to understand/comprehend God? God tells Job you can't do or know any of the myriad things he lists, though people have a natural desire to want to keep trying to comprehend God.

I respond:

When I taught in class my rather humourous and not-so-reverent summation of the book of Job was as follows: throughout the book Job asks God "Why?". At the very end God answers him: "Because!"

It seems to me that the ultimate message of the author of the book of Job is that mortal man can never understand the ways of God because we and our ability to comprehend are just too finite.