For the source text click/tap here: Chullin 54
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Our daf relates that tradesmen are not allowed to stand in the presence of Torah scholars while working. Rashi explains that the Gemara refers to tradesmen who are employed by others rather than tradesmen who work for themselves.
Tosafos further elaborates that the phrase אינם רשאים – they are not allowed – implies that there is a prohibition for the tradesmen to stand for a Torah scholar.
Since there is no prohibition for a person to interrupt his own work to stand for a Torah scholar it must be that the Gemara refers to someone who is an employee of someone else. Tosafos maintains that the Gemara refers to a tradesman who works for himself and the phrase רשאים אינם should be understood that one is not obligated to stand.
Rabbi Ḥana the money-changer (paturaʾah) recounts that Bar Nappaḥa — Rabbi Yoḥanan — once stood over him and requested a Kurdish dinar in order to measure tereifot according to Zeʿeiri’s ruling. Rabbi Ḥana, recognising in his customer one of the towering sages of the generation, made to rise out of respect. Rabbi Yoḥanan would not permit it. He said to him:
“Sit, my son, sit; craftsmen are not permitted to stand before Torah scholars at the time they are engaged in their work.”
The Gemara immediately presses the claim. Is it truly the case that artisans need not rise? A Mishnah in tractate Bikkurim (3:3) appears to say the opposite: when the pilgrims ascend to Jerusalem bearing their first fruits, all the craftsmen of Jerusalem stand before them and greet them, “Our brothers, men of such-and-such a place, you have come in peace.” Rabbi Yoḥanan resolves the contradiction with a single distinction that has reverberated through the codes for a millennium:
before them — the bringers of first fruits — the craftsmen rise; before Torah scholars they do not rise.
Which we explore.