B2. Rashi
Two generations
later, we find the same substantive approach of applying earlier laws’
narrative typifications expressed by the leading Franco-German rabbinic
authority of his time – R. Shlomo b. Isaac (RaShI, Troyes –
1040–1105). This student of the school of Rabbeinu Gershom
so understood that Jewish Law’s conceptual language expresses underlying
narrative typifications instead of semantically defining them that he did not
bother with semantic consistency. We will examine two examples.
The first example touches upon the arrangement of the fixed metonic
cycle for the lunisolar Jewish calendar, whereby both the Biblically commanded
blowing of a shofar on the first day of Rosh HaShana (Leviticus 23:24)[1]
and the waving of lulav and etrog (a bound set of four plant species) on the
first day of Sukkot (Leviticus 23:40) would be postponed to the next day if
these holiday fell out on Shabbat.[2] The second example…
B2a. Rashi: Avoiding the Blowing of a Shofar and the Waving of a
Lulav/Etrog Set on Shabbat
In the first example, Rashi was asked the following question: Why
did the (Talmudic) sages fix a metonic cycle for the lunisolar Jewish
calendar in such manner
that both the Biblically commanded blowing of a
shofar on the first day of Rosh HaShana (Leviticus 23:24)[3]
and the waving of lulav and etrog (a bound set of four plant species) on the
first day of Sukkot (Leviticus 23:40) would be postponed to the next day if
these holiday fell out on Shabbat[4]
but ensured that the less-significant beating of the willow branches on the seventh
day of Sukkot[5]
not fall out on – and be cancelled by – Shabbat:
They asked him
[Rashi] further: Why did the sages calculate the holidays for the sake of
[beating] the willow, that it should not fall out on Shabbat but not care about
[the blowing of the] shofar and the [waving of the] lulav [along with willow
branches, myrtle branches and a citron]?
Isn’t the primary mitzvah of lulav on the first day as written in the
Torah (Lev 23:4), and the rest [of the days of waving the lulav] are only in
memory of the Temple [in which the lulav was waved all seven days]! (Teshuvot
Rashi #118)
Rashi answered that a missed Biblical blowing of a shofar or
waving of multiple species could be made up on the following day:
And our Master answered us: We must of
necessity establish Rosh HaShanah on Shabbat [in some years], in which case
Sukkot will begin on Shabbat, too. For
if [we do] not [do] so, then when the new moon of Tishrei [the astronomical new
year] occurs on Thursday we won’t be able to establish the New Year on Friday,
lest Yom Kippur fall on Sunday,[6]
and not on Shabbat according to your argument for the sake of shofar and lulav,
and not on Sunday for the sake of the willows [i.e., so that the seventh day of
Sukkot won’t fall on Shabbat]. That
means that we will have delayed [the New Year] by four [extra] days that don’t
exist in the calendar![7]
Thus, since it is impossible [to have Shabbat
not conflict with one of these holidays] the sages should be trusted; it is
best to establish [the New Year] in such manner that Shofar and lulav will be
delayed by one day, since they can be made up the next day, and not to
"delay" [i.e. omit for the year] willows that cannot be made up
[since the eighth day is a different holiday]. (Teshuvot Rashi #118)
Rashi provided an answer that, at first
glance, denied the question. In response
to the problem that inasmuch as the performance of Biblical
rituals on a later day does not fulfill the Biblical commandment to perform them on
the first day they should not be overriden by Shabbat, Rashi simply says that
they are made up. Rather, the waving of
the willows on the seventh day of Sukkot – which isn't a Biblical commandment
at all – should be overriden.
In order to understand Rashi’s response, we must seek to understand how
Rashi could have evaluated that a postponed observance of a ritual is sometimes
experienced as equivalent to the Biblically required immediate
performance. We will do that
momentarily. The point is that Rashi was
able to view a performance as merely a rabbinic-level practice, on the one
hand, but also view it as truly making up a missed Biblical-level practice, on
the other hand.
As just stated: in light of the fact that Rashi evaluated that a
practice that was normally viewed as rabbinic-level could also be viewed as
making up a missed Biblical practice, I will offer a suggestion as to how he
could have viewed a practice in such fashion.
The point is not that this explanation is necessarily what Rashi
precisely had in mind. The point is that
it illustrates a type of narrative typification that could have allowed Rashi
to respond to the challenge that the “primary mitzvah of lulav on the first day
as written in the Torah” is missed by answering that it is “made up” with a
generally rabbinic performance. With this caveat in mind, we will now develop a
possible picture that Rashi had in mind by reviewing the Tannaitic holidays of
Sukkot and Rosh Hashana as they were celebrated before the Jewish lunisolar
calendar was set into its metonic cycle.[8]
Sukkot – which is preceded by the annual day of penance and
atonement,[9]
and itself precedes the Land of Israel’s annual winter rain season[10]
– was a holiday of Divine judgment over rain (m. Rosh HaShana 1:2). For six of the seven days of the holiday, the
multitude celebrated[11]
the previous year’s harvest[12]
but for all seven days they libated water and prayed for salvation from
drought.[13] Thus on this holiday of rain, each man was
required to supplicatorily wave a set of plants, which by definition need water
to survive (b. Taanit 2b), consisting of a palm branch (lulav) flanked on
either side by shorter myrtles and willows and to hold alongside it, in the
other hand or arm, an aromatic citron[14]
– four plants that are watered differently from each other and whose
arrangement is reminiscent of both male and female fertility.[15] For seven days a vast multitude would circle
the altar in the Temple courtyard (the source of the waters of the deep[16]),
which was covered with willow boughs stuck into the ground (as if growing in
their water rich environment), and would wave its citron and palm branches
while the community prayed for rainfall so that they would be saved and would
prosper.[17] On the seventh day, the multitude would
circle the altar an additional six times, then beat the ground at the foot of
the altar with willow branches, and finally praise the beauty of the (now
leaf-surrounded) altar.[18] In other words, for six days the sound of
wind rustling branches was recreated in the Temple courtyard[19]
alongside the aroma of fruit, and on the seventh day the sound of rainfall was
recreated at the foot of the water-altar.
It is thus not surprising that both the opening day of fertility-symbols
and enacted-wind (placed merely days after the Day of Atonement) and the
closing day of enacted rainfall were considered critical: if the first day fell
on Shabbat the citron and palm branch were nonetheless waved in the Temple (m.
Sukka 4:2, 4),[20]
and if the seventh day fell on Shabbat the people nonetheless circled the altar
and beat the willow branches (m. Sukka 4:3,6; t. Sukka 3:1). Both the first and the last day of this
holiday were considered critical to the water-holiday.
In spite of the criticalness of the first day, however, the Jews
of Tannaitic Israel did not allow their whole day of rest (Shabbat) to be
transformed into one of supplication. In
contrast to the normal holiday practice to carry the lulav around in the
streets – in public – after prayers,[21]
they forbade carrying the lulav on Shabbat before[22]
and after the rain prayers.[23] In Babylonia – where the Jews celebrated two
days wherever the Jews of Israel celebrated one day[24]
and thus had a two-day opening time frame for the holiday of Sukkot[25]–
Jews did not wave the lulav of supplication[26]
on the first day of Sukkot if it fell out on the weekly day of rest since they
had a second set of twenty-four hours to the opening days. Just as the Jews of Israel also did not allow
their whole day of rest (Shabbat) to be transformed into one of supplication
so, too, the Jews of Baylonia delayed their supplication to the second half of
the opening days . Similarly, since all
the Jews of Babylonia and the overwhelming majority of the Jews of Israel
celebrated the New Year for two days,[27]
the Jews of Babylonia and gradually the Jews of Israel ceased to blow the
emotionally-laden trumpeting[28]
– the shofar of the day which opened the month of rain supplication[29]
– the shofar of judicial coronation, hope and supplication[30]
– on Shabbat.[31] Later, even the Jews of Israel ceased to
wave the lulav at all on Shabbat.[32] As the Talmudic editors said[33]
in explaining why Shabbat overrides shofar and lulav: it was ruled thus lest
novices carry the object about in public (b. Sukka 43a; b. Rosh HaShana 39b)[34]
and ruin the day of rest.
With this background, we can now understand Rashi’s answer –
whether or not Rashi interpreted the holiday in exactly the way I suggested: Rashi laconically attempted to shift
the questioner’s paradigm. Given that
the New Year had become a two-day holiday everywhere and the intensive opening
period of Sukkot had become a two-day holiday all over the Diaspora, Rashi
pointed out that people could experience themselves as opening the year with
shofar-blowing or opening the rain holiday with plant-waving as long as they
performed these rituals at the first legitimate opportunity within the opening
two-day frame, and not merely on the first day.
In other words, Rashi spoke through the experiential relevance of a
two-day holiday.
More significantly for this thesis, however, is the point that
Rashi kept in mind the narrative that was addressed by the Tannaitic ruling
that the waving of the lulav on later days of Sukkot, including the second day,
is merely rabbinic. Rashi understood
that the general Tannaitic ruling that the latter six days are merely rabbinic
was limited to the situations the ruling was addressing. It was a way of saying that the holiday must
be opened on the first day with the waving of the lulav and that a man may be
lenient when continuing to wave species on later days in that he may use
species that began to dry out after the first day and may even borrow species
from another to use;[35]
the designation of “rabbinic” was not meant to be understood semantically and
deductively but rather as expressing a normative story. This narrative was one of everybody opening
the holiday with the waving of the species and of dealing leniently with drying
species on all days after the first.
That designation of “rabbinic”, therefore, did not mean that under circumstances
in which the first day of two opening days was off-limits people could not
experience the two opening days as equally valid (see Rashi’s commentary on b.
Sukka 43a)[36]
and could not fulfil the experiential obligation to open the holiday with the
waving of the lulav.
Similarly, Rashi knew that the Talmudic rabbis referred to the
blowing of a shofar on the first day of the New Year as the Biblically
significant blowing, the blowing that is required to open the year – in spite
of the fact that the New Year was celebrated for two days. This limitation, however, expressed a vision
of a lost ideal world in which the High Court and the Temple did in fact
sanctify only one precise day as the beginning of the New Year (m. Rosh HaShana
4:1). Thus, in a world in which all Jews
celebrated an organic two-day New Year (see Rashi’s commentary on Beiza 5a[37]),
Rashi argued that as long as it is blown at the first legitimate opportunity
within the opening two-day frame, Jews experience themselves as beginning the
year with shofar blowing.
In summary: Rashi cogently answered that the
missed blowing of a shofar on the first day of the New Year and the missed
waving of lulav on the first day of the beginning of Sukkot can and indeed are
made up on the second days of those two-day holidays,[38]
while the solitary day of waving of willows is not allowed to fall out on
Shabbat lest the final climactic waving for rain either be missed or interfere
with the day of rest. Rashi pointed out
that in deciding the legal issue of celebration one should not be misled by the
fact that in some dimensions we refer to the first day as Biblical in contrast
to the second day – in spite of celebrating two opening days. Rather one should focus on the different
stories intended by the norm of celebrating two days and by the norm of considering
the first day’s blowing or waving to be Biblically-required in contrast to that
of the later day(s).
[1] When dealing
with Biblical commandments in this and the following chapter, chapters that
discuss post-Talmudic law, I mean the rabbinically accepted interpretation of
those commandments (unless otherwise noted).
[2] Perhaps the
questioner was a Karaite. On the
existence of scattered Karaites and Karaite-influenced Jews in Franco-German
Europe, see Rosenthal 1967, 238-244.
[3] When dealing
with Biblical commandments in this and the following chapter, chapters that
discuss post-Talmudic law, I mean the rabbinically accepted interpretation of
those commandments (unless otherwise noted).
[4] Perhaps the
questioner was a Karaite. On the
existence of scattered Karaites and Karaite-influenced Jews in Franco-German
Europe, see Rosenthal 1967, 238-244.
[5] This is
considered merely a custom from the time of the prophets, a custom over which
no blessing is recited (b. Sukkot 44b).
[6] That would be
problematic since two absolute no-work days would follow in a row (b. Rosh
HaShana 20a).
[7] Literally:
"And what will be the fate of those four days. How can they be delayed and
how can they be filled?"
[8] Since the
Tannaitic description does not differ significantly from earlier non-rabbinic
descriptions and since this is a chapter on medieval Jewish Law, I am stating
the Tannaitic descriptions as historical fact – the way it would have been read
by Rashi.
[11] Flutes were
played, wine was offered to God, and night-long celebrations were held on the
first six days and nights (m. Sukka 5:1-2).
[13] m. Sukka chapter
4; t. Sukka 3:18. Also see t. Sukka 3:18
and m. Taanit 1:1-2. Cf. John 7: 37-38.
[15] On the circular
relationship of land fertility for the sake of life, children, and of fertile
procreation as an image of rain insemination (from God) and feminine land
impregnation and birth see Book of Jubilees 16:16-21, 26:31. Note, however, that given that the citron
could be understood to symbolize the “feminine”inseminated
land separately from the “male”
inseminating sky or that all these symbols could be grasped as magical, R.
Akiva explicitly said that each of the species represents God (Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 27:9).
As is the case
with all rituals, there was obviously much additional secondary symbolism
associated with these species – which
together also resemble a fleur de lis and an orb, etc. These different secondary symbolisms may even
explain the Tannaitic debates over the size and appearance of the citron (m.
Sukkot 3:6-7). However, the
proliferation of secondary symbolisms should not distract us both from the
primary fertility and rain association in a rain-challenged land and from the
realization that (as I illustrate below in the notes) the intention of
secondary symbolic interpretations are understood best when they are read along
the grain of the primary symbolic intentions.
(Both of these points are overlooked by Rubenstein 1995.)
In fact, in
keeping with those points, it is worth
noting that Rambam (a medieval philosopher and legal authority whom we will
discuss below in the body of this chapter) ruled that one who cannot wave the
species together can even pick up each of the four species separately as long
as they are all present (Mishne torah, Laws of Lulav 7:6); in spite of
the Talmud’ secondary symbolism for the four species, he focused on the more primary symbol
of these plants (also mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud – b. Taanit 2b), that they need water (Guide to the
Perplexed 3:43).
[16] This altar was
considered the bosom of the earth itself (Ezekiel 43:14) or at least as located
between the sanctuary that enclosed the foundation stone of the world and its
waters (m. Yoma 5:2) and the Gate of Water from which the earth’s waters of the
deep would eventually spread forth as rivers in the ideal messianic future (m.
Middot 2:6).
According to some
Tannaim the pouring of the water on the altar was an attempt to arouse the
Divine through the waters of the deep (t. Sukka 3:14).
This is not to
deny that, as pointed out earlier, there was also an element of rejoicing over
the produce grown since last winter (y. Sukka 3:11). However, celebration and supplication are
intertwined, a point overlooked by Gedalyahu Alon who argued that even according to the
Tanaim, “the carrying of the four species in the Temple was only an
expression of public rejoicing” (Alon 1977, 137 n.102 – emphasis added)
[19] Not only owners
of orchards (symbolized by the citrons) but also farmers were accustomed to
live with deeply rooted trees at the edges of their fields in order to prevent
soil erosion (m. Bava Batra 2:12) and olive trees surrounding their plots in
order to deter birds from eating the grain (m.
Pe’a 3:1), etc. Thus, the sound of the
wind rustling the branches was not merely the only wind sound that could be
created easily; it was also the sound that a hopeful farmer would seek to hear.
[20] After the
destruction of the Temple, when the people prayed and waved the species in
their synagogues for seven days instead of in the Temple (m. Sukka 3:12; m.
Rosh HaShana 4:3), they continued to wave them when the first day coincided with
Shabbat (m. Sukka 3:13).
[25] Babylonian
agriculture is also dependent on seasonal winter rains. It is thus not surprising that Jews continued
to wave the species for seven days (b. Sukkah 42b).
[26] Secondary
symbolism should always be read along the grain of primary symbolism (if
physical conditions have not change radically and the original primary
symbolism is in fact still the grounded symbolism). Thus: the secondary symbolism of the palm
branch as a sign of judicial victory (Pesikta
de-Rav Kahana 27:3) should be read as a reassurance in
the face of judgment over rain and the secondary symbolism of the lulav
as representing different Jews with varying traits (Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 27:9) should ve read as a reassurance of
rain spite of the fact that the people as a whole never were and never can be
perfect.
Consider that we
saw above that the shofar of judgment (ten days before the Day of Atonement)
also symbolized hope and prayer (and many more secondary symbols that express
aspects of these points, such as blowing to confuse Satan and blowing a ram’s
horn in order to remind God of the binding of Isaac [b. Rosh HaShana 16a]).
[28] R. Akiva in t.
Rosh HaShana 2:10; R. Levi b. Lahma (an Eretz-Israeli Amora of the early 3rd
century CE) in b. Rosh HaShana 29b.
A comparison of
R. Akiva’s comment that Shabbat and Rosh HaShana conflict (t. Rosh HaShana
2:10) with R. Akiva’s ruling that the special Rosh Hashana prayers must be
prayed with the blowing of the shofar (m. Rosh HaShana 4:5), might indicate
that even the Rosh HaShana prayers were significantly modified on Shabbat. (Naturally, there has always been, and
inherently must be, a cultural tension between prioritizing a sacred calendrical
day of awe as an inherent day and prioritizing a recurring cyclical day of serenity as an inherent “natural” day.)
[30] t. Rosh HaShana
1: 11, [end of ]12-13 (and m. Rosh HaShana 4:5). [Cf. Pseudo-Philo, Biblical
Antiquities 13:6.]
[31] m. Rosh HaShana
4:1. As the Sifra has pointed out
earlier: it is the Jubilee shofar of redemption throughout the land that is
critical enough to be blown everywhere on Shabbat, not the mere shofar of the
[extra day of the] New Year – which need be blown only in the High Court
(Sifra, Behar #2) that declares the new month (baraita in b. Rosh Hashana
30a). [For further dscussion that only
the High Court blew shofar when declaring the new month, see Belkin 1940, 213.]
[33] On the basis of
the of the concern underlying the ruling of the Babylonia Amora, Rava, that
people not carry the Book of Esther – the scroll of the ribald story that
underlies the Purim holiday of goodwill and drunkenness – in public on Shabbat
(b. Megilla 4b).
[34] Especially in
light of the legal ideal that encouraged all men to walk around with their palm
branches (t. Sukka 2:10; m. Sukka 3:14) and to personally blow shofar (m. Rosh
HaShana 4:8; t. Rosh HaShana 2:16) in the public prayers (m. Rosh HaShana 4:9).
[36] S.v. Lo Yad’inan
bi-Kevia de-Yarha. Note that in
Tannaitic Israel, in which the waving of the species was intimately connected
to praying for rain and in which the holiday had only one opening day, Jews
long insisted on waving the lulav on the first day even when it fell on Shabbat
(m. Sukka 3:13).
[38] Instead of
occurring on Shabbat, a day that Rashi described elsewhere as a day of rest in
which emotional pain is avoided (Siddur Rashi #515).
