Mo’ed Katan – “Little Festival” – What Can You Do?
- One of the things that might stand out to some who’ve accompanied me on this journey is that with the longer holidays, like Passover and Sukkot, much attention is paid to what to do on the first night/day, and then again on the last night/day. In a functioning society, all the rituals and restrictions would be difficult to pull off for an entire week, and, indeed, they’re not. We saw something similar back in tractate Beitza, with the rabbinical attempt to build community, allowing for things like cooking and serving food on certain festival days. The intermediate days, or Chol HaMoed, are considered a sort of secular part of the holidays, with relaxed, though not eliminated, restrictions, and attention paid to the necessities of daily life – a sort of “little festival”, as this tractate is titled. I gather, also, that the rules related to bereavement or mourning are covered in the later part of this fairly short book.
- 1/14/22, Chapter 1, Page 2 – With no preamble (which I guess I just provided), the rabbis jump right into the first relaxation of a prohibition. If your fields need irrigation, get watering. The produce needs to survive the week in order to both support those who grow it, and also those who will eventually eat it. They do keep it somewhat restricted, making it clear that your approach to watering can’t be strenuous. So redirecting the flow of a stream via irrigation ditches or modern day piping, are just fine, but hauling water by the bucketful from a well or other source, is not. Obviously, that takes planning, and clearly requires that you design an irrigation system for your fields. Agricultural innovation!
- 1/15/22, Page 3 – So, irrigation of your fields is allowed on the “secular” days of the week-long festivals. But, what about other agricultural activities? Two things come into play in the various discussions. First, is the prohibition for the holiday something from the Torah, or something the rabbinical council simply made up as an extension of what’s in the Torah? If it’s the latter, then, hey guys, we made this one up a few years back, we can just rewrite it. Second, is the work being performed to increase or better production, or is it to protect the plants from damage? If the latter, go for it. Prevention of loss is paramount, increasing profits, not so much. Besides, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
- 1/16/22, Page 4 – I never had a clue until I started reading the Talmud how much stock the authorities of old put in the opinions of other people. Picture these three scenarios: Instead of a stream, you’ve got an irrigation pool or pond; but… you can’t use the water from there, because you might use up the water in it, and then people might assume you’d start carrying in water from further afield during the festival. You can create and repair irrigation ditches, but not using a hoe, because people might assume that you’re going to continue on and plow or plant your field. You can pile up manure for later use as fertilizer, if and only if there is an existing pile, because if you start a new one, people might assume that you’re going to use it for fertilizer during the festival. To quote Dr. Phil, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what people think of you if you knew how seldom they do.”
- 1/17/22, Page 5 – For all the meticulousness of the sages in so many things, there are times when they are ridiculously imprecise. After a bit of discussion on the repair of cisterns, they turn to the marking of graves. Walking across a buried corpse, or even a part of one, results in ritual impurity of both the person and whatever they are carrying (food, in particular, becomes irredeemable), and so, the marking of graves is of utmost importance to them. In a Goldilocks approach, they decide that the grave marker can’t be too close to the burial site, as someone might stumble onto it before seeing the sign, and at the same time, it can’t be too far, because then you’re wasting a portion of land that might well be put to use. No, the grave marker has to be at a position that’s “just right”. And that’s as much as we get in today’s passage.
- 1/18/22, Page 6 – There is a prohibition against planting different kinds of seeds too close together, and this comes up today because there’s a passage about how on the “little festivals”, the municipalities would send out hired workers to root out intermixed plants in surrounding fields. Initially this backfired as landowners just treated it as free labor for harvesting and weeding, and all the stuff pulled up got sold or fed to livestock. So the system was changed such that the workers would now cart away the plants they pulled up and scatter them on the roads. This seems like it would create hazards for people passing on the roads, or at least slow them down as their draft animals stopped to eat every few steps.
- 1/19/22, Page 7 – I’m trying to square two different dictates with regard to protecting your fields during the little festival periods. The first is to basically do the minimum amount of work necessary to protect them. The second is to do things in a different way from your norm, to separate the festival days from normal days. In two examples, these come into conflict, not even noted by the sages. Normally, you kill mice and moles by laying out traps. But during the festivals, you dig up your fields around where their dens are, until you find them and kill them with your shovel. Normally, you get rid of an anthill by using poison or flooding it. But during the festivals, you seek out a rival anthill at least one parasang (5km) away, dig out part of that anthill and bring the soil to your anthill, and let the unfamiliar ant colonies fight. What? I’m back to seeing that these city-folk rabbis generally don’t have a clue about how their blue-collar constituents live and work.
- 1/20/22, Page 8 – Apparently the joy of celebrating the intermediate days of the festivals is so powerful, that it’s considered the time to get onerous, depressing tasks out of the way with. Eulogizing your dead parents, or even reburying them in a more suitable plot, is best saved for these days, because the joy of the festival will outweigh your grief. In general, you can’t get married on the intermediate festival days (too much work involved), with one exception… remarrying a previously divorced spouse, because obviously that’s “not a great joy”, and the power of the festival will outweigh all your depressed thoughts and feelings, and besides, apparently no effort needs to be put into planning the re-wedding.
- 1/21/22, Page 9 – The Second Temple was fitted out with cubit wide (1.5 ft) metal plates with sharp metal spikes, all around the tops of the walls. No, they weren’t repelling attackers, at least not the human kind. Remember all those animal sacrifices we covered back in early tractates? Let’s just say that all that cooking meat and carcasses laying about, had a tendency to attract carrion birds. Why does this come up in the middle of Mo’ed Katan? Because if you haven’t finished mounting your bird-repelling spikes on your walls, it’s one of the tasks permitted, perhaps even more necessary, during the Festival days.
- 1/22/22, Page 10 – Numerous times through the Talmud we’ve seen that on festivals and holidays people are required to do things “in a different manner than their usual”, in order to separate the holy days from regular days. That can, it seems, be carried to the point of ridiculousness, as in today, where we find that while laymen can perform various craftwork, from sewing and weaving to construction, to animal care, professional craftsmen cannot, to the best of their abilities. Oh, they can do the work, but in order to fulfill the “different manner” approach, they’re required to perform their crafts as badly, or worse, than a layman would. I suppose the intent is to get them to not work at all, rather than risk their reputation for quality, but then why even make the pretense that you’re loosening restrictions on the holidays?
- 1/23/22, Chapter 2, Page 11 – You know those days when you’ve got all your olives ready for pressing, and then someone close to you dies, the worker who helps you has an accident, and it also happens to be a festival? Apparently the rabbis encounter that situation enough that there’s a whole page devoted to how to get your olives pressed (allowed during the festival) when you’re in mourning (when you’re not supposed to do any work). You’re allowed to do the basic start of the process – put the olives in the press and set the weights on top of them to get your first cold pressing. But you can’t do all the collecting and bottling, except some rabbis say you can. Most, however, agree, it’s better just to ask someone to do it for you, and helping a mourner out with basic household tasks is considered a community obligation anyway.
- 1/24/22, Page 12 – As best I can tell, this tractate is a litany of all the things you CAN do on the “little festival” days, paired up with a list of all the things you CAN’T do on those days, UNLESS you do them in a manner different from the way you usually do. Basically, do whatever you want, just approach it in a different way. That apparently involves not just, for example, using a mule, donkey, or horse to pull the milling wheel for grain instead of the usual cow, but forcing your servants to work and perform prohibited tasks, by simply not paying them, and claiming it’s not “work”, they’re just doing all that stuff because they respect you. Even if not doing so would lose them their jobs. I’d say, even if temporary for a few days, that’s still called slavery.
- 1/25/22, Page 13 – Continuing on the path of getting around festival prohibitions on these intermediate festival days…. Basically, it seems, any work can be performed if you can either justify that it’s necessary to the festival itself (particularly, apparently, barbers, tailors, and launderers – you have to keep the rich folk clean and looking good), or, if the person selling their wares or services needs money for food. Isn’t that why most people need money?
- One of the things that might stand out to some who’ve accompanied me on this journey is that with the longer holidays, like Passover and Sukkot, much attention is paid to what to do on the first night/day, and then again on the last night/day. In a functioning society, all the rituals and restrictions would be difficult to pull off for an entire week, and, indeed, they’re not. We saw something similar back in tractate Beitza, with the rabbinical attempt to build community, allowing for things like cooking and serving food on certain festival days. The intermediate days, or Chol HaMoed, are considered a sort of secular part of the holidays, with relaxed, though not eliminated, restrictions, and attention paid to the necessities of daily life – a sort of “little festival”, as this tractate is titled. I gather, also, that the rules related to bereavement or mourning are covered in the later part of this fairly short book.
- 1/26/22, Chapter 3, Page 14 – Hear ye, hear ye, these are the types of towels that may be laundered on festival days. Hand towels. Bath towels. Barber’s towels. Towels used by men with STDs. Towels used by women who are menstruating. Towels used by women who have recently given birth. Towels used by anyone who, until the festival, was ritually impure, but now is not. All other towels shall remain dirty until after the festival days have passed. We have spoken.
- 1/27/22, Page 15 – Mourners should wrap their head so that their face isn’t visible. Mourners shouldn’t put on their tefillin. Mourners should be barefoot. What’s the reasoning? There are no recorded rules about these. But, the prophet Ezekiel, when he was in mourning, was ordered by God to do the precise opposite – unwrap his face, put on his tefillin, and wear shoes. Now, my assumption reading those things would be that he was in such a state of mourning that he’d forgotten to do those things, and God was reminding him. The Talmudic rabbis reading those things assume that it’s because there must have been rules, lost to time, and God was ordering him to break them, though no reason for that is given.
- 1/28/22, Page 16 – These guys took their civic obligations seriously. Not showing up for court duty (basically, jury duty), and not showing up for defense of the city (more or less military draft)? Immediately ostracism for various lengths of time, and if it happens again, complete excommunication, permanently. Not paying your debts after a court orders you to do so? Three warnings and then ostracism, and following, if it happens again, excommunication. And nearby cities were notified as well, so you couldn’t just pack up and move, or go to another town and do business.
- 1/29/22, Page 17 – Although excommunication requires an action of senior rabbis, apparently ostracism does not. In fact, pretty much anyone can ostracize anyone else. Now, of course, that happens naturally in society. But, in a boon to those of bad intention, the sages basically announce that anyone ostracized by someone of equal or higher status to yourself, must be ostracized by you as well. Using an example of one student ostracized by another for “an insult to his dignity”, all the other students are required to shun the that person as well, though the teachers are not. This is the plot premise to every mean girls/boys movie out there.
- 1/30/22, Page 18 – When you’re in mourning, or during festival days, and need to cut your nails, you can’t cut them in your usual manner with scissors or clippers, but must use an alternate method. Biting them is suggested, but that engenders a conversation about whether or not this is appropriate since it’s prohibited to put something repulsive in your mouth. The decision is that your nails are not repulsive… however, they are dangerous. After cutting, clipping, or biting your nails, you should bury them, or better yet, burn them (respectively indicating you are either righteous or pious). You should not simply throw them on the ground (wicked behavior), because, as everyone knows, if a pregnant woman walks over them, she will miscarry.
- 1/31/22, Page 19 – It is traditional to wear a tallit, a sort of poncho-like, wide white and blue scarf, under one’s clothes. The tallit has tzitzit, which are twined and knotted fringes attached to its four corners. Those must be knotted by hand, and while anyone is allowed to do so, it’s usually done be a specially trained person. On festival days, such an artisan may knot the fringes for himself, or as a favor to someone else, but not charge for it. However, and this is a big one, and the kind of thing that I hate running across because it feeds into stereotypes, he can make one for himself, then “employ artifice”, i.e., lie, to someone else, sell the tallit to them, and then make another for himself, rinse and repeat, “in the amount that is enough to provide for his livelihood.”
- 2/1/22, Page 20 – In Judaism we have a two step mourning period for relatives – of seven and thirty days. The first seven are much stricter in terms of what you can do and how you behave, and then the balance of the month is observed differently, depending on how close of a relative the person was. Some things are obligatory, some are optional, and during the Festival days, these continue without interruption. When it comes to supporting a friend or relative who is mourning, things are different. Normally, you provide support and comfort for the first week, visiting regularly. However, during the Festivals, this is semi-suspended – you only provide support during up to the first four days of the Festival (depending on how many days prior to it the mourning period started), while the remaining three days minimum, you are expected to participate with the community in the festivities. Balance.
- 2/2/22, Page 21 – A mourner is prohibited from working, bathing, primping, sex, and wearing shoes. As well, a mourner may not study or read Torah, or any of the other sacred writings. Except… and you knew there was going to be an except… and showing that some things never change… if he or she is a teacher. If the public, the students, need them some learning, a teacher must put aside their bereavement, bath, primp, put on some shoes, and go to work. Screw their personal lives, mental status, and emotions.
- 2/3/22, Page 22 – As part of the mourning process, the mourner cannot cut their hair. For most relatives, that’s for thirty days, however if you are mourning your parents, it’s until your friends and/or colleagues tell you, “enough is enough, cut your hair already”. Another process is the rending of garments. Again, for most relatives, you simply tear a bit of your outer garment, enough to be obvious (and tearing along the hem is acceptable, so it can be repaired). However, if the deceased is a parent, you have to rend all of your garments, from outer to inner (though some modesty is permitted in regard to underwear), and tear them “in two”, completely open.
- 2/4/22, Page 23 – The whole “be fruitful and multiply” thing comes up against mourning restrictions on today’s page. Setting aside the misogyny of these ideas, try to parse the logic. If a man’s wife dies and he has no children, he should remarry immediately, even while in mourning, in order to have children. If he already has children, he should remarry immediately, in order to have a wife to look after them, and to have more children. However, sex is prohibited while mourning (along with meat and alcohol) for thirty days, so how does one go about immediately procreating with said new wife?
- 2/5/22, Page 24 – A nod, I imagine, to infant mortality rates two millennia ago. An infant of less than a month old who dies is simply carried to a gravesite by a parent and buried, without a coffin, and no public mourning or condolences need be offered. After thirty days, the infant is placed in a small coffin and carried by two people, one man and one woman, to be buried, and those who know the family offer condolences for the single week of mourning. After the child is a year old, they begin to be treated as an adult if they die, with the public grieving along with the parents…for up to a month… if, and only if, the child was “known” to the community because they played in public. If not, the public need not grieve. Not until a child is five years old is the whole mourning process of a year, and with public support, undertaken.
- 2/6/22, Page 25 – Cause or coincidence? The Talmudic scholars head for causal relationships in a litany of stories about things that befell families or communities after one or another Torah scholar dies. There’s an implication that they weren’t properly honored in death, and therefore calamities were heaped upon them, though this isn’t actually stated. Floods, acid rain, plagues… all because funeral rites weren’t carried out to the letter? Seems a bit of a stretch to me. But clearly a tool to whip folk into following the rules, and the importance of honoring Torah scholars, i.e., the Talmudic rabbis themselves. I’m sure that’s just… coincidence.
- 2/7/22, Page 26 – When it comes to rending your garments in mourning, how much rending is either necessary or allowed? After all, when you’re grieving over the death of a family member, why shouldn’t you be expected to measure out just how far you rip your clothing? And yes, there are answers, sort of. The initial rend should be three finger-widths – so about two to three inches. A second rend can be of any length. However, you shouldn’t go overboard, though there is disagreement over whether ripping down to just your heart, or to your navel, is the appropriate limit.
- 2/8/22, Page 27 – When bringing food to a mourning friend or relative, whether you are rich or poor, bring it in a simple, plain basket, so that no one feels ashamed of the container they brought food in. When serving wine to a mourning friend or relative, whether you are rich or poor, serve it in cheap, colored glass, rather than clear crystal, so that no one feels ashamed of the glasses they serve wine in. If you are mourning, don’t eat food you prepared for yourself, even if it was prepared in advance, eat only what others bring to you, so that no one thinks you might have performed work when you should be mourning. Even in the worst days of their lives, the Talmudic sages seem more concerned with appearances than what the bereaved are actually going through.
- 2/9/22, Page 28 – There is a hierarchy of death, apparently. It ranges from the expected, or “ordinary” (after being sick 5 days or more), to the “reprimand” (4 days), “rebuke” (3 days), “quickened” (2 days), “expedited” (1 day), “snatching” (unexpected, without having been sick). The last has me envisioning Ellen Muth, Mandy Patinkin, and gravelings….
- 2/10/22, Page 29 – Instructions for the appropriate sign-off at the end of life. One says “go in peace” if a person is about to die, but “go to peace” if they’ve already passed away. It’s not entirely clear why, nor does there seem to be complete agreement on these, but that’s the gist of the final paragraphs before this tractate, itself, passes.