- Rosh Hashanah – “Head of the Year” – Finding Yourself in Time
- We all know the holiday of the same name, the annual “Jewish New Year”. But there are different points in time that could be designated as a new year (think – calendar, fiscal, school), for different purposes, and people’s relationship to the year changes depending on who, what, and where they are. Within the space-time continuum, one can feel lost. This tractate addresses the latter, creating a paradigm for locating yourself along the time-line.
- 10/11/21, Chapter 1, Page 2 – The tractate begins with an introduction to the different years that will be covered – the king’s year, the tithing year, and two different agricultural years. It then moves on to start exploring the first of these, the king’s year. We’ve all likely encountered that in historical literature, when a story talks about “in the sixth year of King Fred’s reign…”. Within most monarchy systems those regnal years date from the actual day the king ascends to the throne. Within the Jewish system the king’s reign begins on the 1st of Nisan of the year he ascends the throne, roughly, around the beginning of Spring, and is, at least partially based on significant events occurring, for example, the receding of floodwaters in the story of Noah, and rebirth of the world, is dated to the 1st of Nisan.
- 10/12/21, Page 3 – Something I’d never thought about, but the “civil calendar” in Judaism begins on the 1st of Tishrei, the seventh month of the kings’ calendar. And that, in roughly September or October, the harvest season, is when we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. The fascinating part from a historical literature view is that the creation of Adam and Eve, and therefore the human race, is dated to the 1st of Tishrei. If you think of it representationally, launching into the seventh month, in the Jewish creation myth, humanity was created at the end of the sixth day (or, month?) starting up a clean slate human calendar on the seventh, with a day (again, month?) of rest in the Garden of Eden. Part of Rosh Hashanah is the endeavor to ritually return the human spirit to the paradise of the Garden.
- 10/13/21, Page 4 – “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” A common enough expression, meaning to accept something given, even if it’s not exactly what you wanted or expected. At the same time, it’s well worth being aware of strings that may be attached, as another saying, probably politically incorrect these days, goes, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”. An example is given of the king at one time, Cyrus, offering to rebuild the Temple at his own expense, provided that it’s built with a row of timber inside the rows of stone. The rebuilding of the Temple is a great gift, and not one to be turned down. At the same time, it turns out, Cyrus’ reason for the condition on the structure is that if the Jews don’t support him, the row of timber will make it easier to burn the Temple down again.
- 10/14/21, Page 5 – Missed sacrifices, missed payments. We don’t have to deal with the former these days, but the latter is probably an issue for most people, at some point in time. What to do if you miss a payment? The rabbis, of course talking about sacrifices, note that it might be tempting to just say, “oh well, missed that one, it won’t happen again”. But that doesn’t sit well with them, apparently envisioning the CPA in Heaven keeping track of your sacrificial debt. No, just like in today’s world, you have until the next sacrificial closing date, the next time that holiday occurs, to catch up, or penalties really start to kick in, whether that’s a weekly, monthly, or yearly obligation.
- 10/15/21, Page 6 – Tradition has it that sacrificial offerings are the responsibility of the man of the house. If he’s unable to fulfill his sacrificial commitments, or dies, do either his wife or minor heirs become responsible for offering those sacrifices, even though they had no say in them, and in the culture, wouldn’t have been able to either make the commitment or offer sacrifices on their own behalf. It’s surprisingly quite the argument among the rabbis, getting into the intricacy of the language of commitment and the responsibilities of minors and women, and some of it is left unresolved, which leaves me wondering how it’s handled in a very different, modern day society.
- 10/16/21, Page 7 – What is the basis of the 1st of Nisan as the calendar New Year? I’ll put this in the Gregorian calendar for understanding the ridiculousness of the argument. “I read an ancient text that referred to April as the 4th month of the year, therefore January must be the first.” “Well I read a different text that says that July is the 7th month of the year, so that’s why January is first.” “No, you’re both wrong, I read that in this much more important text that October is the 10th month of the year, and so January starts the year.” “Would you all just shut up, it says right here in the sacred text that created the calendar that January is the first month of the year, why look any further?” As often seems to be the case, these guys just want their opinion on record, and to sound more learned than their colleagues.
- 10/17/21, Page 8 – We talk about the history of slavery and the process of emancipation. It’s hard to imagine a culture two millennia ago when slavery was a more integral part of most cultures. It was often a different form, not based on race, but one where selling oneself, one’s children, one’s community, into slavery was a way of working off obligations. The ancient Jewish tradition included a “Jubilee” year, once every fifty years, when all slaves were freed, regardless of when they started their servitude. Today’s page covers how the release was handled over a ten day period, from Rosh Hashanah and the first blowing of the shofar, when the slaves were no longer required to work, and were given ten days to celebrate at their owner’s expense, until Yom Kippur with the final blowing of the shofar, when they were released to go home, giving their owner time to come to grips with losing his property.
- 10/18/21, Page 9 – Continuing with yesterday’s theme around slavery and the Jubilee year. First, someone proposes that the Jubilee year is not every 50th year, but rather 50 years between them. It’s clear he just wants an extra year of work out of his slaves, and the idea is squashed. Second, it’s noted that the 50th year follows on the 49th, and with every 7th year being a non-planting, non-harvesting year to allow the land to recuperate, might mean two years in a row of non-productive land, with no slaves. This is also dismissed, because you can hire and pay workers to work during the 50th year. Finally, Rabbi Yosei posits a world in the future where there will be no slaves, and no need to free anyone. Somehow I don’t think he thought that 1800+ years later, it would still be an issue.
- 10/19/21, Page 10 – On page 1 we were introduced to the regnal year concept, which, for Jewish kings had their reign officially start on a specific date each year, often months after their actual ascension to the throne. The same has practical consequences within the other calendar years talked about. Today the rabbis discuss the implications for planting of fruit trees, for which you’re not allowed to harvest fruit for 3 years after planting – and then the 4th year the fruit is only used for sacrificial donations. As there’s an official “rosh hashanah”, a “birth time” for trees, on the fruit tree calendar, if you plant any time prior to that date, even up to a full year, the intervening time is null, and you have to wait longer to harvest your fruit. My mind wonders, are we talking planting seed, or seedling?
- 10/20/21, Page 11 – Calendars require a frame of reference, generally related to cycles of the sun, moon, and sometimes other stars. The constellation kima comes up in today’s reading, which has variously been thought to be the seven sisters of the Pleiades, Scorpio, or Orion – all at least within the same general part of the star chart. But from when did the calendar begin? Two sages, both respected, disagree, and of course it’s our two different main calendars, the one that starts in Nisan and the one that starts in Tishrei. After much discussion, it’s apparently determined that Yehosha begins the calendar based on the month of Creation, while Eliezer bases the calendar on the creation of the world anew, after the Flood.
- 10/21/21, Page 12 – I’ve posited the theory a few times over the course of this study that God is a whiny teenager who designed the world as an online gaming campaign. He’s the game master and the Talmud is the guide to running it. Today, we see that in response to people not following the rules of proper play (sizzling, prohibited sex seems to have set him off), he sent down the Flood to boil us all alive (I don’t think Genesis mentions boiling in the flood story), changed the constellation Kima (this time identified as Draco) by removing two stars from it, and changing the earth’s rotation. I’m amending my whole game master theory to include that God is, apparently, an incel.
- 10/22/21, Page 13 – One of the tenets of Judaism is to question everything. Even where there are long standing rules, questioning and reaching your own conclusions are all a part of the process. It’s a big part of what this entire Daf Yomi study is all about. So it’s an aberration when, after a pointing out how exacting various measurements are in regard to ritual purity, Rav Zeira opines that he and his fellow sages know, without a doubt, when a crop has reached precisely its one-third growth point, and they are not to be questioned on this matter. Of course, everyone immediately questions whether he could tell the difference in a plant that has reached one-third, one-fourth, one-fifth, even one-sixth of its maturity, or even knows how long it takes for a plant to grow, given that he’s probably never sowed a seed in his life.
- 10/23/21, Page 14 – We all know someone who seems to always be on a quest to find the right guide for their spiritual life. Unending series of seminars, recordings, books, and rituals, each without the hoped for enlightenment. Given that the Talmud notes the trend two millennia ago, this is not a new issue. Choose your guide and stick with them, is their advice. Trying to follow multiple moral leaders at the same time will, it says, lead you down one of two paths – either embracing a plethora of permissions, leaving you without strictures and a “wicked” life lacking a moral compass, or girding yourself in far too many, often conflicting, rules of conduct, a “foolish” life, lacking in humanity and joy. The question still arises, of course, how do you choose who to follow?
- 10/24/21, Page 15 – I am reminded of The Byrds’ song Turn! Turn! Turn! as the rabbis discuss the changing of the seasons and the ripening of fruits. As examples, they dwell on etrogs, the citrons we were introduced to in tractate Sukkot, and white figs, but make it clear these are just examples of slow ripening fruits whose harvest time may overlap different seasons. in fact, as I internet dive into it for a few moments, it turns out that figs can actually bud and start to produce fruit one year, and then winter-over and ripen the next (the rabbis’ claim of a three year ripening process appears dubious, at best). All the discussion, in the end, relates to when tithes are due. The taxman always gets his cut.
- 10/25/21, Page 16 – According to some there are four annual judgment days of each of us. One for how we handle our grain crops, one for the care of fruit trees, one for our care of domesticated animals, and one for how we handle irrigation. All very agricultural rather than spiritual. It turns out that this isn’t something stated in the Torah, but yet another rabbinic derivation. There’s some argument about whether it’s really just four times a year, or if it’s daily, or even hourly. There’s also an assertion that the blowing of the shofar during the Sukkot festival (another agricultural tie-in) is actually done because the series of blasts it makes confuse Satan, and prevent him from presenting his case against us on judgment day.
- 10/26/21, Page 17 – One of the things I learned growing up is that Judaism doesn’t have the Christian concept of an eternal hell. There’s very little about the afterlife in the Torah itself, most of what there is pops up in the books of different prophets, Psalms, and rabbinic literature… including the Talmud. Today’s passage touches on the three classes of people at Judgement Day – the righteous, who are returned to God and “sealed for eternity”; the wicked in body and spirit, who are sent to Gehenna where, after a year, they become ashes or worms and spend eternity as the soil under the feet of the righteous; and middlings, who sinned with their bodies but not spirit, who spend up to a year “being worked like silver” until they either repent or not, and then end in one of the other two groups. There’s quite the discussion of whether the wicked are offered the opportunity to repent or not, and no final agreement.
- 10/27/21, Page 18 – The last two pages’ diversion into Judgment Day had to wind up sooner or later, along with something tying it to the theme of this tractate. It turns out, it echoes a modern sensibility about justice and remorse. While the final judgment comes on Yom Kippur, the process of being judged starts on Rosh Hashanah, our theme. During the ten day period between those, the person on trial for their wickedness, be it body or spirit, has the opportunity to express remorse to the judge, in this case, repentance before God. Those who repent during that period can be saved. Those who wait to see if they get convicted or to see what their sentence is, before repenting, aren’t saved. God, and judges, recognize that post-sentencing remorse is most likely self-serving, not heartfelt.
- 10/28/21, Page 19 – I’ve mentioned the Hebrew lunar calendar before, and its setup of alternating 29 and 30 day months, modified, when necessary by two of the months in the middle of the year can swap between 29 and 30, to adjust for the phases of the moon. When the new moon was sighted each month, messengers used to be sent out to various points to announce it. The question is brought up… Why do we need to announce it every month, and not just the two months that are changeable? The moon doesn’t change its cycle, and the calendar doesn’t change year to year – with two exceptions, everyone knows the length of each month. Six thousand years (well, at the time of the Talmud, four thousand) we haven’t had an exception. Well, the answer comes back, just because we haven’t had an exception yet….
- 10/29/21, Page 20 – In refutation of yesterday’s claim that the month of Elul always has 29 days, and therefore the claim of thousands of years without an exception is wrong, a story about the one time, a century prior, it was changed to 30 days is offered. So, maybe it could happen again. Keep sending those messengers out is the takeaway. But make sure they’re the real messengers, who saw the new moon themselves, because someone making up that they saw something they didn’t, is worse than someone who withholds their testimony about something they did see. Okay, that’s the takeaway.
- 10/30/21, Page 21 – This messenger thing is tied to the reason many Jewish holidays are celebrated for two days outside of Israel. Scheduling was based on receiving word from the messengers that things were officially a “go”. At the same time, outside of a day’s ride from Jerusalem, the messenger wouldn’t likely arrive until the next day (this was during a time when the diaspora was just into neighboring kingdoms). Rabbis combined that they knew the calendar date on which to celebrate, extended by a day to accommodate receiving official word. Why do we do this today, when we know instantly when the New Moon is sighted in Jerusalem each month? Because, it is argued, once you (collectively) choose to celebrate a holiday for two days, reducing that to one day would take away from its spiritual significance for you. Says who?
- 10/31/21, Chapter 2, Page 22 – Manipulation has been a part of politics since the beginning of recorded human history. Someone always wants to either have the upper-hand or make sure that someone else doesn’t. Given the importance to religious leaders of knowing exactly when the first sliver of the new moon appeared, there was a whole system of witnesses and testimony instituted. So it’s no surprise that various groups that were not in power screwed with that system, from our old friends the Boethusians, Pharisees, and Samaritans, to a group we’ve not come across before in these pages, the Cutheans. Falsely testifying to the Sanhedrin high court, bribing other people to do so, and even lighting fake signal fires on distant mountaintops, were all used. For those in charge, it was a bit of a “whack-a-mole” to ferret out false versus true testimony.
- 11/1/21, Page 23 – In the midst of a discussion of the different sorts of wood allowed to be used for signal torches, one sage notes the similarity in name between coral-wood, a type of cedar, and coral. I assume that the Hebrew names must likewise be similar or this would make no sense – perhaps a coloration thing? He launches into a description of how coral is harvested from the seabed, by filling a boat with so much sand that it sinks, then divers go down and tie ropes around the coral and the boat, and then empty the boat of the sand until it rises back to the surface, carrying the coral with it. It sounds a bit cumbersome and somewhat hard to believe it works, but given that coral had “twice the value of silver”, it was apparently worth the effort.
- 11/2/21, Page 24 – Rabbi Gamliel drew a wall chart showing the different phases of the moon so that he could have the monthly witnesses point to which shape the moon they saw looked like. The Gemara challenges his use of this wall chart, suggesting that it violates the precept of not creating images of God. Their basis for this challenge is that the moon and sun are god-like celestial beings and therefore subject to the same rule, which to my mind seems to violate the monotheistic core of Judaism. Rav Abbaye slaps this one down anyway, saying that the rule is about creating something like an idol used in worship, not about a simple representational drawing for mundane purposes. Interestingly, no one challenges the idea of the moon and sun being deific.
- 11/3/21, Page 25 – During the early 1st century CE, Rabbi Gamliel was the ultimate authority on lunar cycle calculations and testimony. He got pretty specific, declaring that the cycle of the moon was no less than twenty nine and a half days, plus two-thirds of an hour, plus seventy-three of the one thousand and eighty subsections of an hour, with “subsections” working out to 3.3333 seconds, making this 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3.33 seconds. Now, the actual, modern day calculated “synodic” cycle is 29.530587981 days, or 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.8 seconds. That’s pretty damned close for two millennia ago and no modern measuring equipment.
- 11/4/21, Chapter 3, Page 26 – The original Torah was written in ancient Hebrew, and early on translated into the local vernacular, Aramaic. By the time the Talmud was written, few people were fluent in either, as the languages had evolved. Much as a modern scholar studying a text written in Old or Middle English might find, the meanings of words is often lost or changed. There is a prohibition about using a cow’s horn, keren, as a shofar, versus that of other animals and both words are among those lost ones. As one sage points out, could they go back in time, they would just ask the average person in the street what it meant, rather than endless debates over the reason for the prohibition, for which they come up with numerous possibilities.
- 11/5/21, Page 27 – Can a person reliably listen to more than one thing at once? That is the question that the rabbis debate as they discuss the blowing of the shofar to start the Rosh Hashanah holiday. If two different people are blowing shofars at the same time in proximity, or if there’s an echo, have you fulfilled the mitzvah of hearing the shofar blast, or is your attention divided by the two sounds, and therefore you haven’t truly listened to one or the other fully? They opine “no”, and extend the same reasoning to other arenas, like listening to Torah readings.
- 11/6/21, Page 28 – There are horns, and there are horns. Two pages ago we were talking about what sort of animal the horn came from. Now we’re talking about the provenance of the horn. Just exactly where did you get that shofar? Is it consecrated? Has it been around the wrong sort of people? Who has handled it before? Just picking up a random horn and making noise with it won’t cut it when it comes time to usher in the holidays. Know your instrument. Blow your instrument.
- 11/7/21, Page 29 – In a presaging of some of modern day’s conversations, the rabbis turn to the shofar obligations of various classes of people, including those who are androgynous (for the rabbis, these were those who had genitals of both male and female), and tumtum (those for whom the genitals were indeterminate or hidden). Though they were talking about specific genital intersex issues, the conversation dove a bit into things less physical. It also led me into a short internet dive where I learned about the Guevedoces, a fascinating group of genetically different people in the Dominican Republic. I wonder how the sages would have approached this situation.
- 11/8/21, Chapter 4, Page 30 – The rabbis discuss the blowing of the shofar and reciting of prayers, and whether or not each person, individually, needs to do everything themselves. No, is the general consensus. It’s quite alright to have someone say prayers on your behalf, and blow the shofar on your behalf, as long as you’re both cognizant and intentional that it’s happening. But rather than looking at it as a way of getting out of one’s obligations, the rabbis approach it from the other side, that it can’t be a “you do you, I’ll do me” situation. If the person performing the rituals is doing them just for him/herself, and not for others, then the community is lost, but in doing them for others, the community is included and kept whole.
- 11/9/21, Page 31 – This entire tractate is about new beginnings, of various sorts, that happen each year. Most of them have revolved around agricultural themes, but today’s page kicks things up a huge notch. The End of the World. According to kabbalistic (Jewish mystic) tradition, the world exists for six thousand years, and then doesn’t exist for a thousand, echoing the weekly sabbath cycle. But, new beginnings! The cycle repeats, ad infinitum. End of the world is not interpreted as fiery destruction, but rather that each six thousand years everything reaches a breakthrough point, and after a respite (of which, we’re not even aware), picks up and continues to advance from where it left off.
- 11/10/21, Page 32 – What do you do if you’re one of those folk who doesn’t plan things out and leaves everything until last minute and you have no idea where your shofar is or maybe you didn’t have one to begin with? Well, certain labors are prohibited, of course, on Rosh Hashanah, so you can’t clear a pile of rubble to get at a buried one, nor climb a tree, ride an animal, or swim across water to retrieve one. Other than that, it seems, you can do what you need to to get one. And once you get it, you can apparently fill it with wine so that it “emits a clear sound”. Really? Filling a horn with liquid allows it to emit a clear sound? I’m wondering if they meant you can rinse it out with one of those, even though that’s not what it specifies. Or maybe, it’s to get you loosened up….
- 11/11/21, Page 33 – Yesterday we were introduced to the use of water or wine in a ram’s horn, as I presumed, in order to clean it, or in some other way make it work better as a shofar. Today we are informed that while those two liquids are just fine, urine is not. Not that it wouldn’t be beneficial, mind you, the rabbis say, but that it’s disrespectful to the shofar. Not to mention, and they don’t, to the person who’s wrapping their lips around it. I’m not clear what benefit it would provide, perhaps some sort of curing or decorative function, and, a bit of an internet dive leads to all sorts of articles on the use of urine, semen, and blood in painting and sculpture that I have to admit I was unaware of.
- 11/12/21, Page 34 – The rabbis spend most of today’s page arguing about the correct patterns of notes to blow on the shofar, the timing, and how often the shofar is to be blown each day. If you screw it up, you go back to the beginning and start again. Over and over. If you have a shofar, you don’t just have it, you have to blow it. No slacking off! Reading the page brought me back to a combination of private piano lessons, and clarinet playing in school music classes. It was a mix of nostalgia, boredom, and abject terror.
- 11/13/21, Page 35 – Presaging modern day cultural divisions, several rabbis opine that people who work out in the fields, doing real work, are exempt from having to say all their own prayers or studying the Torah. They can remain secure in the knowledge that the prayer leaders back in their synagogues will take care of all of that for them. However, those who live in the city, regardless of what sort of urban labors they are involved in, are granted to such exemption. If they can afford to live in the city and engage in those sorts of labor, they are obligated to show up and participate in the prayer services themselves. As a city kind of person, I look at that and think, so this is why country and suburban folk don’t actively participate in their religious communities, but maintain a pretense of being holier than those who live in cities.
And the lima beans laugh and laugh… – Atlas Obscura