How self-aware is the Gemara?

תלמוד בבלי מסכת סוכה דף יח עמוד א - דף יט עמוד א

אתמר,
סיכך על גבי אכסדרה שיש לה פצימין - כשרה.
שאין לה פצימין, אביי אמר: כשרה, ורבא אמר פסולה.
אביי אמר כשרה אמרינן: פי תקרה יורד וסותם.
רבא אמר פסולה: לא אמרינן פי תקרה יורד וסותם.
אמר ליה רבא לאביי: לדידך דאמרת פי תקרה יורד וסותם - אפילו הפחית דופן אמצעי! –
אמר ליה: מודינא לך בההיא, דהוה ליה כמבוי המפולש.
לימא אביי ורבא בפלוגתא דרב ושמואל קמיפלגי,
דאתמר: אכסדרה בבקעה,
רב אמר: מותר לטלטל בכולו, דאמרינן פי תקרה יורד וסותם.
ושמואל אמר: אין מטלטלין בה אלא בארבע אמות, דלא אמרינן פי תקרה יורד וסותם.
אליבא דשמואל - כולי עלמא לא פליגי.
כי פליגי אליבא דרב;
אביי כרב.
ורבא אמר לך: עד כאן לא אמר רב התם אלא דמחיצות לאכסדרה הוא דעבידי, אבל הכא דלאו להכי עבידי - לא.

I'd like to outline the structure of the Gemara so my point is clear. The content is actually not relevant to my point (or, perhaps, my point is actually not relevant to the specific content), for better of for worse:

The Gemara presents a mahloket between Abaye and Rave. The Gemara then proposes that perhaps this mahloket is "the same" as another mahloket between Rav and Shmuel. That is, Abaye/Rava disagree about the rule for one set of facts, and Rav/Shmuel disagree about the rule for another set of facts. The Gemara suggests that the reasoning for the different rules lines up - in this case, Rav with Abaye and Rava with Shmuel.
The Gemara then claims that the mahloket between Abaye and Rava is really within the ruling of Rav. ie, they disagree as to what Rav would say about their case/facts given what he said about the other case/facts. (Apparently they agree on what Shmuel would say to their case. Rashi says Abaye would still rule differently than Shmuel, though I'm not sure this is the only reading. In any case, what's relevant is that neither is in the position of having to make Shmuel's position mean something it doesn't seem to.)
The problem with saying that both Abaye and Rava are ruling within the opinion of Rav is that Rav's ruling actually seems to contradict the reasoning of Rav. The Gemara is aware of this, and comes up with a way for Rava to explain how Rav could rule one way in one case and apparently rule differently in a similar case - arguing that the cases are not actually similar enough to justify the same ruling. This part of the Gemara is in bold.

Now, why am I writing about this? One frustration I often have with Gemara is that the Gemara will put plausible and implausible arguments on equal footing. I generally, for the sake of my own sanity, assume that there is some degree of self-awareness on the part of the editors that the symmetry they impose is not always real. However, this is usually (though by no means always) just an assumption. The reason I brought this Gemara is that it is an example of a situation where the Gemara itself is aware that one position is more plausible than the other, hence nifty for me.
Recall, the Gemara sets up the position of Rav in one case, then asserts that Abaye and Rava disagree as to what Rav would say in a similar, but not identical, case. The similarities between the cases create the inference that Rav would side with Abaye, however, leaving Rava out in the cold (since the Gemara is not content just to say "Rava holds like Shmuel"). The solution is for Rava to come up with a distinction betweeen his case and Rav's original case which makes the rule from one inapplicable to the other. Said distinction is, in my opinion, not wholly implausible, but definitely not as intuitive as simply saying that Rav and Rava disagree. Structurally, however, the Gemara sets up two equal opinions as to Rav's position. That said, on closer inspection, what language does it use to do this? It says אביי כרב. ורבא אמר לך: עד כאן לא אמר רב התם אלא.
"Abaye is like Rav. (ie, Abaye follows from the simple logical understanding of Rav), and Rava would say to you: Rav would not extend his ruling from there this far..."
The statement "Abaye is like Rav" implicitly undermines the whole project of saying "both Abaye and Rava hold their opinions according to Rav." The editor seems clearly to be picking sides. I thought it was neat.
Thoughts appreciated.

PS: I should note that the motive for making Rava consistent with Rav, as opposed to just saying Rava follows Shmuel, seems to be to harmonize what the actual halakhah is. That is, according to the principles of psak, the normative halakhah should follow both Rava and Rav, so there has to be some way the two are compatible... So, the less-plausible reading is halakhically necessary!

leil shimurrim

רמב"ן שמות פרק יב פסוק מב

(מב) ואמר ליל שמורים הוא לה' להוציאם מארץ מצרים - כי שמר להם הדבר מן העת שגזר עליהם הגלות שיוציאם בלילה הזה בבא הקץ מיד, כי בעתה אחישנה (ישעיה ס כב). או טעמו, ליל שמורים הוא לה', שהוא שומר ומצפה ללילה שיוציאם מארץ מצרים, שהקב"ה מצפה לעת שיהיו ראויים להוציאם משם:

According to Ramban, Leil Shimurim is either: the specific date God had destined for the redemption, which God then waited for OR: The night that God has been waiting for, when bene Yisrael finally merit redemption.
In the first reading, God sets the trigger and waits for it. In the second, B"Y are directly responsible for the triggering event. [The first is found in the gemara, the second original to Ramban (as far as I know). ] I just thought that was interesting

Purim

Over shabbat I heard some of the aspects of this Purim drashah.
Two points I took away: 1 - the structure of Ahashverosh's palace is set out to parallel the mishkan/mikdash: it has increasingly restrictive access as you get closer to the king, no one can enter the innermost chamber without permission, etc...), and is called "birah" - a word only used to refer to the mikdash elsewhere in Tanakh. 2 - the midrash capitalizes on this, saying that Ahashverosh wore the clothing of the Kohen Gadol and served with the vessels of the Temple, etc.
Rabbi Liebtag (predictably), takes this in a Zionist direction, suggesting that the megillah is chastising the Jews for remaining in Persia and mistaking the false "temple" of Ahashverosh for the soon-to-be-rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem.
I wanted to take it in a slightly different direction, talking about the general questions of access to God in a mikdash-less, nevua-less, miracle-less world. (Esther is at the cusp of the transition from the Biblical world to the one I describe. many sources attest to this. I am too lazy to cite them all.)
This is where the Sfas Emes I posted before comes in.

שפת אמת ספר שמות - לפורים - שנת [תרל"ז]
כנוס כו' כל היהודים הנמצאים בשושן כו'. כי הבינו שהגזירה הי' ע"י החטא שנהנו מאותה סעודה של אחשורוש. ולכן נאמר לעיל עשה כו' לכל כו' הנמצאים בשושן כו' משתה כו'. וכן כאן הנמצאים. שזה קאי על בנ"י. כמו שדרשו חכמים בפסוק שתי בנותיך הנמצאות כו'. ובזה התענית תקנו זה החטא ושבו בתשובה שלימה. והוא פלא שבאותה המשתה עצמה נעשה ההצלה שנהרגה ושתי אז. וזהו כעין אמרם ז"ל בתשובה מאהבה. הזדונות נהפכו לזכיות. והקב"ה ראה שישובו בתשובה שלימה. ונראה שלכך תקנו זה היום למשתה. לאשר כי נהפך להם חטא המשתה על ידי התשובה כנ"ל. וי"ל זה פי' הפסוק ובכן אבוא אל המלך אשר לא כדת. פי' שהתקרבות אל הבורא ית' יהיה ע"י החטא עצמו. והוא שלא כדת ע"י תשובה כנ"ל

loosely translated/summarized: "...they understood that the decree was because the sin that they had taken pleasure in that feast of Ahashverosh...And with this fast they corrected this sin and they returned in complete teshuvah. and it is wondrous that in that very feast the salvation was made, for Vashti was killed then. And this is like what they (rabbis) ob"m say regarding teshuvah from love: the intentional sins turned to merits....And it seems that this is why they established this day for feasting. For the sin of feasting was switched/turned around for them via teshuvah, as above. and one might say that this is the explanation of the verse "and so I will come to the king as is not lawful, [and as I perish, I perish]," the explanation is that the closeness to the blessed Creator will be by way of the sin itself. and this is "as is not lawful" - via teshuvah, as above."

The SE is saying that one comes to God by teshuvah, but he phrases it as coming to God by sinning, as sinning is a prerequisite to teshuvah. as he phrases it, sounds pretty radical.

I am also tempted to connect this to "averah lishmah," (see Nazir 23b) since (the end of) the very pasuk he cites of "coming to the king (=King) as is not lawful" is interpreted elsewhere (Megillah 15a)) in the midrash as the moment where Esther forfeited her marriage with Mordechai by soliciting Ahashverosh actively. That whole idea needs more work.

But, my real interest was just the idea that the "palace" of evil is structurally the same as the palace of God, and, indeed, there is a direct path (teshuvah) between the two that cannot be accessed from elsewhere, it seems.

Purim is all about opposites, i suppose...

the beginnings of a thought

שפת אמת ספר שמות - לפורים - שנת [תרל"ז]
כנוס כו' כל היהודים הנמצאים בשושן כו'. כי הבינו שהגזירה הי' ע"י החטא שנהנו מאותה סעודה של אחשורוש. ולכן נאמר לעיל עשה כו' לכל כו' הנמצאים בשושן כו' משתה כו'. וכן כאן הנמצאים. שזה קאי על בנ"י. כמו שדרשו חכמים בפסוק שתי בנותיך הנמצאות כו'. ובזה התענית תקנו זה החטא ושבו בתשובה שלימה. והוא פלא שבאותה המשתה עצמה נעשה ההצלה שנהרגה ושתי אז. וזהו כעין אמרם ז"ל בתשובה מאהבה. הזדונות נהפכו לזכיות. והקב"ה ראה שישובו בתשובה שלימה. ונראה שלכך תקנו זה היום למשתה. לאשר כי נהפך להם חטא המשתה על ידי התשובה כנ"ל. וי"ל זה פי' הפסוק ובכן אבוא אל המלך אשר לא כדת. פי' שהתקרבות אל הבורא ית' יהיה ע"י החטא עצמו. והוא שלא כדת ע"י תשובה כנ"ל:

who watches the watchers?

תלמוד בבלי מסכת ראש השנה דף כ עמוד א

I
[what precedes this is a discussion of what reasons are good ones to manipulate the length of months (eg, to keep yom and shabbat from falling out consecutively to allow burial before decomposition begins). the whole discusion presupposes that the rabbis can manipulate the lengths of te months, at least to some degree, hence the following discussion:]

II
איני? והתני רבה בר שמואל: יכול כשם שמעברין את השנה לצורך - כך מעברין את החדש לצורך?תלמוד לומר +שמות יב+ החדש הזה לכם ראש חדשים - כזה ראה וקדש.

Is it really so (that the rabbis can lengthen the months as they need)? but Rabbah Bar Shmuel taught a baraita: One might think that just as they lengthen the year (by inserting a 13th month to create a leap year) out of necessity, so they can lengthen the year (by declaring Rosh Hodesh on the 30th instead of th 29th day from the last Rosh Hodesh). thus it teaches us: "this month is for you" (read: this new moon is the one you should use. see rashi Ex 12:2) - see this and sanctify the month.*

III
אמר רבא: לא קשיא; כאן - לעברו, כאן - לקדשו. והכי קאמר: יכול כשם שמעברין את השנה ואת החדש לצורך - כך מקדשין את החדש לצורך? תלמוד לומר החדש הזה לכם, כזה ראה וקדש. וכי הא דאמר רבי יהושע בן לוי: מאיימין על העדים על החדש שנראה בזמנו לעברו, ואין מאיימין על העדים על החדש שלא נראה בזמנו לקדשו.

Rava said: it is no difficulty. Here - to extend it. Here- to sanctify it (earlier than the 30th day), and thus goes the statement: One might think that, just as they extend the year and the month ot of necessity, so too they may sanctify the month out of necessity. thus it teaches us "this is the new moon for you" - see this and sanctify. (ie, "see this" is necessary before declaring Rosh Hodesh early, but merely "seeing this" does not require the rabbis to declare rosh hodesh).
And (if so, this opinion is) similar to that which Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: They may threaten the witnesses regarding the new moon that was seen in its time (preventing their testimony) in order to lengthen the month, but they may not threaten the witnesses regarding the new moon that was not seen in its time (to testify that they saw it anyway, in order) to sanctify it (early).

IV
איני? והא שלח ליה רבי יהודה נשיאה לרבי אמי: הוו יודעין שכל ימיו של רבי יוחנן היה מלמדנו: מאיימין על העדים על החדש שלא נראה בזמנו לקדשו, אף על פי שלא ראוהו - יאמרו ראינו! -
Is this really so? But behold, Rabi Yehudah Nesiah sent to Rabbi Ami: Be aware that all of Rabbi Yohanan's life he would teach us: they may threaten te witnesses regarding the new moon that was not seen at its time to sanctify it. Even though they did no see it, they should say "we saw it."!

V
אמר אביי: לא קשיא; הא - בניסן ותשרי, הא - בשאר ירחי.

Abaye said: it is no difficulty. Here (they may threaten the witnesses even to shorten the months) regarding Nissan and Tishrei, Here regarding the rest of the months.
(at this stage, the fate of the positionin part III is unclear: it was initially introduced to explain how the rabbis may lengthen the months to prevent issues from coming u re: timing of holidays. Now the the gemara, per Abaye, says that in holiday-containing months the rabbis may even shorten the month, and in the rest of the months they may even lenthen it. However, I do not understand the reason they would want to lengthen a non-holiday month... help?)

VI
...
. רב דימי מנהרדעא מתני איפכא: מאיימין על העדים על החדש שלא נראה בזמנו לקדשו, ואין מאיימין על העדים על החדש שנראה בזמנו לעברו. מאי טעמא? האי - מיחזי כשקרא, האי - לא מיחזי כשקרא.

Rava Dimi of Nehardaa teaches the opposite (of the position of RYBL in part III):
They may threaten the witnesses regarding the new moon that is not seen at its time to sanctify it, and they may not threaten the witnesses regarding the new moon that was seen at its time to lengthen it.
What is the reason? This (lenthening the month) appears to be a lie, this (starting the month early) does not appear to be a lie.
(if we were to relate the drashah of "see this..." to this opinion, we would say that it indicates that if one sees the moon, one must sanctify, but not that one may not sanctify the month eaqrly without a moon)

*Refresher (correct me if i'm wrong...): Rosh Hodesh is when 2 witnesss come and say they saw the new moon, except that even without witnesses a month can't be more than 30 days long. So, the point of saying "see this and snactify" is that you must sanctify the new month upon testimony of a new moon - there is no rabbinic discretion to extend the month.

Discussion:

I think this sugya-segment is intersting because it brings up two different reasons the Rabbis would check their own authority. (here, leading to opposite results!)
the first is implicit, I htink, in the position of part III: the rabbis may ignore testimony in order to lengthen the month, but they cannot cause testimony to be fabrcated. This position seems to be concerned with the internal legitimacy of the bet din: what has it been given the authority (from God) to do? It may be that the rabbis can ignore the new moon that God has put up there in the sky (akin to "shev ve-al taaseh?), but they cannot fabricate a new moon where none exists.
the background here is the many midrashim that tie the power of the rabbis over the calendar (eg, "asher tikrau atem be-moadam...) to the same verse (hachodesh hazeh LAKHEM), thus citing this verse to limit rabbinic power seems to me to indicate a discomfort with sweeping rabbinic discretion and an attempt to make sure the rabbis can't make arbitrary/counterfactual decisions with impunity. At this stage, the gemara is concerned with the fundamental legitimacy of rabbinic authority: how much authority did God actually give the rabbis?

The second check is external: legitimacy in the eyes of the people. thus, in part VI, the rabbis apparetnyl have the power to coerce false testimony: to create a moon where none exists, but they must be afraid of counterfactual prounouncements that can easily be discovered. Thus, if everyone has seen the new moon, the rabbis cannot legitimately turn away witnesses and say there was no moon, since this will appear as a lie (essentially, to coopt a metaphor from elsewhere, putting the baby back into the womb - it's there one day, allegedly absent the next...) However, they can "create" the moon via coerced testimony since this does not blatanlty contradict the order of nature (perhaps only these two people were in the right place at the right time, given visibilty conditins, etc... and in any case everyone will see the moon the next day, presumably, giving some sort of "retroactive" feeling of truth to the poronouncement that it was present even the night before).

This second check is in some ways more cynical, though I can think of at least one other source that is explicitly concerned with the same issues. (precise location evades me. the story about the two rabbis discussins non-Jewish cheese, etc) that said, I find it interesting (though not sure how to articulate why) that the two approaches appear in one sugya, and produce opposite results.

PS - if you made it this far, thanks. I am told I have a problem with length.

torah learning and physical strength

I'm trying to put together a shiur and was hoping to pick some of your brains...
In the story of Resh Lakish's (re?)turn to Torah learning (Bava Metsia 84a), when Resh Lakish accepts the yolk of Torah, he loses his strength (at least as Rashi reads it, and I haven't seen anything else). Similarly, when Rashbi comes out of the cave (reference escapes me at the moment), his son in law is upset to see him covered in sores, but Rashbi says thathis weak physical state is the only reason he has been able to attain such a high level of torah learning.

So, what I would like to augment htese two sources:
1 - siilar situaitons/stories elsewhere
2 - later comentators who discuss the connection (inverse) betwen physical/Torah strength
3 - examples where physical strength, in ocntrast, goes hand in hand with torah greatness.

thanks for enabling my too-busy/lazy-to-actually-reasearch-ness

Darkness and the Festival of Lights

for the irrelevant intellectual history of this post (in my own head), see the previous post...

1 בבלי עבודה זרה ח עמ' א
מתני' ואלו אידיהן של עובדי כוכבים קלנדא וסטרנורא ...
גמ' אמר רב חנן בר רבא קלנדא ח' ימים אחר תקופה סטרנורא ח' ימים לפני תקופה וסימנך +תהלים קלט+ אחור וקדם צרתני וגו'
ת"ר לפי שראה אדם הראשון יום שמתמעט והולך אמר אוי לי שמא בשביל שסרחתי עולם חשוך בעדי וחוזר לתוהו ובוהו וזו היא מיתה שנקנסה עלי מן השמים עמד וישב ח' ימים בתענית [ובתפלה] כיון שראה תקופת טבת וראה יום שמאריך והולך אמר מנהגו של עולם הוא הלך ועשה שמונה ימים טובים לשנה האחרת עשאן לאלו ולאלו ימים טובים הוא קבעם לשם שמים והם קבעום לשם עבודת כוכבים
TB Avodah Zarah 8a
[Mishnah lists the non-Jewish holidays around which it is prohibitted to do business with the non-Jews, beginning with "Kalenda" and "Saturna"]
Gemara: Rav Hanan bar Rava said: Kalenda is 8 days after the solstice; Saturna is 8 days before the solstice...
Our Rabbis Taught (A Baraita): For Adam saw that each day was getting shorter and shorter. He said 'woe to me. perhaps because I messed up, the world is darkening for me and returning to tohu va-vohu (pre-creation chaos), and this is the "death" which was inflicted on me from heaven." He got up and sat 8 days in fasting [and prayer]. When he saw the period after the winter solstice, and he saw each day was getting longer and longer, he said 'it is the way of the world.' He went and made 8 festive days. the next year, he made both these and those holidays. He established them for the sake of heaven, and they (the Romans) established them for idolatry.

Observations on this passage:
1) The view of cultural transmission is interesting: Everyone (Jews and ROmans) knows there;s supposed to be something around this time, but the content changes depending on the culture...
1a) Also interesting how they deal with the fact that our light-related-solstice-holiday seems to follow a general pattern: by affirming that, yes, in fact, it all derives from our common human ancestor!
2) According to this story, the position of Bet Hillel that we light one candle more each night may take on a new meaning...
3) Adam's winter holidays have two themes: confusion/despair and restoration of a sense of order/hope. It seems, especially given #2, that our hanukkah may represent the latter, but what of the former? It would certainly be ironic if the ROmans retained more of a remnan (albeit corrupt) of the dual nature of Adam's holiay that we do, no?
#3 is the lead in to the rest, so keep it in mind...

2 מסכת סופרים כ:ב
מצות הדלקתו, משתשקע החמה ועד שתכלה רגל מן השוק, ואף על פי שאין ראייה לדבר זכר לדבר, לא ימיש עמוד הענן יומם ועמוד האש לילה לפני העם. ואם הדליקו ביום, אין ניאותין ממנו, ואין מברכין עליו, שכך אמרו, אין מברכין על הנר עד שיאותו לאורו. ואין חוששין לפתילתו להחליפו עד שיכלה.
Masekhet Sofrim 20:2
the commandment of ligthing it, fromwhen the sun sets until legs leave the marketplace, and even though there is no proof (from the biblical text) for the thing, there is a hint/mention for the thin: 'the pillar of cloud shall not during the day and the pillar of fire at night before the people."...

I think the "hint" is that the "fire" is "before the people," hence must be lit while people are still outside.
Hower, the reaosn I bring it is that, again, we have a fire that corresponds to our hannukah practice, but in its own context its juxtaposed with smoke/cloud. SO, what's the symbolism of the smoke/fire, and how, if at all, does the smoke play into our hanukah?

3 שמות ל
(ז) וְהִקְטִיר עָלָיו אַהֲרֹן קְטֹרֶת סַמִּים בַּבֹּקֶר בַּבֹּקֶר בְּהֵיטִיבוֹ אֶת הַנֵּרֹת יַקְטִירֶנָּה:

basically, the rituals of menorah preparation and lighting are connected, in time, with the rituals of ketoret-burning. Another fire<->smoke/cloud pair.

Rav Lichtenstein suggests that the Jewish experience, or perhaps the religious experience in general, has two parts. first is the experience of knowledge, access to God, enlightenment: this corresponds to the fire. Second is the experience of mystery, of not-knowing, of obfuscation and inability to truly access/comprehend God: this corresponds to smoke.
So, our observance of hanukah focuses on the former: the fire, but we must remember that what sets us apart from Greece is not that we have light and they are darkness: Greece and its philosophy were indeed "enlightened." The Greel form of enlightenment, however, represents the firw without the smoke: without the recognition of humna limitations in teh face of the divine, etc.
Thsi point works well with the fact that the pillar of smoke appears during the day, and the pillar of fire at night: the light-time has an added element of obfuscation, and the dark-time has an added element of light. That said, what is there in our Hanukah observance that explicitly recognizes the ketoret aspect? this connects to quetsion #3 above: what corresponds to Adam's first 8 days?
I suggested to my class that maybe its the very fact that we light at night, in the darkest part of the year. But I (and they) were not totally satisfied.
Thoughts?

smoke, fire, hanukah, etc...

(aka, some content for a change...)
the following is based on a shiur i recently gave to undergrads at NYU as part of the conspiracy to keep dayschool graduats engaged with Judaism.

the background:
It all started when I somehow ended up at the Gush Hanukah mesibah during my "year in israel." I mean, it was awkward, because I was a seminary girl and suddenly found myself in a room full of boys. ahhh! (i was sitting in the couples corner, at least, because i was there visiting married friend...)
Anyhow, Rav Lichtenstein gave a neat sichah. The summary is here, at #39. By reading it you would never know he used the words "mysterium termendum" (tee hee), but otherwise i was very glad to find it so i didn't have to rely on memory for my shiur... (Actually, I sent something similar out in a yavneh email a few years ago (those were the dys...), based on memory. I had forgotten one of the sources until I looked it up in the Yavneh archives...)
Anyhow, the summary basically only cites pesukim, but I think a lot of rabinnic sources are on point too. (R'L might even have mentioned them. For sure some of them were in the back of his head, at least..>)
Anyway, that's all by long-winded way of introduction. Actually, I;m going to post the content in another post so it doesn't look to long...

dat moshe, etc

for a while i;ve speculated that there is a connection between the "dat moshe ve-yisrael" by which we marry and the "dat moshe vi-yehudit" of mishnah ketubot 7:6.
Yesterday, i read a ketubah of a woman from the dead-sea region in mishnaic times (a wealthy society lady, not a sectarian) where the translation read "according to the laws of moses and the judeans." I'm not sure what the original read, but I thought reinforcedd the yisrael/yehudit connection by providing an alternative that is sort of like each: yehudim.
anyhow, i have no idea what to make of this, or where to find out.
thoughts are appreciated.
M
ps - in my attempts to find the mishnah citation above without actually opening a mishnah (ie, via google), i came across a seemingly article, moderatly related... didn't read it, though, because my first final is in two weeks...