Yadayyim03

1:
This mishnah and the next are among the most recondite that we have ever studied in our study group. I shall do my best to explain them, even though their content is as far from our own daily life as one can possibly imagine. Our present mishnah reports on three matters where the sages differed in matters of ritual impurity from two distinguished Tanna'im: twice with Rabbi Akiva and once with his teacher, Rabbi Yehoshu'a. It also brings their explanation of something that was unclear to Rabban Shim'on ben- Gamli'el.

2:
The Torah speaks of a leprous house [Leviticus 14:33-53]. It is not at all clear what is the nature of the leprosy of which the Torah speaks - not only in this specific regard but also in the case of the human being, textiles and so forth. The Biblical term 'leprosy' is probably generic for any kind of skin disease in a human being (caused by a blow, a boil or a burn) and conditions known variously today as eczema, herpes, impetigo, ringworm, shingles etc. It also refers to a growth on the walls of a building. According to the Torah a 'leprous' building was to be evacuated [verse 36]. In our mishnah Rabbi Akiva says that anyone who stretches his hand into such a building has rendered his hand a prime source of impurity, which can be transferred elsewhere. The sages say that this hand has only become a secondary source of impurity. This is so recondite that we must explain it as best we can.

3:
Our explanation will, to some extent, repeat material already covered at the beginning of this Tractate. Whatever or whoever contracts ritual impurity directly from a 'major source of impurity' [Av ha- Tum'ah] becomes a 'prime source of impurity' ['Rishon' or 'Techilah']. Whatever or whoever contracts ritual impurity from a 'prime source' is termed a 'secondary source' [Sheniyyah]. From the practical point of view (always looking at it through the eyes of the sages who took great pains to observe these minutiae) the main difference between 'primary' and 'secondary' is that the chain of impurity can continue into 'tertiary' and beyond in foodstuffs connected with Israel's sancta - ritual foodstuffs, Terumah in particular. But ordinary foodstuffs cannot pass the chain on beyond the 'secondary source'.

4:
The first part of our mishnah is concerned with someone who puts their hand inside a leprous building which has been evacuated - his hand and not the rest of his body. According to the Torah, someone who completely enters inside such a building has become a 'primary source' (the building itself being the 'major source'). The sages, wishing to prevent anybody entering into a leprous building, decreed that even a hand inside such a building becomes 'secondary'. Rabbi Akiva thinks that the hand is equated with the whole body and therefore should become a 'primary source'.

5:
According to the Torah any person, male or female, who excretes fluids from their genital organs (other than urine) has a ritual impurity that can be passed on to anything and anyone that they come into physical contact with. The difference between Rabbi Akiva and the rest of the sages in the case of the leprous building is parallel to their difference in regard to clothing which has been in contact with a person described in this paragraph.

6:
The sages ask Rabbi Akiva where in the Torah do we find that a person's hands can become a primary source when the rest of his body is ritually pure. He responds by granting their point. Nowhere do we find that a person's hands contract primary ritual impurity separate from the rest of their body - except in the two cases under discussion, the building and the textile. If anyone is extremely anxious to know, let me point out that halakhah, of course, follows the sages. (This is according to the rule of interpretation which states that where an individual's view is challenged by the majority, the majority view prevails.)

7:
In the next part of our mishnah we find the sages differing with Rabbi Yehoshu'a. According to Rabbi Yehoshu'a all foodstuffs and utensils that were contaminated by a liquid that was already ritually impure contract secondary impurity. The sages qualify this: anything that contracted its impurity from an 'Av ha-Tum'ah' [major source] can makes the hands of someone who touches it a secondary source, as Rabbi Yehoshu'a says; but anything that contracted its impurity from a minor source has itself become a secondary source and cannot transfer that impurity further down the chain.

8:
The seifa [last part] of our mishnah seeks to clarify the matter discussed in the previous paragraph by amplification. Rabban Shim'on ben-Gamli'el reports on a case brought before his father. It is not clear which Rabban Shim'on ben-Gamli'el is referred to here. It could be the sage who lived in the middle of the first century CE, whose father was a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth and the earliest leaders of emergent Christianity; or it could be the sage who lived in the first half of the second century, whose father was the famous Rabban Gamli'el of Yavneh. However, the identity of the sage is immaterial to the discussion.

9:
A woman reported to Rabban Gamli'el that she had put her hand inside a jar. Obviously, there was something in the jar that made here think that her hands might be ritually impure (the carcass of a reptile, for example). Rabban Gamli'el asked her for this detail, but his son does not recall either her answer or the resultant decision given by his father. The sages say that this episode is immaterial. Any utensil that contracted ritual impurity from an 'Av ha-Tum'ah' [major source] can makes the hands of someone who touches it a secondary source; but any utensil that contracted its impurity from a minor source has itself become a secondary source and cannot transfer that impurity further down the chain.

10:
If you have followed this mishnah with understanding give yourself a treat: you deserve it!

1:
The sages decreed that certain things invalidate a priest's Terumah. A list containing ten items is given in Tractate Zavim 5:12, but its details need not concern us now. Our present mishnah states that 'anything that invalidates Terumah causes the hands to be secondary sources of ritual purity'. In other words: anything that is in the list in Tractate Zavim just referred to should contaminate the hands. Now, one of the items in that list is 'hands': i.e. the touch of ritually impure hands renders Terumah invalid. If we follow through with the logic of the first sentence of our present mishnah we should have to assume that 'hands' render hands ritually impure. Now this was so stated by Rabbi Yehoshu'a in the previous mishnah and there the sages rejected his statement.

2:
Thus our present mishnah may be seen to be an attempt to explain the seeming self-contradiction of the sages. Their initial response to Rabbi Yehoshu'a is that a secondary source of impurity cannot pass on the impurity further down the chain; therefore, since the ritual impurity of hands is a secondary impurity one hand cannot contaminate another.

3:
I note here, in parenthesis as it were, that the ritual impurity of hands (being, as it is, a decree of the sages which has no other basis in law) is different from other impurities that a person may contract. When someone contracts other forms of ritual impurity their whole body becomes impure - and requires the removal of that impurity by immersion of the whole body in a Mikveh or its equivalent. But ritual impurity of the hand was restricted by the sages to the hand in question. Thus it is possible that one hand will be ritually impure while the other will not be so. (This was implied in the 4th mishnah of Chapter 2.)

4:
Rabbi Yehoshu'a has a response to the sages' statement. He points out that copies of Biblical books are also in that list in Tractate Zavim; therefore they also are sources of secondary impurity. (We shall explain this in much greater detail in another mishnah.) Since Biblical books can contaminate the hands (as we shall see in a later mishnah) we have an example of a secondary source of impurity (a book) imparting impurity to another secondary source of impurity (a hand) - and this is contrary to the claim of the sages!

5:
The response of the sages is simple. One must distinguish between Torah Law and the decrees of the sages. Torah Law includes the text of the Written Torah and its amplification by the sages through the process of midrash ha-Torah. When the sages expand or explain a biblical mitzvah they deem themselves as making explicit what is already implicit in the text, therefore even law which we categorize as mi-de-rabbanan ['from the sages'] is Torah Law in the widest sense of the word. However, when the sages make a decree (such as 'netilat yadayyim'), which they freely admit has no basis whatsoever in Torah Law, such decrees are a completely different category and each individual decree must be seen as a self-contained unit that is relevant only unto itself. Each decree was designed to answer a specific problem and not necessarily to be consistent with another decree which answered a different problem. Therefore, not only can one not argue that there is a contradiction between Torah Law and Rabbinic Law, but one cannot even argue that there is a contradiction between one Rabbinic decree and another: there may well be! Therefore, the logic of Rabbi Yehoshu'a falls down.

Albert Ringer has sent the following information which you may find of historical interest. He writes:

We all share a feeling of strangeness when reading about the ritual of washing hands as it is described in the mishnah. Perhaps it would help if we were to review the common practice of the ritual meal in the Graeco-Roman world. Washing hands, both before and after the meal formed part of the ritual. The washing of hands at meals is basically not a Jewish habit.

I respond:

'Netilat yadayyim' is certainly a Jewish habit or custom! I think that what Albert means to say is that it may have its origins elsewhere.

Albert brings a detailed quote from an article by William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D. in A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.

MANTELE (ceirovmaktron, ceirekmagei'on), a napkin. The circumstance, that forks were not invented in ancient times, gave occasion to the use of napkins at meals to wipe the fingers; also when the meal was finished, and even before it commenced, an apparatus was carried around for washing the hands. A basin, called in Latin 'malluvium', and in Greek 'cevrniy', 'cevrnibon', or 'ceirovniptron', was held under the hands to receive the water, which was poured upon them out of a ewer ('urceolus'). Thus Homer describes the practice, and according to the account of a recent traveller, it continues unchanged in the countries to which his description referred. The boy or slave who poured out the water, also held the napkin or towel for wiping the hands dry. The word 'mappa', said to be of Carthaginian origin, denoted a smaller kind of napkin, or a handkerchief, which the guests carried with them to the table. The 'mantele', as it was larger than the mappa, was sometimes used as a table-cloth.

Carthaginian as it is called here was a semitic language, related to Phoenician. The word mappa has a familiar sound. A more ritual-oriented description of a symposium from a address by Kevin Lee at the 1997 NZACT Conference:

... After the meal the tables were removed and the symposium proper began. The opening was appropriately ritualised. First the hands were washed and it is noteworthy that a different word was used here from that which described the hand-washing that served obvious hygienic purposes at the start of the meal. Evidently the washing on this occasion had a distinct ritual purpose similar to that of the ablutions before sacrifices and rites of passage like weddings, births and burials. After the purification ceremony the gods were invoked by means of libations and the singing of a hymn....

Albert concludes:

I suppose the rabbis ritualized washing hands in a way that is specific to the mishnah. The ritual is integrated in the flow of the ritual around the temple, giving it their own a spiritual meaning, in which purification before the meal is stressed, and transposed the ritual to their own tables.

1:
For the sake of completeness let us explain that Tefillin are small pieces of parchment (like the parchment of a Sefer Torah and a Mezuzah) upon which a qualified scribe has written four passages from the Torah: the topic of all four is, of course, the Tefillin themselves. These pieces of parchment are put into small boxes made of leather which has been coloured black. Straps of black leather are attached to the boxes so that they can be strapped onto the body. Each set of Tefillin contains two such boxes: one is strapped to the arm and the other is strapped to the head. (Each separate box is called a Tefillah.)

2:
The source for this mitzvah is found in the biblical passages that are installed in the leather boxes. The best known is probably the text to be found in Deuteronomy 6:6-8, which reads:

The peculiar manner of observing this mitzvah is so ancient that its origins are in Israel's remotest history. (Tradition, of course, says that the mitzvah of Tefillin was introduced at Sinai.) When we studied Tractate Berakhot I wrote:

Perhaps it is not superfluous to point out that Tefillin which belonged to the soldiers serving in the army of Bar-Kokhba in the first half of the 2nd century CE, which have been found in caves near the Dead Sea, are identical in form and content to those in use today.

3:
Next to a Sefer Torah, Tefillin are the holiest objects which a Jew can possess. And that is what underlies our present mishnah. All our sacred literature (as we shall see in greater detail in mishnah 5 of our present chapter) 'contaminates the hands'. That is to say that touching them requires the hands to be washed ('netilat yadayyim') before handling any of the things which require 'netilat yadayyim'.

4:
This, too, is a rabbinic decree connected with the priests' Terumah - like everything else connected with 'netilat yadayyim'. It seems that in Tannaitic times people were wont to store their copies of Holy Writ in the same place as they stored their Terumah produce. Their idea was that both were holy. Rodents, seeking out the Terumah produce, would also make a meal of the parchment scrolls that they found in close proximity. To prevent this desecration of sacred literature, and to cure the populace of this peculiar habit, the sages decreed that Terumah produce that came into physical contact with copies of Holy Writ thereby become disqualified. In order to further reinforce this innovation they also decreed that hands that had touched copies of Holy Writ were thereby rendered secondary sources of contamination and, in turn, would disqualify any Terumah produce in contact with which they came without 'netilat yadayyim'. (As we noted when we first began studying this tractate, the sages then further reinforced their decree by saying that unwashed hands - whether they had touched Holy Writ or not - disqualified Terumah produce; and then, finally, they decreed that all bread - whether it is Terumah or secular - requires 'netilat yadayyim'.)

5:
The Tefillin contain passages of Holy Writ. (They are: Exodus 13:1-10, Exodus 13:11-16, Deuteronomy 6:8 and Deuteronomy 11:8.) This means that anyone who touches Tefillin must treat them just as if they had touched Holy Writ - and do 'netilat yadayyim' before touching Terumah produce. Our present mishnah merely adds that this requirement applies not only to the texts themselves, but also to the leather straps of each Tefillah. Rabbi Shim'on bar-Yochai disagrees with Tanna Kamma about the straps: they are not sacred texts therefore there is no reason why they should contaminate the hands. Halakhah, of course, follows Tanna Kamma.

On several occasions during our study of this tractate - including immediately above! - I have explained that 'netilat yadayyim' does not have its origin in the Torah, but is a decree of the sages. Bayla Singer writes:

If candle-lighting and hand-washing are Rabbinical decrees, why do the blessings imply that they are from God (asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav, v'tzivanu...)?

I respond:

I have been waiting patiently for this question for several weeks! Thank you Bayla.

The sages instituted seven mitzvot for which we make the berakhah which includes the words that we praise God for having 'sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to' perform the specific mitzvah, even though He did not do so. The seven are:

Candles for Shabbat and Yom Tov,
making an Eruv,
reciting Hallel,
reading the Megillah on Purim,
lighting Chanukah lights,
netilat yadayyim, and
reciting a berakhah before enjoying all the good things of this world (except Birkat ha- Mazon).

In making these decrees the sages based themselves on the Torah. The Written Torah is the ideological basis of Judaism, but in its details it was never intended to be a 'once and for all time' statement. Built into the very mechanism of the Written Torah itself [Deuteronomy 17:8-11] is an assumption, a demand for interpretation.

Here it is quite explicitly stated that the Written Torah is not exhaustive, but at various times in the future will have to be supplemented and expanded by 'the judge that shall be at that time'. When the sages made their decrees and prohibitions they were basing their right to do so upon this text. If obedience to the innovations of the sages ('the judge that shall be at that time') is required by the Torah, is is a mitzvah to do so. Thus, when we perform one of these seven mitzvot we are doing something that God has commanded us to do.

1:
Please note: for didactic reasons I have included with mishnah 4 the first part of mishnah 5 (which is the second paragraph above).

2:
Our mishnah continues the discussion, started in the previous mishnah, concerning the circumstances under which the decree of the sages requiring 'netilat yadayyim' before eating bread with hands that had come into contact with Holy Writ becomes applicable. The previous mishnah dealt with scriptural texts which were only quotations, small sections of the whole text: Tefillin. In other words, it it not the complete text of the Torah which comes under this rubric, but also recognized segments of it.

3:
The first part of our mishnah is concerned with the sanctity of those parts of a Torah scroll that have no text on them. In the Talmud [Menachot 30a] we are told that each column of writing in a Sefer Torah must leave an upper margin of three finger-breadths (about 6 centimetres) a lower margin of four finger-breadths (about 8 centimetres), and a side margin of two finger-breadths (about 4 centimetres). We are also told that enough room must be left free before the first column and after the last column to attach a wooden handle. Our present mishnah teaches that these margins are an integral part of the Sefer Torah and share its sanctity. Rabbi Yehudah bar-Ilai agrees with Tanna Kamma on all points except as regards the margin left at the end of the scroll: he believes that this margin is not sacred because until a wooden handle has been attached to it the owner might cut off that segment of parchment for other purposes. Halakhah follows Tanna Kamma.

4:
A Sefer Torah is written on parchment. The ink used is according to a special recipe which makes the letters sit upon the parchment and not be absorbed into it. This makes corrections much easier, since the letters, once dry, can be lifted off with the blade of a knife. However, this also means that constant use can also gradually render the text illegible. The friction of winding the scroll after a very long time will begin to lift the letters off the parchment. Our present mishnah is concerned with the question: how much text must remain legible for a scroll to maintain its sanctity as far as 'netilat yadayyim' is concerned.

5:
There is one passage in the Torah which demonstrates a unique peculiarity. The verses of Numbers 10:35-36 are well-known to those who frequent the synagogue service. Just before the Torah is removed from the Ark for reading we quote verse 35, and when we return the scroll to the ark after the reading we quote verse 36. However, the peculiarity is that in the text of the Torah these two verses are enclosed by two letters 'Nun'. The sages look upon these two letters as marking off these two verses. (Indeed, there are sources which refer to the 'seven books of the Torah' - regarding Numbers as being divided into three: that which comes before these two verses, that which comes after them and the verses themselves encased as they are between these two letters.) These two verses contain a total of eighty-five letters, and this is seen as indicating the smallest possible unit of sacred text: wherever a whole segment of writing is preserved that contains eighty-five letters or more that segment is regarded as having all the properties of sacred literature.

I wrote: When someone contracts other forms of ritual impurity their whole body becomes impure - and requires the removal of that impurity by immersion of the whole body in a Mikveh or its equivalent. Sol Freedman writes:

The words 'Mikvah or its equivalent' were used. What is or are its equivalent?

I respond:

The requirement of the Torah is not that the body which has contracted a ritual impurity be bathed in a Mikveh. The requirement is that the body be bathed in 'living water' [see, for instance, Leviticus 14:3 or Numbers 19:17]. The sages determined the minimal requirements of 'living water'. Any body of natural water that is of sufficient volume to completely cover the human body serves the purpose. For these purposes the volume was deemed to be the amount of water contained in a receptacle 'one cubit by one cubit by three cubits' (approximately 50 centimetres by 50 centimetres by 150 centimetres). The amount of water thus contained defines '40 se'ahs'. Obviously, the sea answers this definition and is a natural Mikveh [see Genesis 1:10, where the word Mikveh is used to define the sea]. Where a river is deep enough and wide enough it will also answer the required definition. Thus the traditional Mikveh [bath-house] is an artificial sea or river, natural water packaged, as it were, for the use of those who have no access to sea or river or natural pool. The rules and regulations of how to construct and maintain a Mikveh are too complicated to review here. One last note on this topic: please note that the term Mikveh is an abbreviation of the Hebrew 'Mikveh Mayyim', a water reservoir, therefore the correct pronunciation of the term is Mikveh and not otherwise.

Those who are interested in further reading on the topic of priestly purity will find the following sent by Joel Evans of interest:

Relevant to the mishnayot we are discussing is a journal article by Eyal Regev, entitled 'Pure individualism: the idea of non-priestly purity in ancient Israel', Journal for the Study of Judaism XXXI 2 (2000). The author's thesis is that the practice of 'non-priestly purity' among common folk was more prevalent than had originally been thought. The author bases his thesis mostly on archaeological evidence such as the excavations of mikvahs and the discoveries of a prevalent form of 'personal use' stone vessels (that could not impart impurity). The practice of 'non priestly purity' began after the Second temple and ended after the 3rd century CE. Just recently, archaeologists excavating the site of a Hasmonean synagogue in Modi'in discovered more of these 'personal use' stone vessels.

I wrote: 'Halakhah, of course, follows Tanna Kamma'. Elizabeth Petuchowski asks:

Why 'of course'?

I respond:

The following is what I wrote when we were studying Tractate Sanhedrin:

By its very nature a study group such as ours has people joining at various times and they may well have missed something that has already been said - and sometimes has been said often! However, these technical rules can not be repeated too much, so I beg the patience of old-timers when I explain the situation once again.

The Mishnah was originally intended to be a compilation that could be learned and studied only orally. That is why Rabbi Yehudah the President of the Sanhedrin who compiled the Mishnah used certain technical formulations to permit the student to draw conclusions without them having to be specifically stated, thus lengthening that material to be conned by rote. One such technical rule is as follows:

When a mishnah is stated anonymously [stam mishnah] the view stated in it represents the undisputed halakhah. When a view is stated anonymously in a mishnah ['Tanna Kamma' or 'Sages'] and is then contested by a named rabbi (as is the case in our present mishnah) this indicates that the accepted Halakhah is not according to the view of the named rabbi or rabbis.

כָּל כִּתְבֵי הַקֹּדֶשׁ מְטַמְּאִין אֶת הַיָּדָיִם. שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים וְקֹהֶלֶת מְטַמְּאִין אֶת הַיָּדַיִם. רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר, שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים מְטַמֵּא אֶת הַיָּדַיִם, וְקֹהֶלֶת מַחֲלֹקֶת. רַבִּי יוֹסֵי אוֹמֵר, קֹהֶלֶת אֵינוֹ מְטַמֵּא אֶת הַיָּדַיִם וְשִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים מַחֲלֹקֶת. רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן אוֹמֵר, קֹהֶלֶת מִקֻּלֵּי בֵּית שַׁמַּאי וּמֵחֻמְרֵי בֵּית הִלֵּל. אָמַר רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן עַזַּאי, מְקֻבָּל אֲנִי מִפִּי שִׁבְעִים וּשְׁנַיִם זָקֵן בְּיוֹם שֶׁהוֹשִׁיבוּ אֶת רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן עֲזַרְיָה בַּיְשִׁיבָה, שֶׁשִּׁיר הַשִּׁירִים וְקֹהֶלֶת מְטַמְּאִים אֶת הַיָּדָיִם. אָמַר רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא, חַס וְשָׁלוֹם, לֹא נֶחֱלַק אָדָם מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל עַל שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים שֶׁלֹּא תְטַמֵּא אֶת הַיָּדַיִם, שֶׁאֵין כָּל הָעוֹלָם כֻּלּוֹ כְּדַאי כְּיוֹם שֶׁנִּתַּן בּוֹ שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, שֶׁכָּל הַכְּתוּבִים קֹדֶשׁ, וְשִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים קֹדֶשׁ קָדָשִׁים. וְאִם נֶחְלְקוּ, לֹא נֶחְלְקוּ אֶלָּא עַל קֹהֶלֶת. אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן בֶּן יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן חָמִיו שֶׁל רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא, כְּדִבְרֵי בֶן עַזַּאי כָּךְ נֶחְלְקוּ וְכֵן גָּמָרוּ:

All Holy Writ contaminates the hands. The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes contaminate the hands. Rabbi Yehudah says that the Song of Songs contaminates the hands while Ecclesiastes is [a point of] controversy. Rabbi Yosé says that Ecclesiastes does not contaminate the hands and the Song of Songs is [a point of] controversy. Rabbi Shim'on says that Ecclesiastes is one of the cases where Bet Shammai takes the lenient view and Bet Hillel a more stringent view. Rabbi Shim'on ben-Azzai says: 'I have it on the authority of seventy-two elders that on the day that they installed Rabbi El'azar ben-Azaryah as president of the Sanhedrin [it was decided] that the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes contaminate the hands.' Rabbi Akiva said: 'God forbid! No Jew has ever doubted that the Song of Songs contaminates the hands! The whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel. If all the writings are holy then the Song of Songs is the holy of holies. If there was a controversy it was only about Ecclesiastes.' Rabbi Yochanan ben-Yehoshu'a the son of Rabbi Akiva's father-in-law said [that it is] as ben-Azzai says: that was the controversy and that was the outcome.

1:
Please note: for didactic reasons I have excluded from our mishnah its first part, which formed the last part of the previous mishnah. This surely must be the most interesting of all the mishnayot in this tractate!

2:
The point of which this mishnah depends is the fact that when a book is considered to 'contaminate the hands' this means that it is accepted as part of Scripture, as part of the Tanakh. Our present mishnah opens a window for us on how the table of contents of the book we call the Bible was created. We find here, towards the end of the first century CE, that there was not unanimity concerning which books were sacred literature and which were not. This opens for us the whole question of how the Tanakh came to be what it is.

3:
The very word 'Tanakh' - the Hebrew term for 'Bible' - is an acronym (like NATO and UNESCO and AIDS), and the Hebrew letters stand for the three sections of Holy Writ - Torah, Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings). Modern scholars say that the threefold division of our Scripture demonstrates the gradual way in which the books were assembled. Please note very carefully that in the following discussion we are not concerned with when a book was written, but with when it was accepted into the canon, when it was accepted as part of Israel's sancta. This may have been very near to its composition or many years afterwards.

4:
The first section of the Bible is the five books of the Torah. We discussed the origin of the Written Torah quite some time ago [when studying Tractate Sanhedrin] and I do not intend to repeat here what was said then at great length. Modern scholars are quite certain that the events documented in the book of Nehemiah (Chapter 8) describe the great assembly which took place in Jerusalem in the fall of 444 BCE at which the Five Books of the Torah were accepted as the constitution of the emergent Second Commonwealth and thus canonized as Holy Writ. From very soon after this point, in all probability, we should imagine readings from the Torah to begin to form part of synagogue worship.

5:
About 200 years later it was felt that more books had become accepted as sacred as well. Some of them were histories of Israel from the Conquest to the Destruction and some of them were records of the words of the prophets who had flourished during that period. The histories were collected first: the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings now comprise the 'Former Prophets'. Then the prophetic works were collected: the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve 'minor' prophets, which now comprise the 'Latter Prophets'. When these books came to be held as sacred it was felt that they could not be added to the Torah because the Torah had already been canonized. So a new section was added after the Torah - the Prophets. It was probably about the time that the prophets were canonized that the Haftarah was introduced into synagogue worship as a reading in addition to the Torah reading.

6:
During the last century BCE and the first century CE many more books began to circulate. Some of them were of a very high quality indeed, some of them extremely dubious, and some of them in between. By the last third of the first century CE it became imperative to decide which of all these works were an acceptable part of Israel's sancta and which were certainly not. The catalyst for this process of canonization was, in all probability, the mid-century appearance of the first of the Christian gospels. Many books composed after the Prophets section had been sealed were obviously to be canonized in a new section: Psalms, Proverbs, Lamentations... Many more books were rejected out of hand: some of them are lost forever, some of them have been preserved by chance or by the church.

7:
Some books were recognized as being worthy but rejected for other reasons. For example, the books of the Maccabees were rejected - probably because of an animus against the Hasmonean family and dynasty. An attempt was made to remove these 'worthy but rejected' books from general circulation: when a book is declared to be 'non holy' there would be an inevitable desire to find out what in the book was objectionable. These 'hidden' books (Greek: apocrypha) would have been lost had they not been preserved by the young church. (One of them, ben-Sira, is quoted in the Talmud as if it is holy writ: see Chagigah 13a, Yevamot 63b, Ketubot 110b, Bava Batra 98b, Sanhedrin 100b, Nidah 16b. A large part of the Hebrew text of ben-Sira was preserved in the Cairo Genizah.)

In answer to a query I explained why some mitzvot that are not God-given, nevertheless have a berakhah which includes the words that God has commanded us to perform this mitzvah. Saul Oresky writes:

I thought that when performing any commanded act we say a brachah with that formula. For instance wouldn't '...likbo'a mezuzah' said when attaching a mezuzah during a chanukat habayit be in addition to those seven, or is that part of the seventh instance cited?

I respond:

Obviously all those mitzvot which derive from the Torah without question use this formulation: to hear Shofar sounded, take the Lulav etc. My comment was only to explain why this formula is used also for mitzvot which are of rabbinic origin.

Albert Ringer writes:

Am I correct in guessing that the purpose of the yad for reading the Torah is not to contaminate the hands during the service?

I respond:

No. The reason is that it is forbidden to touch the scroll with one's bare hands (because of its sanctity). Megillah 32a reads:

Rabbi Parnach quotes Rabbi Yochanan: anyone who holds a Sefer Torah with his naked flesh is buried naked. [The Gemara asks in consternation]: You cannot really mean naked, it must mean naked [bereft] of mitzvot. You cannot really mean without mitzvot, you must mean without this particular mitzvah.

8:
Thus it was that towards the end of the first century CE the table of contents of that section of the Tanakh that we now call 'Writings' was being stabilized by the sages. As I mentioned previously, some books were obviously to be included without question: the book of Psalms was in a very real sense the 'hymn-book of the Bet Mikdash'. There was no doubt in the minds of the sages that Proverbs was compiled by King Solomon. The fact that Daniel was included in the Writings and, despite its semblance to the prophetic books, was not part of the 'Prophets' proves conclusively the late date of its canonization: it must have been circulated after the canon of the Prophets had been closed (around the year 200 BCE). The Gemara [Bava Batra 15a] records the musings of sages from the period of the Amora'im which may well reflect similar musings from the period of the Tanna'im: was there such a person as Job or is the whole thing just an allegory? Who wrote the book of Job?

9:
The discussion in our present mishnah illustrates the procedure adopted with regards to books whose sacred validity was questioned: the sages freely discussed the issue and then a vote decided the matter in accordance with the majority view. It is thus curious that the table of contents of the Writings (Hagiographa) was decided in a quite democratic manner (although admittedly only the members of the Sanhedrin constituted the 'demos' in this case).

10:
It is perhaps worthwhile to pause at this juncture to consider a topic that is not often discussed but that has enormous theological repercussions. We are wont to give theological pre-eminence to the Written Torah [Torah she-bikhtav] over the Unwritten Torah [Torah she-b'al-peh]. And yet, as the late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz pointed out most perspicaciously, the books to which we accord paramount sanctity are only holy because the sages say they are! The famous story in the Gemara [Shabbat 31a] in which Hillel persuades a non-Jew to accept the validity of Torah she-b'al-Peh [the oral tradition of the sages] despite the reluctance of his intellect to accept its validity, emphasizes this same concept in a different manner: even the way in which we read the letters of the Written Torah is determined by oral tradition: 'resh' is pronounced 'r' and 'shin' is pronounced 'sh' by tradition, not by divine decree. (Indeed, the Bible itself preserves an indication that the pronunciation of 'shin' was not universally recognized as correct [Judges 12:6].) Thus, from the practical point of view, the Oral Torah has paramountcy over the Biblical text. The sages at Yavneh not only decided by majority vote which books were sacred for Israel, but unbeknown to them they also decided the matter for the greater part of mankind, since their decision was accepted by the church!

11:
Our present mishnah records a 'machloket' concerning the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes [Kohelet]. That these books should have been discussed is most appropriate: upon a cursory reading the Song of Songs appears to be nothing more than an overtly erotic epithalamium; and Kohelet must be one of the most pessimistic religious works ever written - a philosophic treatise on the futility of life! It looks very much as if it was the persistence of Rabbi Akiva that won the day for the Song of Songs: 'The whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel. If all the writings are holy then the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.' Rabbi Akiva understood the Song of Songs to be a kind of biblical midrash, the love story of Israel's relationship with God.

12:
A more careful reading of our mishnah can reveal to us who the protagonists were in this 'machloket' [halakhic argument]. Rabbis Yosé [ben-Chalafta] and Shim'on [ben-Yochai] are contemporaries, and they were active during the middle decades of the 2nd century CE. Rabbis Shim'on ben-Azzai, El'azar ben-Azaryah and Akiva are contemporaries and they were active during the decades that spanned the transition from the 1st to 2nd centuries CE. (Both Yosé ben-Chalafta and Shim'on ben-Yochai were students of Rabbi Akiva, and the latter was the unwitting catalyst that caused Rabbi El'azar ben-Azaryah to be elevated to the presidency of the Sanhedrin.) The story of what our present mishnah calls 'the day that they installed Rabbi El'azar ben-Azaryah as president of the Sanhedrin' was told by us at great length when we studied Tractate Berakhot. Since it is admittedly very difficult for participants to access our archives I bring the material here for your convenience.

After the death of the first Hillel (around 20 CE) the presidency of the Sanhedrin was vested in his descendants. He was followed by his son, Rabban Gamli'el and by his grandson Shim'on (who died during the Great War against the Romans). During the decade immediately after the war (70 - 80 CE) the leadership was vested in Rabban Yochanan ben-Zakkai, the undisputed leader of the school of Hillel even though he was not a descendent of Hillel. After his death, however, the presidency reverted back to Hillel's heir, his great-grandson, also called Gamli'el. These were difficult years for the Jewish people. The nation had been defeated and subjugated by the Romans, the Bet Mikdash and its panoply destroyed forever, and the sages, assembled in the little town of Yavneh, were locked in a struggle as to which 'version' of Pharisaic Judaism would become predominant - the liberal school of Hillel or the conservative school of Shammai. Rabban Gamliel ('of Yavneh', to distinguish him from his grandfather 'old' Rabban Gamliel) did his best to create and preserve unity in these trying circumstances. On a couple of occasions previously he had 'brought to heel' the most prominent, respected and loved of all the sages of the school of Hillel, Rabbi Yehoshu'a (ben-Chananyah). Rabbi Yehoshu'a in his youth had been one of the two students who smuggled Rabban Yochanan ben-Zakkai out of beleaguered Jerusalem, and now in his old age he was the most popular and respected figure at Yavneh. (Later on Rabban Gamli'el was also to face down Rabbi Eli'ezer [ben-Hyrcanos], the dear friend and rival of Yehoshu'a, of the school of Shammai.) A young student (later to become very famous in his own right, Rabbi Shim'on ben- Yochai) caused the explosion by asking whether the Evening Service was compulsory or voluntary. Rabban Gamli'el forced a showdown in the full plenum, haughtily subjected Rabbi Yehoshu'a (who held a different view) to a humiliating 'recantation'. The assembled sages exploded and voted to depose Rabban Gamli'el from the presidency of the Sanhedrin.

The problem now was who to elect as his replacement. The most obvious candidate was Rabbi Yehoshu'a, but he could not be chosen because he was too 'interested' a party. The choice fell on a young scholar, Rabbi El'azar ben-Azaryah, of priestly stock, financially well-off and with no real enemies or rivals. On being offered the presidency El'azar said what would be considered today the most PC thing he could say: 'I must discuss this with my wife first'. She was against the whole idea, since she could easily see that he had been chosen not for his own merits but as a further punishment to Rabban Gamli'el. She pointed out that in all probability they will all make peace again very soon and Rabban Gamli'el will be restored to his hereditary position: 'What will then become of you?' His youthful reply was that it was better to hold that honour even only for one day than never to have held it at all! His wife then pointed out that he was very young (which was probably why he was chosen - to rub salt into the wounds inflicted on Rabban Gamli'el, as it were). The end of the episode. Rabban Gamli'el and Rabbi Yehoshu'a were reconciled and Rabban Gamli'el, appropriately chastened, was restored to the Presidency of the Sanhedrin. However, he had to accept Rabbi El'azar ben-Azaryah as his junior partner in the presidency.

13:
The outraged sages ousted Rabban Gamli'el from the presidency of the Sanhedrin and installed in his place Rabbi El'azar ben-Azaryah. On that day the sages took the opportunity to vote on matters that Rabban Gamli'el had opposed. Indeed, the next chapter in our tractate will enumerate several issues that were decided on 'that day'. Rabban Gamli'el accepted the chastisement and showed great fortitude in that he remained in the session of the Sanhedrin as a 'simple' sage. It must have been terribly difficult for him to see measure after measure that he had so steadfastly opposed accepted by the now jubilant majority.

14:
A careful reading of the account of the (very temporary) ousting of Rabban Gamli'el in both the Babylonian Talmud and that of Eretz-Israel shows Rabbi Akiva to have been one of the 'ringleaders' of this revolt. So it is not surprising that an issue so obviously dear to his heart as the fate of the Song of Songs should have been brought to decision 'that day'. According to the statement of ben-Azzai a vote was taken on the matter and it was decided by majority vote that both the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes would be part of the canon of the Bible. Rabbi Akiva is not satisfied with this because, although the vote verifies the sanctity of the Song of Songs, it indicates that there were dissenting voices (that of Rabban Gamli'el probably). Rabbi Akiva insists that the Song of Songs was never in dispute, only Ecclesiastes. However, our present mishnah will not accept this attempt to rewrite history, as it were, and no less a person than his own wife's brother testifies to the accuracy of ben-Azzai's recollection of what happened on 'that day' in the matter of The Song of Songs.

15:
I know that what I wrote above may be seen by some as 'tarnishing' the reputation of Rabbi Akiva. I do not think that he was giving misinformation: I think that his recollection of what happened on 'that day' is different from that of ben-Azzai. We must bear in mind that Rabbi Akiva must have spent most of the time 'politicking'. However, quite innocently, our present mishnah does enormous damage to the famous story as to how Rabbi Akiva met and married his wife.

The romantic story told in the Gemara [Ketubot 62b] relates that Akiva was the illiterate shepherd of one of Jerusalem's millionaires, Kalba Savu'a. The rich man's daughter perceived that the young shepherd was highly intelligent and offered to marry him provided that he agreed to combat his illiteracy. Her father, outraged that she dared to marry such a lowly person and without his own approval, disowned her, and during the early years of their marriage, while Akiva was studying, they suffered untold hardship - which, of course, was amply rewarded later on. Indeed, Akiva must have become reasonably well off later on in his life for on one occasion we are told that he bought as a present for his wife a tiara called 'Jerusalem of Gold' [Yerushalayim shel zahav]. The Talmud of Eretz-Israel [Shabbat 34a] relates that when the wife of Rabban Gamli'el saw this golden tiara she told her husband that she wanted one too. He replied, 'If you had done for me what she did for him I would buy you one too.'

16:
However, our present mishnah seems to consign all that romantic saga to the realm of legend; for it states quite clearly that the name of Rabbi Akiva's father-in-law was Yehoshu'a and not Kalba Savu'a. Those who are romantically inclined, like me, and cannot bear to see such a beautiful story trashed can imagine, perhaps, that Rachel died and Rabbi Akiva married a second time, and that the name of his second father-in-law was Yehoshu'a.

Many messages have been held over. Here are a few of them.

I mentioned in passing that the Gemara says that 'Anyone who holds a Sefer Torah with his naked flesh is buried naked.' Bayla Singer writes:

Surely there must be extenuation, given the widespread practice of 'Torah Wrap' - unrolling the scroll on Simchat Torah and allowing the congregation to stand around in a circle, each person holding the top and bottom edge of the scroll so that the entire scroll can be seen at once, before the Torah is re- rolled. Actually, I've derived vicarious 'nachas' when I've seen this done, as the teenagers duck inside the circle and delight in finding their B'nei Mitzvah portions.

I respond:

I'm afraid that halakhah does not permit the avoidable touching of the scroll with bare hands. I have heard that some rabbis who permit this 'Torah Wrap' make sure that those holding the scroll wear surgical gloves and the spectators are warned not to touch the scroll.

On this same topic Ron Kaminsky asks:

Just out of curiosity, does this apply also in the case of someone repairing (e.g., resewing a seam) a scroll? That strikes me as quite difficult to fulfill unless gloves are worn.

I respond:

In such a case the handling of the scroll is unavoidable and in order to enhance its sanctity. The sofer [scribe] is not required to wear gloves.

Art Werschulz addresses this and cognate problems:

A practical reason to avoid touching the Torah scroll is that the oils on the surface of one's hand can cause the writing to smear. Speaking of smearing, our Rabbi has taught that when the oleh is shown the beginning of the Torah reading by the ba'al q'riah, the oleh should touch blank parchment near the starting point with the corner of the tallit, rather than the letters themselves. Every so often, I see an oleh really bearing down with the tallit corner on the letters. Remembering that we hope to get many years of use out of a sefer Torah, this greatly increases the potential for smearing letters, especially for the aliyot that are read on Shabbat afternoon, Monday, and Thursday.

Another reason I have heard for using a yad during q'riat haTorah:

The oleh should be following the Torah reading during his aliyah. If possible, s/he should be (quietly!) reading along with the ba'al q'riah. Using the yad makes it easier for the oleh to follow along as the ba'al q'riah chants.

Side note: At one point, our shul only had one set of Torah silver per Torah, with no spares. Prior to the Yamim Noraim, we would send the silver out to be polished. The ba'al q'riah would use one of his tzitzit as a stand-in pointer. This always made me a little nervous, since one could inadvertently touch the scroll while doing so. Fortunately, we now have some spare yadayim available, so this is no longer a problem.

This concludes our study of the third chapter of Tractate Yadayyim.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 4
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