Avodah Zarah 005

1:
In the previous mishnah we saw that for three days prior to a non-Jewish festival it is forbidden to trade with non-Jews, to lend them something or to borrow something from them, to lend them money or to take a loan from them, to repay them or to accept repayment. All this, because of a concern that as a result of these activities the non-Jew will offer grateful thanks to his deity and thus the innocent Jew will be a kind of 'accessory before the fact'.

2:
We also saw that there was a maĥloket [difference of opinion] between Rabbi Yehudah [bar-Ilai] and the rest of the sages. Rabbi Yehudah would except from this general three-day prohibition the acceptance from a non-Jew of repayment of a loan made to him "because it causes him sorrow" to have to pay the money back and he is hardly likely to thank his god for that. But the sages would have none of it: even though the non-Jew will doubtless not be delighted to repay the loan right now, later on he will be pleased that that financial burden has been lifted and thank his god accordingly. (Halakhah is according to the sages, of course.)

3:
We also noted [AZ 004, note 26] that the prohibition discussed in mishnah 1 is in force for three days before the holy day and during the holy day itself. In our present mishnah Rabbi Yishma'el would extend the period of the prohibtion by another three days! According to him no commerce, financial or social, should be permitted with non-Jews for three days before their festival, on the day of the festival itself, and for three days after the festival. Halakhah does not follow Rabbi Yishma'el because the rest of the sages maintain the rule that was established in mishnah 1.

4:
Even though the opinion of Rabbi Yishma'el is not accepted it might be worthwhile to try and fathom the reasoning behind the severity of his halakhah. It is difficult to escape from the impression that Rabbi Yishma'el just wants to reduce any kind of contact between Jews and non-Jews. Assuming that the non-Jewish festival is a one-day festival Rabbi Yishma'el would outlaw contact between Jews and non-Jews for seven days!

5:
But I think that the purpose of the ruling of Rabbi Yishma'el is deeper than that, and should be connected with the contest between Judaism and another emergent religion in the first half of the 2nd century CE – when Rabbi Yishma'el was active. It seems to me that the Amora Shemu'el puts the rationale behind the severity of the ruling of Rabbi Yishma'el most succinctly. Shemu'el was the head of the Yeshivah in Neharde'a during the 3rd century CE – about a century after Rabbi Yishma'el. (There were at that time two great Yeshivot in Babylon [Iraq], that of Rav in Sura and that of Shemu'el in Neharde'a.)

6:
The very first comment in the Gemara on our present mishnah [Avodah Zarah 7b] is as follows:

It is most interesting that Shemu'el in Babylon should make such a comment (a comment which, by the way, was censored by the Church). The holy day of the Christians is Sunday. According to the sages it would be forbidden to have commerce with Christians on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays (on Saturdays it was forbidden anyway for other reasons). But according to Rabbi Yishma'el commerce with Christians would be forbidden for seven days in every week!

7:
We should also note that Shemu'el quite naturally assumes that Christianity is avodah zarah. More of this next time.

To be continued.

We have been discussing parameters for what constitutes avodah zarah.

Mark Lautman writes:

About four years ago I worked in a software house where several Indians worked. Next to my table I had amassed several piles of paper that had issued from the printer and unthinkingly I trod on them. A religiously observant Indian programmer approached me and told me that she had been offended by my offensive behaviour towards the paper because Indians consider paper to be a god. I immediately apologized, lifted the paper and arranged it on my table. All this happened outside Israel and is therefore beyond the discussion in our mishnah. Nevertheless:

1. Did I encourage idolatry?
2. Did I perform an idolatrous act myself in that I agreed with her conceptions and deified (God forbid) the paper?

I respond:

It is not possible to give a clear answer to Mark's first question: it would depend on whether or not we follow the opinion of the Me'iri that if a religion has a moral code it is no longer the pagan religion of the bible. We shall be discussing this a greater length in the next shiur. The obvious answer to Mark's second question is that of course he was not guilty of idolatry because he had no such intention. He was just being polite and considerate.

I have received a considerable number of messages about the etymology of the Hebrew word Eyd. I shall try to begin presenting them to you in our next shiur.