Rosh ha-Shanah III

1:
I have mentioned in previous Shiurim that the arrangement of the mishnayot in this tractate raises questions. It seems obvious that the construction of the tractate is simple: the first half, two chapters, to deal with the topic Rosh Ĥodesh and the other half, chapters 3 and 4, to deal with aspects of the festival of Rosh ha-Shanah. It is therefore very surprising that the first mishnah of chapter three is concerned with the declaration of the New Moon, when it so obviously should be the last mishnah in chapter two. (There is also one mishnah in chapter four that would belong better in the first half of the tractate.) I find no explanation of this phenomenon among the classical commentators.

2:
Our mishnah deals with several scenarios. The first scenario is simple. In a situation where the new moon was witnessed by "all Israel" – i.e. lots of people – including the Bet Din itself, nevertheless the forms must be observed and two witnesses testify before the court that they saw the new moon. The court must then declare that the new month has been sanctified. This declaration must be made by day. Thus the situation described by our mishnah is as follows: on the thirtieth day of the outgoing month the new moon was witnessed by many people, including members of the Sanhedrin itself. However, the technicalities of giving testimony meant that the declaration of the new moon was not made before nightfall. In such a situation we do not say that we know that the thirtieth day is Rosh Ĥodesh anyway; we postpone Rosh Ĥodesh to the thirty-first day as we would in all circumstances when no testimony was available on the expected day. A corollary of this situation is, of course, where the only problem was that the witnesses arrived too late for their testimony to become effective on that day, even though they had been cross-examined and their testimony was found to be acceptable: if the formal declaration was not made before dark it is as if no testimony had been offered at all and Rosh Ĥodesh is fixed for the thirty-first day.

3:
When we studied tractate Sanhedrin we learned that cases heard before a court of three may be concluded at night time: Dinei Mamonot, in theory, can begin to be heard in the morning, and the judges can reach a verdict which they can declare after dark without having to recess until the following morning. It is only Dinei Nefashot that require the court to recess until the following day before announcing its verdict. Since the president of the Sanhedrin would depute three of its seventy-one members to deal with Kiddush ha-Ĥodesh we might be led to conclude that Kiddush ha-Ĥodesh, in this respect, is like Dinei Mamonot, which are also heard before a court of three justices. Thus the hearing of the testimony of the witnesses is similar to the procedure in Dinei Mamonot and the declaration "Sanctified, Sanctified" is a kind of verdict. Our mishnah makes clear that this is not the case. Rambam, in his commentary on our mishnah explains that the bible describes the declaration of the new moon as a "Mishpat", similar terminology being used in regard to Dinei Nefashot. (The relevant verses are Psalms 84:4-5, which read: Sound the Shofar on the new moon, on our festive day when it is not seen, for it is a law unto Israel, a judgment for the God of Jacob. In our liturgy these verses are associated with the festival of Rosh ha-Shanah, since it is the only festival that falls when the moon is invisible, on Rosh Ĥodesh Tishri.)

4:
The second scenario dealt with in our mishnah is when the only witnesses available to the Bet Din are themselves members of the Sanhedrin. They may not declare the new moon on the basis of the evidence of their own eyes, because, as the Gemara [Rosh ha-Shanah 26a] says, "a witness may not become a judge". This means that when the members of the court themselves have witnessed a fact they may not testify to this fact, or alternatively, if they testify to the fact that may not sit in judgment on it. Therefore, in the circumstances described by our mishnah, the members of the Sanhedrin who are the sole witnesses to the new moon must act as witnesses and may not act as judges: they must testify before other members of the Sanhedrin – even if they had been appointed by the President to constitute the Bet Din for this purpose.

5:
The Seifa [last clause] of our mishnah is a corollary of the previous scenario. If the three members of the Sanhedrin are themselves witnesses of the new moon two of them must become witnesses and the third – probably the most senior member – must associate with himself another two members of the Sanhedrin. This also reflects a difference between Dinei Mamonot and Kiddush ha-Ĥodesh. A baraita [Sanhedrin 4b-5a] states that "Dinei Mamonot must be heard before three justices, but if one is a licenced judge [Mumcheh la-Rabbim] he may even judge alone". Now, if this is the case in Dinei Mamonot we could draw a parallel to Kiddush ha-Ĥodesh, which is also heard before three judges: why should the remaining member of the court not be considered a "Mumcheh la-Rabbim" who can hear the evidence of the two others. The Gemara once again points out the difference between Dinei Mamonot and Kiddush ha-Ĥodesh despite superficial similarities. The greatest "Mumcheh la-Rabbim" that Israel has ever known is Moshe Rabbenu, who was, as it were, "licenced" by God. Yet when the Torah introduces the law of Kiddush ha-Ĥodesh [Exodus 12:1-2] it makes certain that the law is not given to Moses alone but to Moses and Aaron. While that would seem to indicate that Kiddush ha-Ĥodesh should be before a two-man court, such a court would violate a principle that we learned in studying tractate Sanhedrin – that no court is ever comprised of an even number of judges. Thus the minimum for Kiddush ha-Ĥodesh is a court of three.

1:
While Rosh ha-Shanah is considered by many lay people to be one of the most important festivals of the Jewish calendar, the Torah offers surprisingly little information concerning the ethos of this festival. Indeed, we can say that the only mitzvah of which the Written Torah informs us is the requirement to sound the Shofar on that day (if we ignore the sacrificial regulations which are no longer relevant). And even the mitzvah of Shofar is not stated explicitly. Everything else that today we associate with Rosh ha-Shanah derives from the Unwritten Torah (Torah she-b'al-Peh). We have already made some observations concerning Rosh ha-Shanah during our study of the first two mishnayot of Chapter One.

2:
The Written Torah informs us of the mitzvah which we now call Shofar in two places (and obliquely in two more). Imagine that we have discovered these sources today in some archeological dig and have no other source of information concerning their content: we would be hard put to explain exactly what is required by them.

If we leave aside the question of the meaning of Melakhah (which is irrelevant to our present discussion) we are left with the bare fact that on the first day of the seventh month we are to have "a flourish". The Hebrew word for "a flourish", Teru'ah, is not quite as amorphous as the English renders it. It occurs many times in the Bible, most often designating a shout of triumph or excitement. (See, for example, Joshua 6:20, Judges 7:21, Job 38:7, 2Chronicles 13:15.) But the Torah [Numbers 10:2-7] also associates the term with the flourish of a trumpet or similar musical instrument:

This would suggest that on the first day of the seventh month we are either to raise a shout of triumph or to sound a trumpet flourish. However, the matter is further circumscribed by a common-sense application of yet another Torah source [Leviticus 25:9]:

in order to announce the emancipation of all slaves and to "proclaim liberty throughout the land" once very 50 years.

4:
It now seems reasonable to understand that on Rosh ha-Shanah we are to "sound a flourish" on a Shofar. However, even that still leaves at least three questions unresolved: what does "a flourish" sound like, what exactly is a Shofar and what does the mitzvah signify? Our present mishnah already assumes that a Shofar is the horn of an animal made suitable for emitting musical sounds. In Exodus 19:13 we are told that after the revelation Mount Sinai would cease to be out of bounds to the Israelites "when a long blast is sounded on the horn". The word used here for "horn" is "Yovel". In Joshua 6:5 (concerning the fall of Jericho) we read:

We note here that the word "Yovel" is used as the name of an animal. It now becomes apparent that the animal gave its name to the horn that it supplied and that the terms "Yovel" and "Shofar" are synonymous. How interesting is the development of a term: Yovel originally is a synonym for a ram; by extension it comes also to denote the horn of the ram; the ram's horn was sounded on the day of emancipation once every fifty years, so by a further extension the term comes to denote every fiftieth year. And it is in this latter sense that the Hebrew "Yovel" was anglicized into "Jubilee".

5:
So we now know that the mitzvah required by the Torah is to sound a flourish on a ram's horn on Rosh ha-Shanah. This is the starting-point of our present mishnah, which states that "All Shofars are acceptable with the exception of that of the cow, since it is a horn". In other words, the mitzvah of sounding a flourish on a Shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah may be executed on any kind of animal horn except that of a cow. (The horn of a ram is to be preferred since that is the original designation, as we have seen.) Actually, what our mishnah means is that the horn of any animal that is traditionally recognized as being a Shofar is acceptable: be it the curling horn or a ram or the straight horn of a wild goat. The reason why a bovine horn (cow or bull) is excluded, according to Tanna Kamma, is because in the Bible it is not called "Shofar" but "Keren", horn.

6:
Rabbi Yosé objects to this reasoning of Tanna Kamma. As we have seen, the passage in Joshua (6:5) refers to the Shofar as also being a "keren", horn, so why exclude the bovine horn? The Gemara [Rosh ha-Shanah 26a] offers several solutions, some more convincing than others. While all Shofarot are designated both "horn" and "Shofar" the bovine horn is designated only "horn". Another explanation, while tenuous, seems much more satisfying on the level of values. The great Babylonian Amora, Rav Ĥisda, asked in another connection, why on Yom Kippur the High Priest, when he enters the Holy of Holies, does not wear his golden garments (which would seem more fitting for the awesome occasion), but a simple white garment? The answer he gives to his own question is that "the prosecutor cannot plead for the defence". What he means is that the wearing of ostentatious garments at the precise moment when he seeks to obtain forgiveness and atonement for his people would be completely inappropriate. The Shofar is also deemed to be connected with the obtaining of forgiveness and Israel's loyalty to God. Bearing in mind the episode of the calf that the Israelites idolatrously made for themselves but a few weeks after having witnessed the theophany of Mount Sinai, it would seem most inappropriate to use the horn of a cow or bull. (With its associations with the Akedah of Isaac, the horn of the ram stands a much better chance of "pleading for the defence".)

7:
I add, as a curiosity, a few "etymologies" suggested in the Gemara [Rosh ha-Shanah 26a] prompted by the term "Yovel".

1:
In the Babylonian Talmud these three mishnayot are treated as one, even though in the mishnah codices they are presented separately. Since they are obviously connected to each other in an intimate manner I have chosen to present them in the format of the Gemara.

2:
Our mishnah is concerned with the sounding of the Shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah in the Bet Mikdash. As in not a few other connections the Mitzvah was observed differently in the Bet Mikdash to that which was (and is) observed elsewhere. It appears from our mishnah that in the Bet Mikdash on Rosh ha-Shanah the sound of the Shofar was accompanied by the sound of two trumpets: the trumpets would cut short so that the longer sound of the Shofar could be heard after they had ceased, since the actual Mitzvah was to hear the Shofar and not to hear the trumpets. Rambam, in his Commentary on our Mishnah, connects this custom to a Biblical verse: Psalm 98:6 reads –

The understanding, presumably, is that on Rosh ha-Shanah we particularly think of God as King (Ruler, Sovereign, Supreme Arbiter) and that the Bet Mikdash is "before God". Thus the verse as suggested by Rambam is to be understood "With trumpets accompanying the sound of the Shofar sound a musical flourish in the Bet Mikdash on Rosh ha-Shanah".

3:
The Shofar was sounded in the Bet Mikdash on two kinds of occasion: on the festival of Rosh ha-Shanah and on public fast days. (Public fast days were instituted mainly – but not exclusively – as days of intercession when no end seemed to be in sight of a long drought.) Rambam offers a Biblical peg on which to hang the custom described in our mishnah for public fast days: Numbers 10:9 speaks of times of national distress when

Here the trumpets alone are mentioned, thus they are the Mitzvah of the day.

4:
According to our mishnah the Shofar used in the Bet Mikdash on Rosh ha-Shanah was the horn of the wild goat (an animal that to this day roams the Judean desert – the barren wastes between Jericho in the north and the southern tip of the Dead Sea). On public fast days the Shofar used was that of a ram. The main difference between these two kinds of Shofar is their appearance. The ram's horn curves, and even "spirals", whereas the horn of the wild goat is straight (except for where it joins the head). In the Gemara [Rosh ha-Shanah 26b] moral uplift is discerned in this distinction.

5:
The Gemara notes the difference between the statement of Tanna Kamma in Mishnah 3 and that of Rabbi Yehudah in Mishnah 5. Tanna Kamma says that on Rosh ha-Shanah the horn used should be that of the wild goat, whereas Rabbi Yehudah ben-Ilai says that it should be that of a ram. We could, of course, easily explain this discrepancy by suggesting that Tanna Kamma is speaking of the usage of the Bet Mikdash whereas Rabbi Yehudah is speaking of the usage everywhere outside the Bet Mikdash. (I pointed out above that in not a few other instances a Mitzvah was observed differently in the Bet Mikdash to that which was observed elsewhere.) But the Gemara chooses to perceive a message in the physical state of these Shofarot. What image or persona should the congregation present of itself? On Rosh ha-Shanah, says Rabbi Yehudah, the more a person appears to be bent like the curved ram's horn the better, whereas on the other occasion (Jubilee year and public fast days) the more a person's mind seems straight and simple, like the straight horn of the wild goat, the better. Tanna Kamma holds the opposite view: simplicity is what should be emphasized on Rosh ha-Shanah and compliancy (the bending of one's will to the decree of Heaven) is what should be demonstrated on the other occasions.

6:
In his great commentary on the Gemara, Bet ha-Beĥirah, Rabbi Menaĥem ha-Me'iri [Provence, 13th century CE] quotes the Talmud of Eretz-Israel as having decided in this Maĥloket [difference] between Rabbi Yehudah and Tanna Kamma: "[the sages] instituted the bent [Shofar] for the bent [pliable spirit] and the straight [simple Shofar] for the straight and simple". Thus, according to the Me'iri, custom dictates that on Rosh ha-Shanah we give preference to the horn of a ram, following Rabbi Yehudah. (I have mechanically searched the whole of the Talmud of Eretz-Israel for this statement quoted by the Me'iri to no avail; but I am sure he would not have made it up!)

7:
Recently I wrote:

8:
The topic outlined in the previous paragraph is the subject of Mishnah 5. The format of the Musaf [Additional] service for Rosh ha-Shanah will be discussed fully in the next chapter of our present Tractate. But in this mishnah we learn that on Yom Kippur when the Jubilee system was still active the format of the Additional service was identical to that of Rosh ha-Shanah of every year, including the full sounding of the Shofar. The only difference was the kind of Shofar used, that of the ram or that of the wild goat. The ram's horn is preferred for Rosh ha-Shanah whereas the horn of the wild goat was preferred for the Jubilee service once every fifty years. Here the Talmud of Eretz-Israel [Rosh ha-Shanah 17a] explains that

9:
That the Shofarot used in the ritual of the Bet Mikdash had decorative metal mouth-pieces is another instance where Halakhah as practiced inside and outside the Bet Mikdash differed. Outside the Bet Mikdash anything that prevents direct contact of the lips with the horn of the Shofar renders it invalid. However, it could well be that the "mouth-piece" mentioned in our mishnah refers to a golden or silver band that decorated the Shofar near to its tip but without preventing direct contact of the lips with the horn.

1:
These two mishnayot are treated by the Gemara as one, and it seems sensible to follow this division, as we did in the previous Shiur.

2:
Our mishnah deals with three "accidents" that can affect a Shofar. Even though attempts might be made to repair the damage, in two of the three cases such repair will be of no avail. In the third case, whether the repair is acceptable or not is dependent of the result of the repair.

3:
The first eventuality discussed is that where a Shofar becomes split. When we bear in mind that the Shofar, by definition, is nothing but horn, it will become readily apparent that such an eventuality can occur – either because of a weakness in the horn itself or because of a weakness caused by use. A weakness inherent in the horn itself may have been caused when the horn was removed from the animal's head. Bone projects from the animal's skull and the horn fits onto this bone like a sheath. If one is not careful, the removal of the horn from the projecting bone may cause the horn to split. Alternatively, the horn was successfully removed from the animal's head by hacking it off with much of the projecting bone still attached inside the horn; before the Shofar can be prepared for use the remnants of the bone must be removed; during the removal process the Shofar was split or a weakness was created that later caused a split.

4:
Obviously the first two eventualities discussed by our mishnah are different; since the second is clearly referring to a situation in which sections of the Shofar have been glued together, the first must be dealing with a split down the length of the Shofar. Such a split may not at this moment affect the sound of the Shofar, but through use it will grow and when it is long enough it will begin to affect the sound made by the Shofar. Rashi, in his commentary, seems to think that our mishnah is referring to a Shofar that is completely split into two pieces lengthwise. Tosafot, as usual, disagree with him: even if the split down the length of the Shofar does not cause the complete dissection of the instrument it is nevertheless invalid.

5:
The second eventuality discussed by our mishnah is when the Shofar has become split into more than one section along its width. The situation discussed by our mishnah is one in which the sections have been glued together again. This is not always necessary. The minimal size for a Shofar is such that there is room for the hand to hold it with horn left over on either side. Thus if the section of the horn that broke off (maybe as the result of an accident that occurred during the removal of the bone remnants from the horn) the Shofar can still be valid if enough if it is left to fulfill the above requirement. So we must assume that the section or sections which broke off leave a Shofar that is too small to hold: if the sections have been glued together again – either using glue or welding them together by heat – the resultant Shofar is invalid.

6:
The third "accident" discussed by our mishnah is when a hole is discovered in the shaft of the Shofar. Obviously, our mishnah is not dealing with a situation in which the hole can be removed simply by making the Shofar smaller, as described above. The hole is in such a spot that it has to be patched. If it is patched with horn (and not some other substance) the Shofar need not necessarily be disqualified. If the patch affects the sounding of the Shofar the Shofar has become invalidated by the patch. But if the sounding of the Shofar can proceed unhindered there is no reason why such a patch should invalidate the Shofar. By affecting the sounding of the Shofar we mean that the sound produced is weaker than it was before or that it is not possible to hold the Shofar properly. However, if the only effect of the patching is to change the timbre of the sound produce this does not invalidate the Shofar, since there is no "correct" timbre for a Shofar: some may emit a low "thick" sound, others may emit a high "thin" sound – and all stages in between. This is merely the result of the length of the horn.

7:
Thus far in our mishnah we have learned that even if valid sounds are emitted from a Shofar they may be considered invalid if the Shofar itself is not a valid one. Our mishnah now turns to another possibility: the Shofar may be perfectly valid but the sounds it emits are not valid. (We are not concerned here with errors caused by the expertise or lack thereof of the person sounding the Shofar: we shall deal with such a problem in the next chapter. We are concerned here with sounds, however accurate, which are invalid.) Our mishnah discusses the distortion that will arise from sounding the Shofar in a place that echoes. In order for one to fulfill the Mitzvah of hearing the Shofar sounded – and that is the Mitzvah: sounding the Shofar is not the Mitzvah – one must be certain that what one has heard is truly the sound of the Shofar and not its reverberating echo. The discussion in the Gemara [Rosh ha-Shanah 26b] and among the Poskim [decisors] can be summarized as follows:

1. If the person sounding the Shofar and the person hearing the Shofar are both in the echoing chamber (whatever it may be) the person listening has fulfilled his duty, since he has presumably heard the actual sound of the Shofar, despite the echo.
2. If the person sounding the Shofar is outside the echoing chamber, sounding the Shofar into it from the outside, and the person listening is inside the echoing chamber (let's imagine a cave) then the decision whether the Mitzvah has been fulfilled must be decided by the listener, for only he would know whether he had heard the sound of the Shofar or only an echo. The same applies with the reverse situation where the Shofar is sounded inside the echoing chamber and the person listening is outside it.

8:
Any reasonable person will read our mishnah with a certain amount of disbelief. Is is reasonable to assume that someone would sound the Shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah by blowing into a hole in the ground or into a cistern or storage pot or cave? And why should we imagine that someone would want to hear the Shofar being sounded under such peculiar circumstances? In his commentary on the Talmud, Rabbi Menaĥem ben-Shelomo [Bet ha-Beĥirah on Rosh ha-Shanah 26b] reports that one of the Ge'onim (the heads of the great Yeshivot in Babylon in the period after the closure of the Talmud – 500 CE – until about the year 1000 CE) says that he has it on reliable authority that our present mishnah was concerned with the sounding of the Shofar during times of persecution. We now know that the Ga'on in question was Rav Sherira Ga'on, who died around the year 1006 CE and who was the Ga'on of Pumbedita for the last 40 years of his life. Rav Sherira Ga'on states that our mishnah was framed to deal with the situation that arose during the Hadrianic persecution that followed the ignominious collapse of the Bar-Kokhba revolt in 135 CE. The Emperor Hadrian, having determined that the cause of the Jewish nationalism that in little more than half a century had spawned two costly wars against the Romans was the Jewish religion, decreed that the practice of Judaism was proscribed: if the Jews didn't practice Judaism they would be docile! So faithful were the people to the Mitzvot that they did everything in their power to continue observing Judaism in secret. One of the outcomes of this attempt was the sounding of the Shofar in caves and cisterns where the sound would be muffled for those outside and the Romans would not hear the crime of sounding the Shofar.

1:
There are two parts to our mishnah. The first part continues the thought process begun in the Seifa [last part] of the previous mishnah, while the Seifa of our present mishnah introduces a connected but discrete topic.

2:
The first part of our mishnah is a philosophical-theological exposition of two separate incidents recorded in the Torah. The exposition is a development of the line outlined at the end of the previous mishnah, so it is there that we must first turn our attention. The Seifa of Mishnah 7 read as follows:

3:
The question which is unasked by our mishnah, but to which it gives an answer is as follows: can it be considered that one has fulfilled one's religious duty – fulfilled a Mitzvah – if it were done only incidentally or without conscious intention? In the context of our mishnah let us phrase the question more concretely: if I happen to hear the sound of the Shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah have I now fulfilled the Mitzvah of hearing the Shofar sounded on Rosh ha-Shanah? Does the fulfillment of a Mitzvah require intention on my part to the extent that if there is no conscious intent the Mitzvah has not been fulfilled? There is another aspect to be considered. Let us call the person who is sounding the Shofar or reading the Megillah on Purim "the facilitator", that is, the person who enables others to fulfill a Mitzvah: does the facilitator have to have the mental intention of including these others in his or her performance of the Mitzvah? If the facilitator is unaware of the person lurking behind the synagogue and incidentally hearing the sounding of the Shofar has the latter fulfilled the Mitzvah?

4:
At first glance our mishnah seems to be saying that the fulfillment of Mitzvot requires mental intent and that this is a necessary condition. However, the discussion in the Gemara [Rosh ha-Shanah 28a-29a] by no means leaves the matter so clear. The great Babylonian Amora, Rava, seems to be saying that "Mitzvot do not require intent" [Mitzvot eynan tzerikhot kavvanah]. The great Amora of Eretz-Israel, Rabbi Zera, seems to be implying that Mitzvot do require intent [Mitzvot tzerikhot kavvanah] – both as regards the listener and the facilitator. In the Middle Ages the most prominent of the Poskim [decisors] were similarly divided: some decided according to Rava and others according to Rabbi Zera. In the 16th century CE Rabbi Yosef Karo, in his Shulĥan Arukh [Oraĥ Ĥayyim 60:4] decided the matter according to Rabbi Zera, which accords with the plain meaning of the text of our mishnah. It is now accepted that one can't perform a Mitzvah by default as it were and certainly the facilitator must have the mental intention of enabling the listener to fulfill his or her duty. However, it is customary to interpret that "intent" in the widest possible way. In the case of Shofar, for example, the fact that someone comes to synagogue on Rosh ha-Shanah may be seen as a sign of "intent" to hear the sounding of the Shofar – even if his mind was wandering at the moment of the start of the sounding. The facilitator – the one sounding the Shofar – may be presumed to have the "intent" to facilitate the Mitzvah for all present – even if they do not recognize all of them personally.

5:
This applies to all Mitzvot. Thus, for example, the person reciting Kiddush on Shabbat and YomTov must have the specific intent of facilitating the fulfillment of the Mitzvah by the others, who must themselves have the intention of availing themselves of his services. This was considered so important by the Kabbalists that they instituted special "declarations", called "Kavvanot", to be recited by people before fulfilling a Mitzvah.

6:
Having established the need for intent we can now proceed to our present mishnah. The first part of our mishnah concerns an incident recorded in the Torah [Exodus 17:8-13]:

Our mishnah is worried that the impression is created that there was some magical connection between Moses' hands and the outcome of the battle. This was almost certainly the intention of the Torah text, but by the time we reach the period of the Mishnah such a simplistic viewpoint is anathema. "Do Moses' hands make or break war?!" asks the Tanna incredulously. For him Moses' hands holding "God's staff" aloft at the scene of the battle are but a means to an end. The end is to direct the intent of the soldiers to "their Heavenly Father": "whenever Israel raised their eyes aloft and subjected their heart to their Heavenly Father they would have the advantage, otherwise they would fail".

7:
The second incident is recorded in the Torah [Numbers 21:6-9]:

This time we do not have to wait until the 2nd century CE to see the reaction to the magical element in this story. The Bible records that this serpent that Moses made was preserved for several centuries, became an object of veneration and was given the name "Neĥushtan". As part of his religious reforms designed to uproot all idolatry, in the early 7th century BCE (900 years before the Mishnah) the King of Judah, Hezekiah, destroyed the serpent that Moses had made [2Kings 18:4].

8:
We now come to the Seifa [last part] of our mishnah. First our mishnah gives three examples and then formulates from those three examples a general rule. The three examples have one characteristic in common: they are excused from observance of Mitzvot. The reasons in each case are, of course, different, but the end consideration is the same: for whatever reason is applicable in each case our mishnah will not impose upon them the duty of observance of the Mitzvot.

9
Let us deal with the third example first, since it is the easiest for us to understand with our modern mindset. Children are not required to observe the Mitzvot. (Here I use the term child to indicate a minor, not offspring in general.) A child is a person who has not yet reached the onset of biological maturity. Originally a different time was applicable to each individual, depending on their physical development. The duty to observe the Mitzvot falls upon a person, not when they reach maturity, but when they leave childhood. The sign that physical maturity was beginning to overtake childhood was the appearance of genital hair and the development of other physical characteristics, such as the development of the breasts in females. When a person had produced at least "two hairs in the lower beard" they were no longer to be considered a child [Mishnah, Tractate Niddah 6:11]. We discussed this matter when we studied the first Mishnah of Chapter Eight of Tractate Sanhedrin. At that time I wrote:

Thus we have established that (nowadays) a female is no longer considered a child when she reaches her twelfth birthday and a male is no longer considered a child when he reaches his thirteenth birthday. From that moment they are obligated to observe all the Mitzvot of the Torah that apply to them. But observance of the Mitzvot requires education: it cannot successfully be imposed when it is founded upon ignorance. This is why it is the duty of a parent to see that their child is Jewishly educated, so that by practice they will come to know how to observe the Mitzvot. But the observance of a Mitzvah by a child is just that: practice. It is not the fulfillment of a Mitzvah because it is incumbent upon him or her. Thus, although we observe them fulfilling Mitzvot, technically speaking children are excused all Mitzvot.

10:
The imbecile is perhaps a bad translation: the Hebrew term "Shoteh" refers to someone who is non compos mentis. However, from the Halakhic point of view a person is determined as being non compos mentis according to his acts and behaviour:

The Gemara there discusses whether these acts are accumulative or even just one of them is sufficient. The final conclusion is if a person habitually does all these things he must be considered an imbecile, however if he does but one of them and it is clearly because his mind is deranged this, too, declares him to be non compos mentis, but doing them "for fun" etc is to be ignored. The person who is "certified" as not being of a sound mind is excused all the Mitzvot and, therefore, is not liable under law for their non-observance.

11:
On Mishnaic times someone who was a deaf-mute – who could neither hear nor speak – was excused all the Mitzvot [Mishnah Terumot 1:2]. However, unlike the other two categories, in many cases even though the deaf-mute was excused observance of the Mitzvot his acts were legally acceptable if performed. Nowadays it is possible to educate the deaf-mute. Since in the vast majority of cases such a person is mute because he or she has not heard sounds from birth, once it becomes possible to educate them they will cease to be entirely mute. With that their status changes accordingly.

12:
We have now established that the deaf-mute, the imbecile and the child have this in common: that they are excused all the mitzvot. This leads to the question: is someone is not obliged to observe a Mitzvah can he or she act as a "facilitator" for someone who is so obliged. If the facilitator is not required to observe a certain Mitzvah there is no Halakhic meaning to his or her observance of that Mitzvah: it is a purely voluntary act, and he or she can therefore not act as a facilitator for someone who is obligated.

13:
At first glance we find this surprising. Who is the more praiseworthy? – the person who performs an act because it is imposed on him by law or the person who voluntarily performs an act even though they are not required to do so? Obviously we would think it logical to give more credit to the volunteer. We can better understand the different attitude of Halakhic Judaism if we imagine to ourselves the relationship of a parent to a child. Which child is the more loved? – the one whose parent imposes behavioural requirements on them and sets limits to their freedom of action or the one whose parents couldn't care less how their child behaves and what it does. This difference is noted in a famous passage in the Gemara [Kiddushin 31a] which recounts how a Roman Councillor suffered public abuse at the hands of his senile mother rather than be disrespectful towards her. The Gemara continues:

This being the case the general rule propounded by our Mishnah becomes clear: "anyone who is not himself bound by a [religious] duty can not facilitate the performance of that duty [by another].

14:
In the context of our present study this means that only someone who themselves are required to hear the Shofar sounded on Rosh ha-Shanah can facilitate the observance of that Mitzvah by the rest of the public. Though, of course, since this is a general rule, it applies to all Mitzvot.

This concludes our study of the third chapter of this Tractate