The core prohibition of learning Torah on Tisha Be’av permits certain narrow exceptions (see Taanit 30a).[1]  Most well known is the allowance to study tragic material, such as Jeremiah and Job.  This makes much sense.  As the Talmud explains, the ban on learning during Tisha Be’av derives from the joyous nature of Torah study (“The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart (Psalms 19:9)”).  But depressing subject matter does not have this quality, and therefore its study is entirely consistent with this day of historic mourning.[2]

Yet a lesser known dispensation is more difficult to fathom.  According to one tannaitic opinion a person may study material that is unfamiliar on Tisha Be’av: koreh hu be-makom she-eino ragil likrot, ve-shoneh be-makom she-eino ragil lishnot (he may, however, read sections which he does not usually read and study portions which he does not usually study).[3]  What is the basis for this leniency?  Rashi offers a similar explanation to the one above: keivan delo yada it le tsara (since it is unfamiliar to him, it causes him distress).  The difficulty (tsaar) of studying unknown material diminishes the joy.  Therefore, such learning is permissible on Tisha Be’av.   

Rashi’s widely-held explanation is not entirely satisfactory.  On an experiential level, exploring fresh material and encountering novel Torah concepts often generates much joy for a Torah student.[4]  Perhaps more to the point, Rashi’s explanation seems halakhically objectionable as well.    Consider the discussion in poskim about whether one can read Torah verses as part of a set recital (i.e., as part of davening, or in preparation for Torah leining, etc.).[5]  The thrust of the lenient viewpoint is that when material is sufficiently familiar to a person, and its study or recitation are essentially routine, it engenders less joy.  Why does the gemara not state that leniency here?  Further, the relaxation of the prohibition for routine study cuts in the opposite direction of Rashi’s explanation of the allowance to learn unknown material.  In the former case, the argument is that the more familiar the subject matter the lesser the joy, while in the latter case the argument is reversed.  Although both positions have a certain internal logic, their opposite orientations seem inconsistent, and difficult to harmonize.  Moreover, in another context, the gemara discusses when one is obligated to study Torah inside of a Sukkah and when one is exempt under the rubric of mitstaer.[6]  Distinguishing between different kinds of study, the gemara states that learning be-iyun can take place outside of the Sukkah, for—as Rashi explains there—one who has to exert much mental energy to plumb the depths of a (no doubt familiar) topic is mitstaer.  Why do we not have a similar dispensation to learn a familiar topic be-iyun on Tisha Bav?[7]    

As an alternative to Rashi, therefore, I would suggest that rather than focusing on joy, or the tsaar which cancels the joy, the crux of this leniency lies elsewhere—in the very nature of learning unfamiliar material.  When a person is koreh be-makom she-eino ragil likrot his or her primary experience is confusion.  Studying alien material is disorienting, and one of the few forms of learning that is allowed on Tisha Be’av is confused Talmud Torah![8]

*  *  *

Why may one study confused Torah on Tisha Ba’av?  What is the origin of this idea?[9]

A Talmudic source from a different context may shed light on this concept.  Offering a dramatic description of the aftermath of Moshe’s death, Temurah 16b states: 

Rab Judah reported in the name of Samuel: Three thousand traditional laws were forgotten during the period of mourning for Moshe…It has been taught: A thousand and seven hundred kal va-homer and gezerah shavah and specifications of the Scribes were forgotten during the period of mourning for Moshe. 

What this remarkable gemara captures is the pervasive confusion triggered by a national cataclysm and widespread grief (in this case precipitated by the death of Rabban shel Yisrael).  The intensive trauma of Moshe’s death ruptures tradition, and leads to an erosion in the understanding of Torah.

Another poignant gemara about Moshe’s death may subtly reinforce this same theme.  In the context of analyzing the distinct halakhic status[10] of the final eight verses of the Torah which describe Moshe’s death, the gemara (Bava Batra 15a and Menahot 30a) debates whether Yehoshua or Moshe authored these epilogue verses.  If Yehoshua authored them, then it is apparent why they have a different halakhic status.  But what if Moshe authored them?  R. Shimon offers the following explanation:

Said R. Shimon … what we must say is that up to this point the Holy One, blessed be He, dictated and Moshe repeated and wrote, and from this point God dictated and Moshe wrote bedema (with tears)…

Similar to the Temura passage, this gemara likewise understand that mourning over the death of Moshe—even Moshe’s own mourning—affects the transmission of Torah.  Instead of following the usual protocol of repeating the Torah and then transcribing it, a distraught Moshe does not reiterate the final verses.  Moreover, instead of ink, Moshe uses less permanent tears to record these sorrowful verses.  Intensive mourning interferes with the process of revelation.  Another interpretation of this passage offered by the Vilna Gaon[11] may have a similar connotation.  According to the Gra, Moshe wrote the final verses bedema-bedimua—that is, in confusion and out of order.  Perhaps these two interpretations of R. Shimon’s teaching converge: Moshe, writing in tears of sorrow, wrote a confused Torah.  For the Torah of trauma and irreparable loss is one of chaos and confusion.

Returning to the context of the destruction of the Temple, traces of the same theme can also be discerned.  Already beginning with the advent of the Three Weeks, a striking Yerushalmi revolves around this notion.  Reacting to the Mishnah’s explanation of the 17^th of Tammuz as the day when the Temple walls were breached, the Talmud asks why Jeremiah (52:6) records a different date, the 9^th of Tammuz.  Responding to this inconsistency, the Yerushalmi provides a startling response.[12]  Even though the tradition of the 17^th as recorded by the Mishnah is correct, there was kilkul heshbonot (a breakdown in the calculation) which led Jeremiah to record the wrong date.  But this is difficult to comprehend:  how could Jeremiah, who writes with prophetic accuracy, record the wrong date?[13]  In light of the above theme, however, one could suggest that Jeremiah’s prophecy reflects the chaos of churban where inspired traditions are confused.  A jarring miscalculation reminds the biblical reader that even the steadfast prophet cannot withstand the turmoil of catastrophe.

In the throes of destruction, at the nadir of Tisha Be’av, the helpless bewilderment knows no bounds.  Midrash Eichah Rabbah (Petihta 23) reads as follows:

…one finds that all the difficult and tragic prophecies that Jeremiah prophesied did not come about upon them until after the destruction of the Temple, “on the day when the guards of the house tremble (Kohelet 12:3)”…” and those who grind cease working (Ibid.),” this refers to the great Mishnaic collections, such as the Mishnah of Rabbi Akiva and the Mishnah of Rabbi Oshaya and the Mishnah of Bar Kappara, “because they are few (Ibid),” this is the Talmud which is included in the them, “and those who look through the windows see dimly,” one finds that when Israel went into exile among the nations not one of them could recall his own learning …(emphasis added) 

A harrowing depiction of the unraveling of tradition in the wake of disaster, the ultimate line captures the paralyzing confusion of the exiled sages.  Likewise, Midrash Eichah Rabbah (Petihta 25) sounds a similar motif:

…regarding that hour he says, “Give glory to the Lord your God before He brings darkness (Jeremiah 13),” before He brings darkness onto you from the words of Torah, before He brings darkness onto you from the words of the prophets…

An ominous destruction extinguishes the illumination of Torah.  Instead of clairvoyance, the Torah student struggles to make sense of tradition through a dimming darkness. 

The very layout of Eichah’s lament displays the same essential theme.  As Rav Soloveitchik often stressed, the first four chapters of this book adheres to a strict aleph-bet acrostic structure (with the third chapter following a triplet for every sequential letter).[14]  However, at the apex of the book—at the culmination of catastrophe and destruction—this structure crumbles.  A chaotic dispersal of verses overwhelms the fixed control maintained throughout the early chapters of misfortune.  Commotion and upheaval are unleashed in the heart of calamity.

Thus, the baraita’s allowance to study confusing subject matter is a pained invitation to experience the tragic Torah of Tisha Be’av;[15] to enter into the trauma of churban where one is afflicted with “…madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.”[16] 

[2] Indeed, the Rav argued that such study constitutes a kiyum in the day of Tisha Be’av.  See Shiurei Harav on Avelut and Tisha Be’av, p.45.

[3] This opinion is first recorded in Yerushalmi Moed Katan 3:5 in the context of a mourner, but the Bavli may only apply this in the context of Tisha Be’av (see fn. 1).  This opinion is rejected lehalacha by most poskim.  But see Rosh Moed Katan 3:37, and the discussion in the Talmud Halakha Berura.

[4] See Taz Oreh Hayim 554:2.  See also the discussion of the Rav in Harere Kedem, volume 2, pp. 291-93.

[5] See Tur OH 559 and Shulkhan Arukh OH 554:4.

[6] Sukkah 28a-b and Rashi ad loc.

[7] One could respond that one has both simha and tsaar and the two are not contradictory.  But that would also apply in the context of koreh hu be-makom she-eino ragil likrot.  Indeed, that is another objection to Rashi’s explanation on Taanit 30a.  Namely, why does tsaar in the learning process negate the inherent simha of Talmud Torah?  One can have both simha and tsaar at the same time.

[8] Thus, it is less about the hefza of unfamiliar Torah, and more about the masseh (or kiyum) of this kind of Talmud Torah.

[9] While my explanation below may extend to all mourners, it makes most sense in the context of a pervasive national trauma.  See fn. 1 above. 

[10] See Rashi and Tosafot on Bava Batra 15a.  See also Rambam and Raavad Hilkhot Tefilah 13:6.

[11] See Aderet Eliyahu al Ha-Torah.

[12] Contrast this with the explanation offered in Bavli Taanit 28b.

[13] I thank Rabbi David Stein who brought this question to my attention (citing Rabbi J.J. Schacter), and noting the discussion of the Maharsha on Taanit 28b.

[14] See The Lord is Righteous in All His Ways (ed. Rabbi J.J. Schacter), pp. 134-136.  I believe that the above explanation which interprets the chaos of chapter five as reflecting the intensifying churban is also the insight of the Rav, but I have not been able to identify a source.

[15] Having lost a firm grasp over the Torah, the intensive mourner senses it slipping away in the bleak hour of destruction.  Indeed, a haunting ritual recorded in Masechet Soferim (likely of Geonic provenance) captures this feeling:

The reader of Tisha Bav says, ‘Baruch Dayan Ha-emet.’  Some place the Torah on the ground in a black wrapping and say, ‘The crown is fallen from our head (Lam 5:16),’ and they rend their garments and eulogize as with a man whose dead lies before him.…

Instead of grasping the living Torah (Etz Hayim Hi le-mahaziqim Bah), this ritual demonstrates the Temple mourner’s loss of control over a lifeless one.  Indeed, the state of confusion described above is only the first phase in national mourning.  Afterwards, a more devastating silence sets in.  Numerous additional sources reflect this theme in the context of Tisha Bav mourning and Torah study, and require separate treatment.

For an additional analysis of the Soferim passage, see Rabbi Nati Helfgot, Or Hamizrach 42:2 (1994), pp.179ff.

[16] The full verse reads “The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind (Devarim 28:28).”  I Thank Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Helfand for reminding me of the poignancy of this verse.  The Ramban (Vayikra 26:16 and Devarim 28:42) links the tockheha of Devarim to the churban of the Second Temple.

The Angel’s Oath:  The Relationship of Hazal to the Platonic Doctrine of Recollection

by David C. Flatto

Whereas balei mussar and machshava dramatize the great clash between Judaism and Hellenism (which serves as the background to the holiday of Hanukka), Jewish historians go to great lengths to demonstrate the degree to which Second Temple Judaism was influenced by Hellenism (including the Hasmonean dynasty).  Both of these perspectives contain elements of truth.  A study of the respective attitudes, creeds, and ideologies of Jews and Greeks reveals clear disparities and striking similarities.  A third kind of relationship between Jewish and Greek ideas also exists: where their respective approaches seem to overlap, but, upon closer scrutiny, diverge in significant ways.  Here the encounter between Judaism and Hellenism is especially important for appreciating the Torah’s values, as the foil of Hellenism helps deepen one’s understanding of what is distinctive about Jewish thought. 

*  *  *

Let me try to demonstrate this by revisiting a legendary Talmudic passage describing the fetus studying Torah: Bavli Niddah 30b.[1]  The passage begins with R. Simlai’s teaching depicting the fetus positioned in the mother’s womb:

R. Simlai delivered the following discourse: What does an embryo resemble when it is in the bowels of its mother? A folded writing tablet.  Its hands rest on its two temples respectively… A light burns above its head and it looks and sees from one end of the world to the other, as it is said, “Then his lamp shined above my head, and by His light I walked through darkness (Job 29).”  … And there is no time in which a man enjoys greater happiness than in those days, for it is said, “O that I were as the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me (Job 29)”…

After initially comparing the fetus’ posture to a writing tablet, the Talmud proceeds to employ fantastic language to describe the extraordinary illumination and bliss of the period of gestation.  In the continuation, the passage cites the famous legend about the fetus studying Torah from the angel:

It is also taught all the Torah from beginning to end, for it is said, “And he taught me, and said unto me: Let thy heart hold fast my words, keep my commandments and live (Proverbs 14),” and it is also said, “When the converse of God was upon my tent (Job 29)”…

Just as light exposes the fetus to a world-spanning view (“from one end of the world to the other”), so an angel elucidates the entire Torah to the fetus (“from beginning to end”).  Ensconced within a hallowed chamber, the fetus achieves a perfect apprehension of the Torah. 

The utopian existence which the fetus enjoys while in the womb is shattered when it is expelled from inside.  Abruptly, the epiphanies of gestation are lost in the trauma accompanying childbirth:

As soon as it sees the light, an angel approaches, slaps it on its mouth and causes it to forget all the Torah completely, as it is said, “Sin coucheth at the door (Gen. 4)”… 

Once having mastered the entire Torah, the newborn loses all knowledge, and now has to begin the process of “retrieval’ of prior wisdom.  In a beautiful account of this process, Rabbi Soloveitchik helps characterizes the nature of this learning:[2] 

R. Simlai wanted to tell us that when a Jew studies Torah he is confronted with something which is not foreign and extraneous, but rather intimate and already familiar, because he has already studied it, and the knowledge was stored up in the recesses of his memory and became part of him.  He studies, in effect, his own stuff.  Learning is the recollection of something familiar.

 The formulation in the last sentence evokes the classical Platonic doctrine of recollection, as Rabbi Soloveitchik notes in the proximate footnote:

One is reminded, by sheer terminological association, of the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis.

My only quibble with this formulation is that the similarity here is far greater than a terminological coincidence, and cuts to the essence of the underlying idea.  Both Plato and Hazal assume that in a pre-natal state a person had a perfect conception of the truth (or the forms), which was severely eroded at the moment of birth.[3]  Therefore, learning consists in a lifetime attempt to restore this prior knowledge.  Indeed, other Jewish studies scholars dating back to the nineteenth century have noted this profound parallel between Hellenistic and Rabbinic thought.  In Ephraim Urbach’s words:[4] 

In the motif of the unborn child’s knowledge of the Torah and his forgetting it upon being born, scholars, since Jellinek, have discerned the άναμνησις of the Platonic myth… 

In all, Athens and Jerusalem share an essential view of pre-natal life,[5] the idealization of pre-natal knowledge, and especially the characterization of study as retrieval.[6]

*  *  *

Yet despite these profound resemblances, the core conceptions of Greek and Rabbinic thought are actually dramatically different—a point which only becomes apparent by focusing more carefully on this same foundational myth.

To appreciate this distinction, it is worth briefly pondering the Platonic doctrine of recollection.  The essence of this Platonic idea is relatively straightforward:[7] Plato posits that the psyche or soul has pure apprehensions of the ideal forms.  Once the soul is imprisoned within a physical frame, this perception is severely impaired.  A human being can only perceive a shadow of the ideal forms, and must utilize his rational faculties to try to transcend these limits, and acquire a greater understanding of the truth.  This process is repeated in successive incarnations until man succeeds in permanently acquiring a lasting apprehension of the truth.  Thus, the process of recollection aims to comprehend the truth by rising beyond the limits of temporal life, and escaping the trappings of the human existential condition.[8]

At first blush, Hazal would seem to echo this idea by describing the fetus’s tenure in idyllic terms that surpass a person’s life experience, “And there is no time in which a man enjoys greater happiness than in those days…”  Having previously mastered the entirety of Torah, a human will tirelessly strive to approximate his prior wisdom, evidently aiming to heal the rupture of entering a human form.  Moreover, the biblical verses from Job which are a subtext to this Talmudic passage seem to reflect precisely this sentiment.  Of course earlier in this biblical book (chapter 3) Job bluntly curses the day of his birth, and according to Hazal’s daring reading of Job 29,[9] he again expresses a similar yearning to return to a pre-natal existence (not just the days of youthful innocence, which is the simple sense of the verses). 

But the Talmud’s invocation of verses from Job—voicing a cry of tragic suffering—surely is grounds to pause.  For Job’s desperate mindset can hardly be thought of as representing a paradigmatic attitude.  Likewise, a closer reading of this passage points away from Job’s sentiments, and its Platonic resonances.   

A seeming inconsistency in the Talmudic description of the fetus provides an important hint along these lines.  While the thrust of the passage underscores the all-inclusive knowledge of the fetus, the initial characterization of the fetus in the passage suggests otherwise.  The opening lines compare the fetus to a folded writing tablet, or ledger (unlike, e.g., Mishnah Avot 3:16 which refers to an open writing tablet),[10] a tabula rasa which has yet to be opened for inscription.[11]  Within the womb, the fetus is a fresh ledger with no content.  Considered alongside the continuation of the passage, with its depiction of the fetus mastering Torah and wisdom, this portrayal makes little sense.  Why is the ledger folded and blank, rather than open and thoroughly scrawled with Torah content?  On closer inspection, these two images are reconcilable, and revealing.  For the notion of a ledger is used in rabbinic literature to describe the record of a human being’s deeds.[12]  Since the fetus in utero lies in a pre-natal state, this is necessarily empty.  In contrast, the child’s wisdom bank is full to capacity.[13]

The dichotomy between knowledge and action is crucial for perceiving the deeper message of this Talmudic account of the fetus.  It affords the key to understanding the decisive, concluding lines of this passage, describing the final interaction between the angel and the fetus immediately prior to birth:

It (=the fetus) does not emerge from there before it is made to take an oath… What is the nature of the oath that it is made to take? Be righteous, and never be wicked…

Administered at the culmination of the angel’s tutelage, the oath presumably epitomizes the main charge to the emergent newborn.  Nevertheless, the oath’s curious formulation is far from obvious.  Against the backdrop of the angel’s intensive Torah instruction which has just been erased, one would imagine an oath to adjure the newborn to resume his Torah study.  Something along the lines of, ‘Be wise, and never be foolish.’  Instead, the baby is charged to be righteous, not wicked.  In a deliberate shift, as the baby prepares to enter the world, the angel emphasizes a distinctive goal.  The ultimate lesson of the angel focuses on acting righteously, rather than on mastering Torah knowledge, as this constitutes the newborn’s supreme task.[14]

Moreover, this cardinal assignment is only possible outside of the womb.  Notwithstanding the utopian image of life in the womb—where illumination, wisdom and happiness are achieved—the purpose of life cannot be accomplished in the womb.[15]  For one thing that one cannot be inside the womb is righteous; or wicked for that matter, either.  These latter epithets are only assigned based upon how one lives—one’s concrete actions, in the face of moral choices—after exiting the womb.  As the Talmudic passage underscores by citing Genesis 4:7 (“as it is said, sin coucheth at the door…”), weighty moral hazards await the fetus outside the womb.  But only when navigating in such a landscape, can a person prevail and achieve righteousness or wickedness.  After immersing the purified soul in the well of Torah, the newborn is properly oriented to successfully engage in a world full of challenges, and adhere to his oath of righteousness.

Thus, the focus of the rabbinic legend of the fetus is not to highlight perfection within the womb, but the challenging call that beckons beyond it.  For human beings were essentially created for the precious, if formidable, mission that only begins after departing the womb.  Unlike the Platonic ideal of escaping the prison of the body in order to achieve transcendent contemplation, the Rabbinic ideal anticipates an inspired, but pulsating, human being, leading a righteous life of worldly actions.

[2] Rabbi Soloveitchik— “Redemption, Prayer, Talmud Torah” (Tradition 17:2,  p.69).

[3] For the Platonic doctrine, see Meno 80-86, Phaedo 66-76, Phaedrus 247-250 and the Republic, Books 5, 7 and 10.

[4] Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages (p.246).

[5] For other conceptions of pre-natal life, see the recent collection of essays in Vanessa R. Sasson and Jane Marie Law, eds., Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture (brought to my attention by Menachem Butler).

[6] Afterwards Urbach notes the position of Yitzhak Baer, who likewise recognizes the Platonic notion, but questions the physicality of the Talmudic description.  See also Urbach’s subsequent analysis on pp.246-48 which notes certain important differences between the Greek and Jewish images of pre-natal life.    

[7] Obviously I am simplifying a topic that has received much examination in classical scholarship (a useful volume that summarizes much scholarship is Richard Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato).  Still, as a general statement, I hope that my characterization is sufficiently accurate and helpful. 

[8] The Romantic poets spoke of the “eclipsing curse of birth.”  See Simon Blackburn, Plato’s Republic: A Biography (p.109).

[9]  “¹Job again took up his discourse and said: ²‘O that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; ³when his lamp shone over my head, and by his light I walked through darkness; ⁴when I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent; ⁵when the Almighty was still with me, when my children were around me…”

[10] On the nature of the pinkas or pinax, see Menahem Haran, “The Codex, the Pinax and the Wooden Slates,” in Tarbiz 57 (pp.151-164), and Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (pp.127-130).

[11] See Aristotle’s De Anima, Book 3, Chapter 4.  In a sense, then, the Talmudic passage collapses two Greek ideas that are irreconcilable as epistemological ideas, but can be harmonized along other lines.  See below.

[12] See, e.g., Mishnah Avot 3:16, Bereshit Rabbah 81:1 and tShabbat 1:13.

[13] This reading seems preferable to two less attractive alternatives: the first being that the folded writing tablet connotes a tablet that has been completely inscribed and folded; the second being that, while the folded writing tablet does connote a blank tablet, this merely reflects the initial state of the fetus, before learning Torah from the angel. 

[14]Study is greater, for it leads to action.  See Bavli Kiddushin 40b.

[15] This understanding of the Talmudic passage allows the rabbinic conception to better accord with the biological reality wherein fetal life is preparatory for human life outside of the womb.

by David C. Flatto

 Bridging the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Aseret Yemei Teshuva have an urgent and distinctive quality that is such a familiar aspect of the Jewish calendar.  Less known, however, is the earliest source for singling out these days.  While rabbinic authorities from the Geonic period onward discuss different customs applicable during this period,[1] the recognition of the unique nature of these days is usually traced back to Amoraic times:

 …it is written, ‘Seek ye the Lord while He may be found (Is 55:6)’…when may an individual [find him]? R. Nahman replied in the name of Rabbah b. Abbuha: In the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.[2]

Pointing to earlier biblical roots, the Rambam in his Guide plausibly suggests that the special standing of these days stems from the penitential essence of Rosh Hashana, preceding Yom Kippur and ushering in a period of introspection and potential transformation.[3]  In fact, another biblical source offers a clear basis for treating these days as extraordinary—the initiation of the Jubilee year.  More, this law offers an instructive paradigm, at least by way of analogy, for how to pass through this window of time

Heralding the start of the Jubilee year, the Shofar blast is sounded on Yom Kippur (see Vayikra 25:9).  Still, the Mishnah proclaims that Rosh Hashana marks the commencement of the Jubilee year (see mRH 1:1).  The Rambam, based on a talmudic passage, traces this to the biblical injunction to consecrate the entire fiftieth year (see Yayikra 25:10).[4]  Ascribing importance to both calenderic dates, the Torah evidently envisions two pivotal moments at the beginning of the Jubilee year.  But how exactly is the relationship between these days to be negotiated?  A tannaitic teaching codified by the Rambam spells out a precise protocol:

From Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur, slaves where neither released to their homes nor retained as subjects of their masters, nor were fields restored to their original owners.  Rather slaves ate, drank, and rejoiced, with their wreaths upon their heads (ve-atarotehem be-roshehem).  Once the Day of Atonement arrived and the court caused the Shofar to be sounded, slaves were released to their homes and the fields were restored to their original owners.[5]

Dawning at Rosh Hashana, the Jubilee year commences in a gradual manner but only fully radiates on Yom Kippur when all the essential Jubilee laws apply.[6]  During this liminal period—that is precisely during the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur—a special halachic status comes into effect.  Here then we encounter the earliest manifestation of the distinctive nature of this period.

*  *  *

Coinciding with Aseret Yemei Teshuva,[7] and significant in their own right, this interval of days, and their precise halachic standing, deserves further exploration.  Ahronim, who rightfully struggle to fathom the import of these days, are puzzled by whether they presume that Jubilee begins at Rosh Hashanah or at Yom Kippur?  While the vital halachic laws only begin at Yom Kippur, already at Rosh Hashana the slave owner must relinquish his proprietorship.[8] In order to elucidate this seemingly arbitrary compromise, the Turei Even advances the following theory: Jubilee commences on Rosh Hashana, assuming that the Shofar is subsequently sounded on Yom Kippur.[9]  Given the uncertainty about the forthcoming blast, the ten days from Rosh Hashana onwards have an indeterminate quality.  Accordingly, the master can no longer work the slave (since the blast may be sounded which would retroactively forbid such subjugation), but he still may not be freed (since the blast may not be sounded). 

[Note that on a structural level, this indeterminacy is reminiscent of the more familiar dimensions of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.  As both are days of judgment (differentiated in our liturgy by writing and sealing), the interim period between them is marked by uncertainty, where the benoni is held in abeyance (tluyin ve-omdin)]. 

Despite the ingenuity of this explanation, it fails to account for all the legal details, and more basically mischaracterizes the essence of these days.[10]  On a technical level, the exact same rationale should mandate releasing property from the title holder (all the while not transferring it back to its previous owner), and prohibit working the land (as a necessary stringency).  Moreover, a careful examination of the Rambam’s formulation reveals that the halacha does not treat this period as having a doubtful status.  For in addition to confirming that the slave cannot be enslaved nor set free, the Rambam adds a positive description of what the former slave does during these ten days (“Rather slaves ate, drank, and rejoiced, with their wreaths upon their heads (ve-atarotehem be-roshehem)”).  Uncertainty would never impose such an affirmative requirement. 

Actually, the former slave’s behavior makes little sense, especially according to the Ture Even’s analysis.  Prior to the Jubilee, the person’s status quo is slavery.  Jubilee releases him from his master, and his freedom is restored.  Yet his behavior during these ten days neither reflects what he is (a slave) or what he was (a commoner), but rather an entirely different persona:  an aristocrat who is adorned with luxuries. 

Essentially, the former slave assumes the air of nobility, a rather remarkable, but curious, transformation given his humble background.   While the underlying tannaitic description may be downplayed as a hyperbolic embellishment, the fact that the Rambam codifies this behavior in his Mishneh Torah lends normative force to this prescription.  Indeed, I would suggest that assuming this guise for ten days is a purposeful mandate which touches on the profound underlying theology of the Jubilee, and all cycles of return.

It would seem that the purpose of these days is to momentarily represent the boundless potential enabled by the Jubilee system, which misunderstood can almost have an opposite connotation.  At first blush the recidivism of this scheme implies an inherent futility with an almost depressing quality.  Seeking to escape the corrosions of time by restoring the status quo ante suggests the impossibility of progress: transcending what is requires reverting to what was.  Yet, precisely at the onset of the Jubilee, during its crucial ten day inauguration, a different prospect emerges: what can be.  Instead of enslavement, or quotidian life, a person affirms his capacity for a majestic future.  For ten days he behaves not as he is, not as he was, but how he could, one-day, be, if he galvanizes his freedom in a new direction.  While the past has no shackles, nobility only lies in the future.

I would suggest that a similar mood pervades Aseret Yemei Teshuva.  Left to the freedom of charting one’s own path, man drifts astray, and as the calendar resets the penitent is apparently beckoned to return—lashuv—to his point of departure.  Described in these terms, teshuva reflects a sad existential reality where man seems all but doomed.  Debunking this characterization, the ten days of renewal impart an altogether different message.  Rather than being only understood as a desperate purgatory where the penitent is plagued by the doubt of his or her pending judgment—caught between his present sinful state and his past innocence—[11]these days evoke the potential of a transformed future. 

Mirroring the onset of Jubilee, Aseret Yemei Teshuva consists of ten transcendent days borrowed from an ennobled world, a world that can be.[12]  In their wake, and with restored pre-lapsarian innocence, we embark on a hopeful journey forward to an alluring, and now slightly familiar, destination.

[2] Bavli Rosh Hashana 18a, Yevamot 49b, 105a.  See also Yerushalmi Shabbat 1:3, Bavli Berachot 12b, Keritut 5a, Horayot 12b, etc.

[3] See Guide for the Perplexed 3:43 (see also his comments in Hilchot Teshuva 3:4).  This idea is reminiscent of the well known comment of the Ramban (Vayikra 23:36) regarding the chol hamoed status of the Omer days between Pesach and Shavuot. 

[4] See the Rambam’s Mishnah Commentary on mRH 1:1 (relying on the rabbinic sources cited in the next note).

[5] Hilchot Shemita veYovel 10: 14, based on Sifra Behar (Parsha 2, Perek 2) and the braitta cited in Bavli Rosh Hashana 8b.  The fact that the Rambam codifies this position is noteworthy, given that there apparently is a counter position in Hazal (see Bavli RH 8b), and also considering his halachic stance earlier in chapter 10 (see Sefas Emes on Rosh Hashana 8b).  See below for an additional implication that emerges from the Rambam’s codification of this tannaitic teaching. 

[6] I.e., the three definitional laws defined in the previous halacha (10:13): blasting the shofar, returning slaves home, and restoring fields to their previous owner.  Regarding declaring the year sacred and working the land, see Minhat Hinuch on Mitzvah 42, 331-35. 

[7] On a more homiletic scale, I would also note that the plight of slaves is relevant to all Jews who assume this status as part of their liturgic identity during the penitential season.  Likewise, some have noted the parallel language describing wreaths upon heads (atarotehem be-roshehem) which the Rambam uses here and in Hilchot Teshuva 8:2.  From this latter source we can clearly discern the importance of this expression, as the Rambam unpacks its loaded allegoric content.

[8] See also Rambam Hilchot Erechin 4:24, and the comments of the Lehem Mishnah and Mishnah La-Melech ad loc.  See also the discussion in Minhat Hinuch (cited in note 6 above).

[9] See his commentary on Rosh Hashana 8b.

[10] While the Turei Even may be correct in explaining the rationale why the individual is no longer enslaved but still not freed (although perhaps there is an alternative explanation), this analysis remains in the background.  Rather than characterizing the interim days as reflecting halachic doubt, and accordingly requiring requisite humrot, they have a positive and definitive quality, as explained below.

[11] Which, admittedly, is the connotation of some of the sources cited in notes 1 and 2 above (e.g. Bavli Keritut 5a and Bavli Horayot 12b).

[12] Various Minhagim of Aseret Yemei Teshuva may reflect this higher ideal.  See, e.g., the discussion regarding pat akum and purity during this period in Raavyah 529, Rosh (Rosh Hashana 4:14), Tur and Shulchan Aruch Orah Hayim 603, etc.