Sukkah, Daf Nun Daled, Part 4
Introduction
Today’s section deals with the assertion of the mishnah that there were a maximum of 48 blasts in the Temple. There were indeed cases in which there were more.
ואין מוסיפין על ארבעים ושמונה.
ולא, והא איכא ערב הפסח שחל להיות בשבת, דאי לרבי יהודה – חמשין וחדא, אי לרבנן – חמשין ושבע!
And never more than forty-eight.
No? But is there not the eve of Pesah which falls on Shabbat, on which according to R. Judah, there were fifty-one blasts, and according to the Rabbis there were fifty-seven?
The mishnah stated that there were never more than 48 blasts. But on erev Pesah which falls on Shabbat there would have been 51 according to R. Judah (21 regular, 9 for musaf, 21 for the Hallel of the three groups offering their pesah sacrifices) or 57 according to the rabbis (27 for the Hallel of the three groups all three groups recited Hallel three times). So why would the mishnah state that there were only 48?
כי קתני – מידי דאיתיה בכל שנה, ערב הפסח שחל להיות בשבת, דליתיה בכל שנה ושנה – לא קתני.
[Our Mishnah] mentioned only those which recur every year, but the eve of the Pesah which falls on the Sabbath, since it does not occur every year, it did not teach.
The answer is that the mishnah only teaches occasions that occur every year. Erev Pesah which falls on Shabbat is a rare occurrence so it was not taught in the mishnah.
אטו ערב שבת שבתוך החג מי איתיה בכל שנה? זימנין דלא משכחת ליה, והיכי דמי – כגון שחל יום טוב ראשון בערב שבת.
Does then erev Shabbat during the Festival of Sukkot occur every year?
Sometimes it does not happen at all, and when is this so, for instance, the first day of the Festival coincides with the eve of Shabbat?
The problem with the above resolution is that erev Shabbat does not fall during Hol Hamoed Sukkot every year either. If the Festival of Sukkot begins on Friday, then there will be no erev Shabbat during Hol Hamoed Sukkot. The next Friday will be Shemini Atzeret, no longer Hol Hamoed Sukkot.
כי מקלעינן יום טוב ראשון בערב שבת, מדחי דחינן ליה, מאי טעמא – כיון דאיקלע יום טוב הראשון של חג להיות בערב שבת, יום הכיפורים אימת הוי? – בחד בשבת, הלכך דחינן ליה.
When the first day of the Festival [of Sukkot] would coincide with the eve of Shabbat, they postpone it.
What is the reason?
Because if the first day of the Festival of Sukkot were to fall on the eve of Shabbat, when would Yom Kippur be? On the [previous] Sunday.
Therefore it is postponed.
The Talmud resolves this by stating that the rabbis who shape the calendar never let the first day of Sukkot fall on erev Shabbat. This is because if the 15th of the month of Elul (Sukkot) falls on Friday, then the tenth of the month, which is Yom Kippur, falls on Sunday. Yom Kippur can never fall on Sunday because the sages didn’t want erev Yom Kippur to be on Shabbat, for this would mean two days in a row of a biblical holiday. There are two problems with this scenario. One, on erev Shabbat people would have to gather their vegetables for the break fast meal two days later. During times when they didn’t have refrigeration, this would have presented a problem. The second problem is that there would be two days in a row in which a person couldn’t be buried. Again, without refrigeration, this would cause a problem.
They would postpone Yom Kippur by a day by making sure that they made Elul a full month, meaning a month of thirty days.