Sukkah, Daf Mem Daled, Part 3

 

Introduction

In this section the amoraim dispute the status of the aravah ritual.

 

אתמר: רבי יוחנן ורבי יהושע בן לוי, חד אמר: ערבה יסוד נביאים, וחד אמר: ערבה מנהג נביאים.

 

It was stated: R. Yohanan and R. Joshua b. Levi disagree: One holds that the aravah is an institution of the prophets, the other holds that the aravah is a custom of the prophets.

 

According to both of these amoraim, the aravah ritual is attributed to the prophets. However, they dispute the exact nature of how it originated. According to one amora it seems to have been a formal institution enacted by the prophets, whereas according to the other amora, it was a custom, not a formal institution. Rashi explains that the ramification for this dispute is whether one says a blessing over the aravah ritual. If it s a formal institution, then one does say a blessing. But if it’s just a custom, then one does not.

In any case, as occasionally occurs, we are not sure who said what.

תסתיים דרבי יוחנן הוא דאמר יסוד נביאים, דאמר רבי אבהו אמר רבי יוחנן: ערבה יסוד נביאים הוא, תסתיים.

אמר ליה רבי זירא לרבי אבהו: מי אמר רבי יוחנן הכי? והאמר רבי יוחנן משום רבי נחוניא איש בקעת בית חורתן: עשר נטיעות, ערבה, וניסוך המים הלכה למשה מסיני!

 

It can be concluded that it was R. Yohanan who said: It is an institution of the prophets since R. Abbahu stated in the name of R. Yohanan: The rite of the aravah is an institution of the prophets. This is conclusive.

R. Zera sad to R. Abbahu, Did R. Yohanan really say that? Did not R. Yohanan say in the name of R. Nehunya of the Valley of Beth Havartan that the law of the ten plants, the aravah and the water libation were given to Moses on Mount Sinai?

 

The first statement here seems to be conclusive evidence that R. Yohanan was the one who said that it is a "institution of the prophets." But R. Zera argues with R. Abbahu that from another statement we can see that R. Yohanan holds that the ritual was related to Moses on Sinai, long before the prophets. So which is it?

 

+דניאל ד+ אשתומם כשעה חדא ואמר: שכחום וחזרו ויסדום.

 

He was silent for a while (Daniel 4:16), and then he answered: They were forgotten and the prophets reinstituted them.

 

R. Abahu takes some time to answer this one. He then finds a way to maintain both statements of R. Yohanan. The aravah ritual was indeed given to Moses on Sinai. However, the Jews then forgot the commandment, assumedly when exiled to Babylonia. The prophets reinstituted the ritual when the Second Temple was built.

ומי אמר רבי יוחנן הכי? והאמר רבי יוחנן: דלכון אמרי, דלהון היא!

לא קשיא; – כאן – במקדש, כאן – בגבולין.

 

But did R. Yohanan really say this? Did not R. Yohanan in fact state What I said was yours was in fact theirs?

Rather: This is no difficulty–one statement refers to the Temple and the other to the Provinces.

 

The Talmud cites another statement issued by R. Yohanan. This statement is complicated and has an interesting story so I will translate Rashi’s interpretation.

 

R. Kahana was a student of Rav, and he was very sharp. He fled to the land of Israel, to R. Yohanan, due to persecutions [in Babylonia], for he had killed a man, as it is stated in the last chapter of Bava Kamma (117a). R. Yohanan depended on R. Kahana to answer some questions. [Because of this] R. Yohanan would say to the people of the land of Israel: I thought that the Torah was yours, for you had not been exiled from your land and you had not suffered the troubles of exile. But now I see that it belongs to the people of Babylonia, for even though they were exiled, they were supported by the wise of the exile of Yehanyah (end of seventh century B.C.E.) .Thus we can see that the Torah was never lost during the Babylonian exile.

 

So R. Yohanan does not believe that the Jews forgot their Torah during the Babylonian exile.

The Talmud now resolves the difficulty in a different way. In the Temple the aravah ritual is a halakhah given to Moses on Sinai. When God instructed Moses to teach this ritual, its observance was restricted to the Temple. But the prophets expanded its observance to the provinces as well. This follows what we have seen earlier, that when the Temple still stood the aravah ritual was observed in the Provinces as well.