Q&A: Several Notes on Bava Batra 121
Several Notes on Bava Batra 121
Question
To my master and teacher, the great Rabbi, may he live long and well, greetings and all the best.
I would be grateful for a response to several notes on Bava Batra 121.
I ask forgiveness for the trouble, but it is Torah, etc.
A) Rav Mattana said: the day on which those killed in Beitar were given burial. For Rav Mattana said: On the very day that those killed in Beitar were given burial, they instituted in Yavneh the blessing “Who is good and does good”: “Who is good” — because they did not decompose; “and does good” — because they were given burial.
This requires examination: why does “good” refer to their not decomposing, and “does good” refer to their being given burial? This needs clarification.
And I would further note regarding Rashbam, who wrote as follows: “For Rav Mattana said, etc. — and therefore they rejoiced that they merited burial and that they did not decompose.” End quote.
This is difficult: first, what exactly does he mean by this? And second, why did he depart from the language of the Talmud and put burial before decomposition? Perhaps the main beneficence was the burial, but this needs examination. See also the wording of Rashbam on Pesachim 104:
B) “Whoever adds, will have more added; one who does not add, yasif. What is yasif? Rav Yosef taught: his mother shall bury him.”
One could say, by way of wordplay, that his name was Rav Yosef and not Rav Yasif — examine this carefully.
See Rashbam, s.v. “What is yasif? Rav Yosef taught: his mother shall bury him” — “that he should die in half his days, as in ‘and their memory shall not yasuf from their seed,’ an expression of destruction. And we do not read it as ye’asef, because if so, what is the Talmud asking? That matter would be obvious, since ye’asef is an expression of death, as it is written: ‘Aaron shall be gathered to his people.’”
Rabbi Yehuda Pik, of blessed memory, wondered (in the book Omer HaShikhhah) about Rashbam, who brought a verse from Numbers and did not bring one from Genesis, as Tosafot brought in tractate Ta’anit. This needs examination.
C) “The day the axe was broken,” and see Rashbam that the axes were broken, etc.
This requires examination: first, what was the reason they broke the axes? And further, that seems to involve needless destruction, so this needs examination.
D) Rashbam: “Ahijah the Shilonite saw Amram, and Elijah saw Ahijah” — Talmud. “And this tanna does not hold that Elijah is Pinchas, for if that were so, it should have said: ‘Moses saw Amram, and Pinchas saw Moses’ — and he is still alive, so Ahijah would not have been needed at all.”
See Tosafot on the words “Seven spanned the whole world”: “This tanna held that Elijah was not Pinchas, for if he were Pinchas, he could have found it with fewer than seven: ‘Jair saw Jacob and saw Pinchas.’ And this tanna also held that Serah daughter of Asher does not live forever.”
This needs examination: why did Rashbam not explain like Tosafot?
With great respect,
Answer
1. As is known, among blessings of thanksgiving there is also the blessing “Who is good and does good.” The difference between it and “Who has kept us alive” is that “Who is good and does good” is recited when the matter is good both for him and for others. If so, in the “Who is good and does good” of Grace after Meals as well, it should be explained similarly: that they were brought to burial — that is good for them; and that they did not decompose — that is good also for us. I don’t know what Rashbam is adding here. It seems he was simply explaining the plain sense of the Talmud, to sharpen the point that there were two different reasons here.
2. First, if he had brought the verse from Genesis, you would ask why he didn’t bring one from Numbers. Second, sometimes people bring the better-known and more familiar verse. We find something similar in the Taz and in Nekudot HaKesef, Yoreh De’ah 240:24 (regarding honoring one’s grandfather, where Rashi in the Chumash was cited rather than a midrash of the Sages).
3. They were no longer needed, so they broke them. And they did not use them for mundane purposes because one ascends in holiness and does not descend (though I think these were not actually sacred vessels in the full technical sense that would prohibit such use). At the very least, they did this out of honor for the Temple. We similarly find regarding the High Priest’s garments on Yom Kippur and other cases that they would not be used after their service was complete. And when one does such things for a purpose (to express the sanctity of the Temple and the joy), there is no issue of needless destruction.
4. I don’t have time right now to get into this.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand the question. Rav Pappa did not come to resolve the “but rather” in the Mishnah, because that is difficult for him too. He came to resolve the first difficulty on Rav Nachman (from the Mishnah on 116b). True, he too is challenged by the latter part of the Mishnah, but that still had not been taken into account when Rav Pappa came to offer his suggestion. Not that they hadn’t thought of that Mishnah, but they hadn’t taken its latter clause into account, only its first clause.
He has to explain it this way precisely because of your difficulty. After all, they challenge Rav Pappa from the same Mishnah from which they challenged Rav Nachman, so why did Rav Pappa think his words would help? We are forced to say that in the meantime they had not considered the latter clause, only the first clause.
But it is hard to say that he didn’t take the latter clause of the Mishnah into account.
Indeed, but that is what emerges from the Talmud (for otherwise, why indeed would Rav Pappa offer his answer after the Mishnah had already been brought against Rav Nachman bar Yaakov?).
In general, in such passages one has to discuss whether this is really how the give-and-take took place in the amoraic study hall, or whether the editor arranged the material this way for didactic reasons. It may be that, factually, Rav Nachman bar Yaakov and Rav Pappa each offered his own answer in his own study hall, and each one was rejected from that Mishnah. The editor gathered these two discussions into one passage in order to show that both of these answers are contradicted by a Mishnah. He constructed it as though there were two proposals, each rejected from a different section of the Mishnah. But that is only a didactic form, to teach us that both proposals are incorrect. It is not necessarily a description of an exchange that actually took place. This still requires further examination.
What is the difference between “so-and-so said” (which sounds like past tense) and “so-and-so says” (which sounds like present tense), and why sometimes is it written one way and sometimes the other?
That’s not a question of tense. “So-and-so said” is an independent statement, while “so-and-so says” is a statement that disagrees with what came before it.
To my master and teacher, the great Rabbi, may he live long and well, greetings and all the best.
I have a difficulty with Rashbam on Bava Batra 122b, and I would be glad for a response.
“But rather, Rav Pappa said, etc.” — “For Rav Pappa too this was difficult, but as explained below; and he did not come to resolve this ‘but rather,’ but rather came to resolve the first difficulty, ‘but we already learned this too,’ and to establish it in another way so that it would not be difficult from that earlier Mishnah. ‘And from that later Mishnah, from which we challenge Rav Pappa, he had still not considered it, and so too all of them.’”
This needs examination, because from that very Mishnah from which they challenged Rav Nachman, they also challenged Rav Pappa. So how can one say that he had still not considered it?
And I do not know why he did not explain it simply, that each interpreter had not heard the words of his colleague (and the Ra’avad wrote this as well).
With great respect,