Q&A: An Added Prohibition on Yom Kippur That Falls on the Sabbath
An Added Prohibition on Yom Kippur That Falls on the Sabbath
Question
Did Abaye and Rava (Hullin 101b) disagree about the nature of time? According to Abaye, time is an objective entity, and therefore a given day can have the holiness of the Sabbath applied to it from the time of the first Sabbath of Creation, and the holiness of Yom Kippur from the sanctification of the month. According to Rava, time is subjective, and therefore holiness does not apply to it; rather, the prohibition of the Sabbath and the prohibition of Yom Kippur apply to the person, and that happens simultaneously at sunset. Does that seem right to you? Are there other possibilities?
Answer
It does not seem so from the plain sense of the Talmudic wording: “In the end, both of them come together.” It seems that even if the Sabbath is an object according to all opinions, Rava would still hold that the holiness applies to it only from the time this specific Sabbath begins, whereas according to Abaye the holiness already applies to it beforehand. However, from the very law of one prohibition taking effect on top of another, one might discuss whether it is possible to prove that the Sabbath is an existing object to which a prohibition applies. Perhaps the prohibition applies to the object involved in what will be a forbidden act of labor on the Sabbath.
I once brought something like a proof for this from the sugya of designation by analogy on the Fast of Gedaliah (Nedarim 12a and elsewhere). There it is proven that such designation can relate to a day, which means that a day is an object (at least according to the accepted understandings of such designation in vows).
Discussion on Answer
As I said, I do not see any necessity for that. Rava holds that the holiness applies to the Sabbath itself, but it can apply to it only from the point when it exists in the world. And Abaye holds that the holiness applies to the Sabbath already from the time of Creation. Both agree that this is holiness in the object itself (= the object of the day); the question is from when holiness can take effect on that object.
By the way, there are midrashim from which it appears that all the Sabbaths in the world are one unit (whoever kept one Sabbath, Scripture credits him as though he kept all the Sabbaths), and perhaps that is Abaye’s view, that the holiness applies to this Sabbath from the six days of Creation. And Rava holds that each Sabbath stands on its own.
I didn’t understand your point.
The wording of the Talmud is Rava’s objection, and according to him the holiness takes effect only when the Sabbath begins. My claim is that this assumption of his (which he doesn’t explain because for him it is obvious) stems from the fact that he sees time as a subjective dimension, and therefore you can’t apply holiness now to future time. If time is an object, then seemingly you can apply holiness to it.
According to Abaye, you can apply holiness to future time, and so it is clear that he sees it as an objective thing.
As for the actual application of holiness, indeed it could apply to the object, or more simply to the person.