Daf Ditty Eruvin 46: the Leniency of Grief (And Eruvin)

Daf Ditty Eruvin 46: The leniency of Grief (and Eruvin) Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill. Robert Louis Stevenson 1 Rabbi Ya’akov bar Idi said that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: The halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nuri, that one who was asleep at the beginning of Shabbat may travel two thousand cubits in every direction. Rabbi Zeira said to Rabbi Ya’akov bar Idi: Did you hear this halakha explicitly from Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, or did you understand it by inference from some other ruling that he issued? Rabbi Ya’akov bar Idi said to him: I heard it explicitly from him. 2 The Gemara asks: From what other teaching could this ruling be inferred? The Gemara explains: From that which Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: The halakha is in accordance with the lenient opinion with regard to an eiruv. The Gemara asks: Why do I need both? Why was it necessary for Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi to state both the general ruling that the halakha is in accordance with the lenient opinion with regard to an eiruv, and also the specific ruling that the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nuri on this issue? Rabbi Zeira said: Both rulings were necessary, as had he informed us only that the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nuri, I would have said that the 3 halakha is in accordance with him whether this is a leniency, i.e., that a sleeping person acquires residence and may walk two thousand cubits in every direction, or whether it is a stringency, i.e., that ownerless utensils acquire residence and can be carried only two thousand cubits from that place. Consequently, he teaches us that the halakha is in accordance with the lenient opinion with regard to an eiruv, so that we rule in accordance with Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nuri only when it entails a leniency. The Gemara asks: Let him state only that the halakha is in accordance with the lenient opinion with regard to an eiruv. Why do I need the statement that the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nuri? The Gemara answers: This ruling was necessary as well, for had he informed us only that the halakha is in accordance with the lenient opinion with regard to an eiruv, it might have entered your mind to say that this statement applies only to disputes in which a single authority disagrees with another single authority, or several authorities disagree with several other authorities. But when a single authority maintains a lenient opinion against several authorities who maintain a more stringent position, you might have said that we do not rule in his favor. Hence, it was necessary to state that the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nuri although he disputes the Rabbis. whether a sleeping person כחמ י ם and the יונר ןב ןנויח 'ר of לחמ ו תק we learned a ףד In the previous תבש חת ו ם .– רמא בר י בעיק רב ידיא רמא בר י עשהיו ןב ול י הכלה רכב י ןנויח ןב יונר acquires a . מא ו ת of 2000 חת ו ם and acquires a, וק הנ בש י הת that a sleeping person is יונר ןב ןנויח 'ר We pasken like offers three explanations of why it was necessary to state this explicitly after we already אמגר The We always follow the more lenient opinion in הכלה ירדכב מה י לק עב י ר ו ב – have a general rule of . יבויער ן כלה תו ל 4 And Rabbi Yoḥanan holds like Shmuel, as Shmuel said: The halakha is in accordance with the lenient opinion with regard to mourning practices, i.e., wherever there is a dispute with regard to mourning customs, the halakha is in accordance with the lenient opinion. From here the Gemara infers: It is only with regard to mourning practices that the Sages were lenient, but in general, with regard to other areas of halakha, even in the case of rabbinic laws there is a difference between a disagreement of a single authority with a single authority and a disagreement of a single authority with several authorities. 5 This being the case, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi did well to rule explicitly that the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nuri, even though he is a single authority who ruled leniently in dispute with the Rabbis. Rabbi Maurice Lamm cited this sugya in his treatise on mourning:1 1 Cited in Reality Check: A Handbook of Hashkafa, Yosef Segal. Mosaica Press 2016, and More than a Tear Yigal Segal 2013 Judaica Press. 6 Rabbi Seth Goren writes2 In European history, the phrase “exploding diets” refers to the situation when each member of the Polish legislature had veto power over the body’s actions, leading to governmental atrophy, vulnerability to predatory neighbors, and ultimately the dismemberment of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Exploding diets are a cautionary tale about the consequences of hamstringing legislative rules. Fortunately, on today’s daf, we get some more helpful instruction about the mechanics of legal decision making. Rabba bar bar Ḥana said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Wherever you find that a single authority is lenient with regard to a certain halakha and several other authorities are stringent, the halakha is in accordance with the words of the stringent authorities, who constitute the majority, except for here, where despite the fact that the opinion of Rabbi Akiva is lenient and the opinion of the rabbis is more stringent, the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Akiva. For a bit of context, yesterday’s daf had the rabbis debating a lenient opinion on an eruv question. Today, they find themselves in a wider discussion about majority rule in Jewish law. In trying to determine the general principles about when the halakha follows the majority and when it doesn’t, the Gemara relates a tradition about the laws of mourning. If someone received a report that one of their close relatives died, the majority of rabbis say that they should observe both the intense seven-day period of mourning (known as shiva) and the customs of the 30-day mourning period, regardless of when the report was received. But Rabbi Akiva takes a more lenient view, ruling that this is true only if the report arrives within 30 days of the relative’s death. If it comes later, only one day of mourning is observed. According to Rabbi Yohanan, Rabbi Akiva’s lenient take wins out over the more stringent opinion, even though we generally follow the rule of the majority. Why is that, exactly? The Gemara continues: It is only with regard to mourning practices that the sages were lenient, but in general, with regard to other areas of halakha, even in the case of rabbinic laws there is a difference between a disagreement of a single authority with a single authority and a disagreement of a single authority with several authorities. The Gemara doesn’t tell us what’s special about the laws of mourning that we disregard the views of the majority. But it does reaffirm what we know from various other places in the Talmud: In general, when there is disagreement between one rabbi and many rabbis, the law follows the opinion of the many. This is true even if a voice calls out from heaven and endorses the minority view, as we’ll see in a famous story in Tractate Bava Metzia. (the oven of Achani, Lo bashamayim) The principle of majority rule, and the concomitant rejection of both divine intervention and individual veto power, have enabled Jewish law to evolve in a relatively steady fashion. This helps 2 Myjewishlearning.org 7 avoid the gridlock and indecision that can prevent communities from responding to new challenges and contribute to ongoing flexibility and deliberate innovation. The Gemara here lays down a principle: “Halachah k'divrei hameykeil b'eruv” — the Halachah, in an argument concerning matters of eruv, follows the more lenient opinion.3 Rashi notes that although this specific sugya concerns eruvei techumin, the principle applies to all types of eruvin. Unfortunately, this principle is often misapplied. Indeed, some modern authorities even extend this principle to the point of using it to support their own lenient rulings. Although there are some authorities who interpret the principle in its narrow, literal sense, and opine that it only applies to issues that concern the eruvei chatzeiros — the collection of bread that unites the Jews in the eruv (see, for example, Ritva to Eruvin 85b), many authorities maintain that Halachah k’divrei hameikil even in issues that concern the enclosure itself (see Beiur HaGra, Orach Chaim 358:5; see Noam vol. 1 pp. 214-215 and Nesivos Shabbos 15:2 and notes 4-5 for a list of sources that deal with this principle and summaries of their opinions). Dagul Me'Revavah (Orach Chaim §394; see also Beiur HaGra loc. cit.) derive from our Gemara that the principle applies even when it leads us to rule in accordance with an individual authority against the majority of authorities. The Chazon Ish, Orach Chaim, 112:10, proves that this principle does not apply to later authorities.

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