Quoting deficient verses
in Nazir 6b
In my daf yomi shiur yesterday, I discussed how there are potentially other means at arriving at 29 or 30 days for a standard nezirut. For instance, randomly and creatively, from parashat Ki Teitzei (Devarim 21:13-14), the yefat toar gets a shave / a haircut, and mourns her father and mother for a yerach yamim, a month of days. That is a connection of hair growth with a month, which can be a deficient month of 29 or a full month of 30.
Or, one of the pesukim cited in the Rabbi Yoshiya / Rabbi Yonatan dispute on Nazir 6b, namely Bemidbar 6:5:
כָּל־יְמֵי֙ נֶ֣דֶר נִזְר֔וֹ תַּ֖עַר לֹא־יַעֲבֹ֣ר עַל־רֹאשׁ֑וֹ עַד־מְלֹ֨את הַיָּמִ֜ם אֲשֶׁר־יַזִּ֤יר לַיהוָה֙ קָדֹ֣שׁ יִהְיֶ֔ה גַּדֵּ֥ל פֶּ֖רַע שְׂעַ֥ר רֹאשֽׁוֹ׃
All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come on his head: until the days are fulfilled, during which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.
I noted to the group that it says the completion of days, עַד־מְלֹ֨את הַיָּמִ֜ם, but hayamim is written chaser, missing the second yud. If we wanted to innovate a derasha, perhaps we could say that the chaser aspect may remove that 30th day.
In fact, this isn’t my own innovation. Someone suggests it in the parallel Yerushalmi, from Rabbi Yitzchak bar Elazar.
When I noted that the word hayamim was chaser, it surprised people, because in the Vilna Shas, it is written malei.
So too in Artscroll, in the phrase-by-phrase translation side. (Though in Torah Ohr Hashalem they have it correct.) So too in Sefaria’ presentation:
לֵימָא כְּתַנָּאֵי: ״עַד מְלֹאת הַיָּמִים״,
§ Until this point the Gemara has been attempting to prove whether the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rav Mattana or bar Padda. The Gemara now suggests: Let us say that this is parallel to a dispute between tanna’im, as it is taught in a baraita: The verse states: “Until the days are complete, in which he consecrated himself to the Lord, he shall be holy, he shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow long” (Numbers 6:5).
The Koren English translation gets it right:
And in the Hebrew Steinsaltz, it is correctly deficient in the main, vocalized text, but quoted as plene (full spelling) in the unvocalized commentary.
Generally speaking, we can understand how unvocalized texts, such as your typical printed or manuscript gemara, will have expansive spelling to aid in reading of Biblical Hebrew, especially if the particular spelling of a verse is unexpected, and especially if there also is no explicit derasha on that word / phrase.
So what do we have in older printings and manuscripts? They all have plene spelling! So Venice also has malei yud:
Munich 95 omits the final mem, using a diacritic, but in doing so, has both yuds:
So too Vatican 110:
Let us end with Minchas Shai, who discusses the chaser aspect of this verse, as well as the Yerushalmi that makes hay [ :-) ] from the missing yud:
מלאת הימם. בהעתק הללי הימים ירושלמי הימם ע"כ. ובכל הספרים חסר וכן מסר הרמ"ה ז"ל לאור יום מלא וא"ו כתיב וכל לישנא דכותא מלא ולימים ושנים מלא יו"ד כתיב וכל לישנא באוריי' דכותא מלא בר מן א' חסר עד מלאת הימם דנזיר ע"כ. ובירושלמי דנזיר אית דילפי התם נזירות שלשים יום מהכא עד מלאת הימים וכמה הם ימים מלאי' ל' יום ובעינן מעתה אם גלח יום שלשים לא יצא א"ר יצחק בר אליעזר ימם כתיב חסר יו"ד עיין באגדות ירושלמיות שבקונטריס אחרון מהילקוט דפוס סאלוניקי סימן רכ"ז ותנן נמי בריש פ"ג דנזיר מי שאמר הריני נזיר מגלח יום שלושים ואחד ואם גלח יום שלשים יצא:
So what do you think is the proper approach, and masorah? Should we “misquote” pesukim when that’s how they’ve been cited, even in manuscripts? When encountering a verse, should we fix it? Show both? Fix it but highlight the difference?
(BTW, in the image for Vatican 110, that is a לא above the line inserted into עד ועד בכלל. Omitting the לא is an easy error to make, because Rabbi Yoshiya was initially the one we wished to ascribe the 30, not 29 position. But the point here was that both disputants maintain 30, and the only question is whether extra derivation is needed. He only needs גדל פרע because the first derivation doesn’t get him to 30.)