Rabbi Nehorai == Rabbi Meir?
Still stuck on Nazir...
In last week’s daf (Nazir 66), we encounter:
מַאן שָׁמְעַתְּ לְהָא דְּאָמַר שִׁכְבַת זֶרַע שֶׁל זָב מְטַמֵּא בְּמַשָּׂא? אִילֵּימָא הַאי תַּנָּא, דְּתַנְיָא, רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר: שִׁכְבַת זַרְעוֹ שֶׁל זָב אֵינוֹ מְטַמֵּא בְּמַשָּׂא, וְרַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אוֹמֵר: מְטַמֵּא בְּמַשָּׂא, לְפִי שֶׁאִי אֶפְשָׁר לָהּ בְּלֹא צִיחְצוּחֵי זִיבָה. אֲפִילּוּ רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ לָא אָמַר אֶלָּא מִשּׁוּם צִיחְצוּחֵי זִיבָה, אֲבָל בְּעֵינֵיהּ, לָא אָמַר!
The Gemara asks: Who did you hear that said that the semen of a zav renders one impure by carrying? If we say it is this tanna, as it is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Eliezer says: The semen of a zav does not render one impure by carrying, and Rabbi Yehoshua says: It does render one impure by carrying, because it is impossible for his semen to be without droplets of ziva; yet this source is no proof, as even Rabbi Yehoshua said that this semen imparts impurity by carrying only due to the droplets of ziva it contains. However, he did not say that semen in its unadulterated form renders people impure.
I listen in to live daf yomi over the phone, so I didn’t get the details. For some reason, in some printed translated text, there was some text that had Rabbi Eleazar. But of course the printed text, and all manuscripts, have Rabbi Eliezer (ben Hyrcanus). He is the perfect match for Rabbi Yehoshua (ben Chananya), as a scholar of the same generation and a frequent disputant.
We also have this, in the final Mishnah, ending the masechet on a pleasant, aggadic note:
מַתְנִי׳ נָזִיר הָיָה שְׁמוּאֵל, כְּדִבְרֵי רַבִּי נְהוֹרַאי, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר ״וּמוֹרָה לֹא יַעֲלֶה עַל רֹאשׁוֹ״. נֶאֱמַר בְּשִׁמְשׁוֹן ״וּמוֹרָה״, וְנֶאֱמַר בִּשְׁמוּאֵל ״וּמוֹרָה״. מָה ״מוֹרָה״ הָאֲמוּרָה בְּשִׁמְשׁוֹן — נָזִיר, אַף ״מוֹרָה״ הָאֲמוּרָה בִּשְׁמוּאֵל — נָזִיר.
MISHNA: The tractate concludes with an aggadic statement about nazirites. Samuel the prophet was a nazirite, in accordance with the statement of Rabbi Nehorai, as it was stated that when Hannah, his mother, prayed for a son, she vowed: “And no mora shall come upon his head” (I Samuel 1:11). How is it derived that mora is an expression of naziriteship? It is stated with regard to Samson: “And no razor [mora] shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a nazirite to God” (Judges 13:5), and it is stated: “And no mora,” with regard to Samuel. Just as the term “mora” that is stated with regard to Samson means that he was a nazirite, so too the term “mora” that is stated with regard to Samuel indicates that he was a nazirite.
The maggid shiur in today’s daf channeled a lot of what Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz said, and I had a comment to make. So I started looking at YU Torah for a link to share. True to Scribal Error and The Person and the Page, there are two rabbis by that name.
Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz I, my classmate at South Shore and elsewhere, director of semicha at RIETS, who does the Daf Yomi Shiurim, with 11,067 shiurim on YUTorah.
Rabbi Aryeh Leibowitz II, a Ram at Yeshivat Shaalvim, with 432 shiurim and articles at YUTorah.
When searching, I added the extra “i”, so searched for the wrong one. I believe Lebowitz is pronounced with /ee/ but am uncertain in Leibowitz is pronounced /ee/ or /ay/. This is like an Eliezer / Eleazar distinction.
At any rate, here is such a shiur from #1, from 2015: “Zav, Shmuel, Berachos and Amein”. If there is a more recent one from this year, it isn’t up yet on YUTorah — only up to daf 65.
He asks about the meaning of כדברי רבי נהוראי, and explains according to the Noda Biyhuda:
Basically, elsewhere Rabbi Meir has a position about Nazir, that he is able to bring his korbanot on a bama (private altar). That is, Zevachim 117a:
באו לגלגל תנו רבנן כל נידר ונידב היה קרב בבמה שאין נידר ונידב אין קרב בבמה מנחה ונזירות קריבין בבמה דברי רבי מאיר וחכמים אומרים לא קרבו יחיד אלא עולות ושלמים בלבד
§ The mishna teaches that when the Jewish people arrived at Gilgal private altars were permitted. The Gemara elaborates: The Sages taught in a baraita: Any offering that was brought due to a vow, or contributed voluntarily, was sacrificed on a private altar; and any offering that is neither brought due to a vow nor contributed voluntarily, but rather is compulsory, was not sacrificed on a private altar. Therefore, a meal offering, which is generally brought voluntarily, and offerings of a nazirite, which have the status of vow offerings as no one is compelled to become a nazirite, were sacrificed upon a private altar. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir. And the Rabbis say: Only burnt offerings and peace offerings were sacrificed upon a private altar, not meal offerings or offerings of a nazirite.
And since elsewhere, Rabbi Meir is identified as the same person as Rabbi Nehorai, it works according to his position, that Shmuel could be a nazir. And that is the meaning of כְּדִבְרֵי רַבִּי נְהוֹרַאי.
To this, I’d say two things. First, I’d understand כְּדִבְרֵי רַבִּי נְהוֹרַאי in a different manner. The Mishnah wants to end the masechet with a nice aggadah, and so relates the midrash, which only exists according to Rabbi Nehorai, so it cites him. Rabbi Nehorai appears about 20 times in Talmud, generally in aggadic contexts. And since it is a matter of dispute — as we continue to see, the gemara cites a brayta where Rabbi Yossi disagrees — it makes sure to explain that this is an independent position. Either that or it is ruling in accordance to that opinion. It is the same thing to figure out when the Mishnah says e.g. in the beginning of Rosh HaShanah, בְּאֶחָד בִּשְׁבָט, רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה לָאִילָן, כְּדִבְרֵי בֵית שַׁמַּאי. בֵּית הִלֵּל אוֹמְרִים, בַּחֲמִשָּׁה עָשָׂר בּוֹ.
Second, I’m not so convinced that Rabbi Meir is the same as Rabbi Nehorai. I discuss it at length in an article, here. The motivation is a closed-canon approach, where we should not encounter rare figures that are not seen elsewhere. A short excerpt of the article, but read it all:
The problem with the Meir/Nehorai identification is that we see Rabbi Nehorai disagreeing with Rabbi Meir (Kiddushin, above; Sanhedrin 99a). This is like seeing Clark Kent and Superman in the same place! Dikdukei Soferim/Yuchsin/Oxford have, for the first statement, “his name wasn’t Rabbi Meir but Rabbi Meisha” (instead of Rabbi Nehora; we know Rabbi Meisha as a sixth-generation Tanna; see Nedarim 8b). R’ Isaac Hirsch Weiss theorizes that Rabbi Meir was a Sage in the Sanhedrin in Usha and was known at that time as Rabbi mei-Usha. Later on they misunderstood this and believed his proper name was רבי מיאשה. R’ Aharon Hyman finds this explanation impressive but ultimately incorrect
Hadran Alach Masechet Nazir!