Searching for Chametz at the Break of the Fourteenth (full article)
Yesterday I shared my Jewish Link article from last Shabbos, Mar bar Chiya the Disappearing Amora. Since then, I produced the following video with NotebookLM which is about right in its summary of that article, even though I cast certain ideas slightly differently and drill more deeply into the text.
Separate from that, thanks to the folks Tablet Magazine who produce the Take One Podcast, Liel Leibowitz as host and Josh Kross as producer. They included this Daf Yomi video of mine, which covers today’s daf:
As tonight is Pesach, I am posting this week’s article in advance, as it is Pesach themed. It deals with the opening sugya in Pesachim, about the meaning of Ohr in “Ohr le-arba asar” which is when we search for chametz in order to dispose of it. Article follows:
Masechet Pesachim opens with a Mishnah stating that אוֹר to the fourteenth we search for chametz by the light of a lamp. (According to Ernest Klein’s dictionary, נֵר means light or lamp until modern Hebrew, where it means candle.) But what does אוֹר mean? The gemara presents a seeming dispute between two second-generation Amoraim who were students of Rav – Rav Huna and Rav Yehuda bar Yechezkel. Rav Huna defines the usage of Hebrew אוֹר in the Mishnah as the Aramaic נַגְהֵי, literally “light”, while Rav Yehuda defines it as Aramaic לֵילֵי, literally “night”.
With a wink, the Talmudic Narrator tells us that we will first wrongfully assume (קָא סָלְקָא דַּעְתָּךְ) that these Amoraim mean these Aramaic terms literally, so that for Rav Huna, נַגְהֵי implies יְמָמָא, “daytime”, while for Rav Yehuda, לֵילֵי implies אוּרְתָּא, “nighttime”. Note that Aramaic אוּרְתָּא seems to be a cognate of Hebrew אוֹר.
The Talmudic Narrator certainly knows this could not be the meaning of the dispute between Rav Huna and Rav Yehuda. Firstly, despite its literal meaning, נַגְהֵי is a well established Aramaic word connoting night, and the Narrator speaks fluent Aramaic. Secondly, Rav Huna certainly knows how to learn a Mishnah, which involves examining the context in the seifa and noticing parallel language. Mishnah Pesachim 1:3 has the Tanna, Rabbi Yehuda, say “We search for chametz on אוֹר אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר, then on the שַׁחֲרִית (morning) of the fourteenth, and then at the time of removal.” Rabbi Yehuda’s contemporaries employ the similar language. Thus, אוֹר is different from and earlier than שַׁחֲרִית, and presumably refers to nighttime. Indeed, when the gemara tries, at length, to prove (imagined) Rav Huna or Rav Yehuda right, they bring up this Mishnah and conclude שְׁמַע מִינַּהּ, that it is a dispositive proof.
This initial assumption provides the opportunity, or pretext, for the Talmudic Narrator to explore the import of the word אוֹר across Tanach, as well as its usage in later Hebrew across Mishnah and Toseftah. Indeed, even after citing the dispositive Mishnah Pesachim 1:3, the Talmudic Narrator continues the analysis with other Tannaitic sources.
Local Language?
Eventually, the Narrator concludes that Rav Huna and Rav Yehuda agree that אוֹר means “night”. Each Amora simply uses the language common in his locale. I don’t know where these Amoraim were born, but Rav Huna took over Sura academy while Rav Yehuda established Pumbedita academy. In effect, this harmonizes their positions – they are not in genuine dispute.
Searching the Talmud for instances of נַגְהֵי, I discovered that later Amoraim from both the Pumbedita area and approximate Sura area used the word to refer to night. In Berachot 59b, Abaye, a fourth-generation Amora who led Pumbedita academy, relates when the sun is at the beginning of its cycle. This is every twenty eight years, when the vernal equinox falls within the constellation of Saturn, on the night (אוּרְתָּא) of the third day of the week and eve (נַגְהֵי) of the fourth day of the week.
In Berachot 4a, Rav Ashi, a sixth-generation Amora who led Mata Mechasia academy, near Sura, explains the import of Moshe saying that makkat bechorot would be כַּחֲצוֹת of the night. Rabbi Zeira had suggested that Moshe was deliberately ambiguous, anticipating that Pharaoh’s astrologers would err and call him a liar, rather than a prophet. Therefore, he called the time as כַּחֲצוֹת, “approximately midnight”. Rav Ashi rejects that and says that Moshe announced the plague at precisely midnight, so the leading kaf implied “like this midnight.” Rav Ashi’s wording is: בְּפַלְגָא אוּרְתָּא דִתְלֵיסַר נָגְהֵי אַרְבֵּסַר הֲוָה קָאֵי. “In the split of the אוּרְתָּא of the thirteenth and the נָגְהֵי of the fourteenth he stood.”
Back to Daf Yomi, Menachot 68b, the expression of urta of X / naghei of X + 1 is used twice. Once, it is used to describe the actions of Rav Pappa and Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua. These are fifth-generation Amoraim who were students of the Pumbeditan Amora Rava but who established Naresh academy near Sura. They ate from the new crop on the אוּרְתָּא of the sixteenth of Nissan leading into the נָגְהֵי of the seventeenth. Ravina II, a seventh-generation Amora who was Rav Ashi’s student, and thus associated with Mata Mechasia academy, relates that his mother told him that his father would eat on the אוּרְתָּא of the seventeenth of Nissan leading into the נָגְהֵי of the eighteenth. Thus, the word נָגְהֵי seems to be in use in both Sura and Pumbedita, at least in later generations.
Or Time Differential?
There are two possibilities interpreting the patterns of urta of X / naghei of X + 1. First, these might be distinct time periods, with אוּרְתָּא being the waning hours of the first day and נָגְהֵי being the initial hours of the second day. Recall that, in halacha, day follows night. The cutoff point might be shekiat hachama or tzeit hakochavim. In the case of Moshe in Egypt, this might be the hours up to midnight and the hours after midnight. The English translation of Rav Steinsaltz’s Modern Hebrew commentary uses the term “leading into”, and this might be its implication.
Alternatively, these are two names for the identical time period, one from a day-follows-night perspective and the other from a night-follows-day perspective. This is how Artscroll renders it, with the term “which is” – “Your father would not partake of the new grain except on the evening of the seventeenth of Nissan, which is the night before the eighteenth.”
No one used the term לֵילֵי in these patterns, but assume that לֵילֵי is equivalent to אוּרְתָּא. We might suggest that Rav Yehuda translates the Mishnaic Hebrew אוֹר as its Aramaic cognate אוּרְתָּא, and so refers to an earlier time really better associated with the preceding day. אוֹר לְאַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר means the time period on the thirteenth which leads into the fourteenth. (Perhaps we should consider Tosafot on Zevachim 56b, d.h. אוֹר לִשְׁלִישִׁי who discuss variant texts and how the placement of the lamed dictates whether it refers to the night leading in or leading out of the specified day, but we’ll omit that discussion for brevity.) Meanwhile, Rav Huna defines אוֹר as נָגְהֵי, which is a later time, say after tzeit hakochavim, and actually associated with the fourteenth. But, is there anything that indicates this might be their dispute?
Underlying Suyga
Most of the Talmudic proofs as to the meaning of אוֹר in Biblical and Tannaitic sources is anonymous, and so I ascribed it to a very late stratum, perhaps in the Savoraic era, after the period of the Amoraim, including Ravina and Rav Ashi who were sof hora’ah. As I noted above, the initial assumption was easily disproven. It would not be the type of analysis in which named Amoraim would engage.
The one exception appears Pesachim 2b-3a. Mar Zutra is a sixth-generation Amora, a colleague of Rav Ashi who led Pumbedita academy.. He points to a Mishnah in Keritot 1:6. After a live birth or a miscarriage, the Torah obligates a woman to bring an offering. However, a single offering suffices for any births of miscarriages which occur within an eighty day span of the original birth. If a woman miscarried אוֹר לִשְׁמוֹנִים וְאֶחָד, on the אוֹר to the eighty-first day, Beit Shammai exempt her from a new offering while Beit Hillel obligate her. Beit Hillel told Beit Shammai: What is the difference between the אוֹר of (without lamed) the eighty-first and the יוֹם of the eighty-first?
The proto-sugya only includes the named Amoraim – Rav Huna, Rav Yehuda, and Mar Zutra. We misunderstand Mar Zutra’s point in the proto-sugya, since the context of the Savoraic sugya turns it into an unnecessary proof that it means אוּרְתָּא, night, and not יְמָמָא, day. Mar Zutra would not need to appeal to a Mishnah in Keritot to prove a point evident in Pesachim. The true significance of Mar Zutra’s prooftext lies in something present exclusively in his Mishnah – Beit Hillel’s halachic association of status between the אוֹר of the eighty-first and the יוֹם of the eighty-first. That shared status would not apply to the dwindling hours of the prior day leading into the present day, only to the dark nighttime hours in which the eighty-first had already started. Thus, Mar Zutra definitively proves Rav Huna correct, that it is נַגְהֵי.
Don’t follow halachic conclusions from articles in the Jewish Link. Consult your local Orthodox rabbi instead for practical advice. Further, I don’t know what the division point is between אוּרְתָּא and נַגְהֵי, such as shekia and tzeit. However, Mishnah Berurah on Orach Chaim 131:1 says that according to the Shulchan Aruch, one should check for chametz after tzeit. Amongst Rishonim, the Ran quotes the Raavad suggesting an earlier time, which can be understood to mean after tzeit but as early in the night as possible so that one does not neglect. The Vilna Gaon understood the Raavad to mean that אוֹר implies that there was still light outside, and practically, he searched for chametz a bit before tzeit. If my speculative analysis is correct, then we should search specifically after whatever time would halachically be considered the fourteenth.