Vowing against drink until Pesach?
What about Purim?
In yesterday’s daf (Nedarim 63b), the Ran mentioned various variants of a quoted Mishnah (on 63a):
The Mishna:
״קוּנָּם יַיִן שֶׁאֵינִי טוֹעֵם לְשָׁנָה״, נִתְעַבְּרָה הַשָּׁנָה — אָסוּר בָּהּ וּבְעִיבּוּרָהּ. ״עַד רֹאשׁ אֲדָר״ — עַד רֹאשׁ אֲדָר הָרִאשׁוֹן. ״עַד סוֹף אֲדָר״ — עַד סוֹף אֲדָר הָרִאשׁוֹן.
In the case of one who said: Wine is konam for me, and for that reason I will not taste it for the entire year, if the year was extended, i.e., it was declared to be a leap year, he is prohibited from drinking wine during the year and its intercalated month. If he vowed until the beginning of the month of Adar, the vow remains in effect until the beginning of the first Adar. Similarly, if he says that his vow applies until the end of Adar, the vow remains in effect until the end of the first Adar.
The Ran:
עד ראש חדש אדר, עד ראש חדש אדר ראשון, עד סוף אדר, עד סוף אדר ראשון כך היא עיקר הגירסא וטעמא משום דאדר סתמא ראשון משמע ואיכא דגרסי עד סוף אדר עד סוף אדר שני דמשמע ליה דשני אדרים כחדש אחד הן הילכך כי אמר עד ראש מתסר עד ראש חדש אדר ראשון וכי אמר עד סוף מיתסר עד סוף אדר שני:
The major difference between his two girsaot is the latter clause. If he said “until the end of Adar”, then it is until Adar X. In the first and primary girsa, X = Rishon, while in the secondary girsa, X = Sheni.
In yesterday’s post, where my focus was on whether the word Shana was bare, or decorated with a heh or a lamed, I displayed a whole bunch of Mishna images. All of these had Rishon. For instance, here was the Ktav Yad Kaufmann:
We can also look through each of the commentaries (online, easy at Sefaria) to see how they quote it, and where they do, it is all Rishon.
Ran and Rashba discuss the variant girsa and how it doesn’t make sense. Yes, it does seem like a scribal error, with a simple cause. The structure was: If he said until the beginning of Adar, it is until Adar 1. If he said until the end of Adar, it is until the end of Adar [BLANK]. The easy thing to fill in mentally is that the contrasting cases are beginning vs. end, 1 vs 2. Also, one can even reason: until the beginning of the span of the two months called Adar, vs. until the very end of the two months called Adar. But if it doesn’t make sense when you reason it out, or when you try to work out the gemara, then it doesn’t work out.
We also have it cited this way in the Mishnah 8:6 in Yerushalmi Nedarim, and as it is cited in Yerushalmi Nedarim 8:1.
However, we do have this in the Tosefta Nedarim 4:7, where we aren’t talking about ad rosh or ad sof:
עד אדר, הראשון. ואם היתה שנה מעוברת, אסור עד אדר שיני.
The idea is that it is until but not inclusive. So in a year with a second Adar, until Adar would be until that second Adar.
This makes me think about Purim, and the obligation, or “obligation” to drink wine. After all, the same Mishnah continues by discussing vows not to drink wine until Pesach as ending before the Seder night, because one obviously didn’t intend to preclude from fulfilling the Four Cups.
רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר: ״קוּנָּם יַיִן שֶׁאֵינִי טוֹעֵם עַד שֶׁיְּהֵא הַפֶּסַח״ — לֹא נִתְכַּוֵּון זֶה אֶלָּא עַד לֵיל הַפֶּסַח, עַד שָׁעָה שֶׁדֶּרֶךְ בְּנֵי אָדָם לִשְׁתּוֹת יַיִן.
Rabbi Yehuda says: In the case of one who says: Wine is konam for me, and for that reason I will not taste it until it will be Passover, it is understood that this individual intended for his vow to apply only until the night of Passover, i.e., until the time when it is customary for people to drink wine in order to fulfill the mitzva of drinking the four cups, but he did not intend to prevent himself from being able to fulfill this mitzva.
If one made a vow until Adar without specification, it definitely won’t overlap with Purim, because Purim is always in Adar Sheni. What about the Mishnah’s case, until the end of Adar? With the variant girsa, he would end up skipping drinking on Purim.
It is interesting that the Mishnah used Pesach rather than Purim as the example. Did the Tannaim know about this obligation to drink on Purim? Or, aside from the Biblical verse about יְמֵי מִשְׁתֶּה וְשִׂמְחָה which can be interpreted in various ways, is our first mention of it from the fourth-generation Babylonian Amora, Rava, in Megillah 7b?
אָמַר רָבָא: מִיחַיַּיב אִינִישׁ לְבַסּוֹמֵי בְּפוּרַיָּא עַד דְּלָא יָדַע בֵּין אָרוּר הָמָן לְבָרוּךְ מָרְדֳּכַי.
Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated with wine on Purim until he is so intoxicated that he does not know how to distinguish between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordecai.
Aside from the exaggerated and poetic style of the degree which makes me wonder at the genre of the statement, why don’t see any Amoraim in Israel saying the same? The Yerushalmi (Megillah 3:7) parallel mentioned ad loc by Tosafot as being expansive to Zeresh and Esther, and all the wicked and the righteous, has to do with what one recites by the reading of the megillah, but lacks a connection to drinking:
רַב אָמַר. צָרִיךְ לֵאמֹר. אָרוּר הָמָן אֲרוּרִים בָּנָיו. אָמַר רִבִּי פִינְחָס. צָרִיךְ לוֹמַר. חַרְבּוֹנָה זָכוּר לַטּוֹב.
Perhaps we could move the practice (and associated obligation) one generation back, to the time of third-generation Amoraim, Rabba bar Nachmani and Rabbi Zera. As the gemara in Megillah 7b continues:
רַבָּה וְרַבִּי זֵירָא עֲבַדוּ סְעוּדַת פּוּרִים בַּהֲדֵי הֲדָדֵי. אִיבַּסּוּם. קָם רַבָּה שַׁחְטֵיהּ לְרַבִּי זֵירָא. לְמָחָר, בָּעֵי רַחֲמֵי וְאַחֲיֵיהּ. לְשָׁנָה, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: נֵיתֵי מָר וְנַעֲבֵיד סְעוּדַת פּוּרִים בַּהֲדֵי הֲדָדֵי. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: לָא בְּכֹל שַׁעְתָּא וְשַׁעְתָּא מִתְרְחִישׁ נִיסָּא.
The Gemara relates that Rabba and Rabbi Zeira prepared a Purim feast with each other, and they became intoxicated to the point that Rabba arose and slaughtered Rabbi Zeira. The next day, when he became sober and realized what he had done, Rabba asked God for mercy, and revived him. The next year, Rabba said to Rabbi Zeira: Let the Master come and let us prepare the Purim feast with each other. He said to him: Miracles do not happen each and every hour, and I do not want to undergo that experience again.
Though if this is so, why wasn’t Rabba the one to state the halacha of Purim-drinking?
The thing is, there is actually one exceptionally long-lived Rabbi Zeira, or two scholars by that name. Rabbinic biographers differ about this. Assuming there are two, the former was a third-generation contemporary of Rabba, while the latter was a fourth- and fifth-generation contemporary of Rava, whose teachers were Rav Yosef and Rabbi Yirmeyah.
If we select Rabbi Zeira #2, then what of “Rabba”. We should check out manuscripts to make sure it isn’t Rava. Our Vilna Shas, the Venice printing and Pisaro printing have Rabba, despite Rava making the halachic statement.
So too the Munich 95 manuscript, it is Rabba and R’ Zeira who make the feast:
However, a whole slew of other manuscripts (heh) have Rava here. We have the Gottingen manuscript:
and the British Library 400 manuscript:
and the Munich 140 manuscript:
and Oxford 366. Also, Vatican 134.
Interesting is this one, Colombia 294-295:
There is an alternation between רבא and ראבא. And at the story’s start, it is ראבא. As it continues, it is Rava, so it is not consistent. From what I’ve heard, the internal aleph spelling is intended to indicate Rava. But perhaps not here. (It also tags another possibility for R’ Zeira, namely that it is זעירא. But I don’t think he works with Rava or Rabba who is the other participant.
Ultimately, this imperative or approach might be something unique to Rava, and not found among other Tannaim or Amoraim earlier or later.