Here are the Scribal Error posts from this week.
On Daf Yomi, there is
Shechania the Righteous, and how it is apparent from later in the same perek in Ezra that he didn’t sin, though he confessed. Also, Rashi vs. Tosafot in explaining what changed in Rabban Gamliel. This may be correspond to a difference in girsa between חברי and חבריי, single vs. plural colleague.
The Hint to Lashes for Zomemim, and whether Rav Huna’s derivation is a mere counting derasha, or a matter of plain peshat, that there are plural actors / judges. Meanwhile, is Ulla’s derivation a derasha, which in the bijection theory of midrash would claim those verses so that they couldn’t be interpreted otherwise, or rather a remez, creative reworking of many pieces in segment as a nice allusion.
In New Month vs. New Year, I suggest that the derasha of תִּקְעוּ בַחֹדֶשׁ שׁוֹפָר בַּכֵּסֶה לְיוֹם חַגֵּנוּ has to do with adding a day to a month or a month to a year, and that the interjection relating it to Rosh Hashanah is a haavara, a transferred snippet, from the other times a derasha occurs on the same verses. Also, the word yom may be part of the derasha, in claiming that intercalation only works in daytime, not nighttime.
In Daf Yomi articles,
last week was about intercalating for famine, and it is a bit hard to summarize. I discuss technical advice, how to find parallel texts in Sefaria by “pivoting” on a Mishnah discussed by a gemara (to find the parallel Yerushalmi, often not listed), or by pivoting on a verse to find other gemaras that discuss the same. We then see that the derasha / proof from Elisha and the man from Baal Shalisha is not by Rabbi, that is, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, but by Rabbi Meir. That places the interpretation in the fifth, rather than sixth, scholastic generation. We can compare with sources involving Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel II. This all seems dry, but it is a useful way of processing the sources in the sugya.
this week, I continue my discussion of Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak, and the theory by Rabbi Reuven Margolios that he’s responsible for the descriptive names throughout Talmud. I’d previously taken issue, in plain Rav Nachman, with his proof by analyzing a bunch of Rav Nachman (bar Yitzchak) instances of employing nicknames, and showed that many of those are Rav Nachman bar Yaakov. In this article, I consider his claim that the names in Sanhedrin 17, at least for Amoraim and on, are assigned by Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak. I argue, based on general usage of Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak matni hachi, that it indicates a girsological variant in the gemara, that e.g. the Suran Talmudic text has X, while Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak’s Pumbeditan text has Y. And, likely, it is only for that one line, not continuing through the rest of the names, for which they are in agreement.
In my continuing series about Operationalizing Pesak and whether ChatGPT can pasken, in part 4 I assess the output from the 4o model and 4o augmented by search. I point out some limitations, when compared with features from a reference pesak regarding how to light Chanukkah candles at Stern, given university policy restrictions that seem to run afoul of halacha, depending on who’s paskening. In part 5, I add some historical background to what created this university policy regarding lighting in the dorms, and discuss some of what Rav Schachter said about the halachics of it in his thirty-minute shiur on the topic.
On the parasha, Vayigash:
I expand upon Shadal’s reference about Yehuda’s speech to Yosef as exemplifying a good rhetorical structure.
And I discuss a censored Radak, that God didn’t tell Yaakov about Yosef not because he was in on the secret / this was the divine plan, but because of a practical limitation on His communication with mankind — the person must in a positive state. Can there be limitations on what Hashem can do?
