Yom HaKahal, and Retroactive Determination

About a month ago, I attended YU’s Yom HaKahal.

That’s me leaning over a table, listening to Rav Schachter discussing Mishnah Berurah on hilchot Pesach. (I couldn’t otherwise hear.)

While there, I asked him several questions. For instance, I asked for clarification about what Rav Schachter had said in a shiur about Rabbi Markellus (I still don’t know the spelling), that he said about his ancestor, Rav Shlomo of Vilna, who checked the galleys of the Vilna Shas from memory. In a previous Substack post, I contrasted this with what was described on Wikipedia, which ultimately sources from a Yated Neeman article, where they said that he and others consulted manuscripts.

Zachor, Editing of the Talmud and of Wikipedia

In a follow-up post, I partly retracted, pointing out how we might distinguish between galleys, which are the final version printed on a galley press before it goes to full printing, on the one hand, and research beforehand in establishing the correct text in the first place.

Retraction regarding Vilna Shas Editing

So, given the opportunity, I asked Rav Schachter more about Rav Markellus. He said that he taught at TI (Teacher’s Institute), and that Rav Aharon Kotler recorded a hesped for him in Mishnat Aharon (?).

I noted the contradiction between the testimony and Yated Neeman, and suggested the distinction between galleys and initial research. Rav Schachter didn’t think this was so. He pointed out that in Cheshek Shlomo, Rav Shlomoleh Vilna’s glosses on the Talmud, there is no indication that he’s commenting based on manuscript evidence.

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In response to Rav Schachter mentioning that one should include citrus in the charoset, since that is the definition of tapuach for Chazal — see this 2010 parshablog post where I elaborate — I humorously suggested that this is a basis for having orange on the seder plate. But he said there is a distinction between squeezed and non-squeezed.

I also called his attention to the fact that his Gittin shiurim on YU Torah were two months behind, because someone along the chain isn’t passing them along or uploading them. He said others told him the same and he thought it was taken care of. But he’d follow up. Shortly after, it was brought more or less back to date. Though as of today, it is once again two months behind. :(

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In his Gittin shiur at the Yom HaKahal, I had opportunity to interject and ask a few questions. (This was on Gittin 28a-b, so you won’t find it yet on YU Torah, since the last shiur online is Gittin 22b.) The concept of ברירה came up, something I mentioned in passing in yesterday’s post.

Here is where breira comes up in Gittin. First, not in the present shiur, but on Gittin 25a. The Mishnah on 24b had stated, at the end of a list of invalid gittin:

יָתֵר מִיכֵּן אָמַר לְלַבְלָר כְּתוֹב לְאֵיזוֹ שֶׁאֶרְצֶה אֲגָרֵשׁ פָּסוּל לְגָרֵשׁ בּוֹ

Moreover, if he said to the scribe: Write a bill of divorce for whichever one of them that I will want and I will divorce her with it, this bill of divorce is unfit for him to divorce either wife with it.

Assuming that lishmah is required, he couldn’t divorce either wife with it. Unless this is a matter of breira, that he is specifying now that it should be for the woman whom he clarifies later on.

In discussing the approach of various Amoraim to those invalid gittin, we see that different Amoraim are concerned about whether the invalid get will render the woman disqualified from marrying a kohen. Those who are concerned (Rav Asi, a first-generation Babylonian Amora) might grant some measure of validity to breira (either on a Biblical or Rabbinic level), such that this get might actually be deemed lishmah. When Rabbi Yochanan, one of those Amoraim, is not concerned with breira, another instance is cited of Rabbi Yochanan unconcerned about breira: of brothers jointly owning land, and whether possession goes after the eventual division at Yovel. See there.

But the shiur in question was about Gittin 28a-b. The Mishnah there discussed one who left an elderly or sick man elsewhere, and the agent brought her a get. Need we worry that he died in the interim?

הַמֵּבִיא גֵּט וְהִנִּיחוֹ זָקֵן אוֹ חוֹלֶה נוֹתֵן לָהּ בְּחֶזְקַת שֶׁהוּא קַיָּים

MISHNA: In the case of an agent who brings a bill of divorce to a woman, and when he had left the husband was elderly or sick, the agent gives her the bill of divorce based on the presumption that the husband is still alive, and there is no concern that in the meantime he has died, thereby canceling the bill of divorce.

בַּת יִשְׂרָאֵל הַנְּשׂוּאָה לְכֹהֵן וְהָלַךְ בַּעְלָהּ לִמְדִינַת הַיָּם אוֹכֶלֶת בִּתְרוּמָה בְּחֶזְקַת שֶׁהוּא קַיָּים הַשּׁוֹלֵחַ חַטָּאתוֹ מִמְּדִינַת הַיָּם מַקְרִיבִין אוֹתָהּ בְּחֶזְקַת שֶׁהוּא קַיָּים

Similarly, with regard to an Israelite woman who is married to a priest and may therefore partake of teruma, and her husband went to a country overseas, she may continue to partake of teruma based on the presumption that her husband is still alive. Similarly, in the case of one who sends his sin-offering from a country overseas, the priests may offer it on the altar based on the presumption that the one who sent it is still alive.

This was contrasted with a brayta which stated:

וּרְמִינְהוּ הֲרֵי זֶה גִּיטִּיךְ שָׁעָה אַחַת קוֹדֶם מִיתָתוֹ אֲסוּרָה לֶאֱכוֹל בִּתְרוּמָה מִיָּד

And the Gemara raises a contradiction from a baraita: If one says to his wife: This is your bill of divorce that will take effect one hour prior to my death, it is immediately prohibited for her to partake of teruma due to the concern that he may die immediately after an hour has passed. These two halakhot appear to contradict one another.

Resolutions might include different authorship (for Rabbi Meir is concerned about possible death). Proof is brought from what may be a classic case of breira, depending on interpretation. It is first understood not to be breira, but of a fear of collapse:

דִּתְנַן הַלּוֹקֵחַ יַיִן מִבֵּין הַכּוּתִים אוֹמֵר שְׁנֵי לוּגִּין שֶׁאֲנִי עָתִיד לְהַפְרִישׁ הֲרֵי הֵן תְּרוּמָה עֲשָׂרָה מַעֲשֵׂר רִאשׁוֹן תִּשְׁעָה מַעֲשֵׂר שֵׁנִי וּמֵיחֵל וְשׁוֹתֶה מִיָּד דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי מֵאִיר

As we learned in a baraita in the Tosefta (Demai 8:7): In the case of one who purchases wine from among the Samaritans, about whom it is assumed that they did not separate teruma and tithes, and he is not in a position to separate teruma, he acts as follows: If there are, for example, one hundred log of wine in the barrels, he says: Two log that I will separate in the future are teruma, as the mandated average measure of teruma is one-fiftieth; ten log are first tithe; and one-tenth of the remainder, which is approximately nine log, are second tithe. And he deconsecrates the second tithe that he will separate in the future, transferring its sanctity to money, and he may drink the wine immediately, relying on the separation that he will perform later, which will clarify retroactively what he designated for the tithes and for teruma. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir.

רַבִּי יְהוּדָה וְרַבִּי יוֹסֵי וְרַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן אוֹסְרִין

The baraita continues: However, Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Shimon prohibit this practice. These Sages, Rabbi Yehuda among them, were concerned that perhaps the wineskin would burst before he would manage to separate the teruma, whereas Rabbi Meir is not concerned about this occurring. Similarly, it is said that Rabbi Meir is not concerned about potential death, and Rabbi Yehuda is concerned.

But we might otherwise understand as breira. So too another case on the daf, הֲרֵי זֶה גִּיטִּיךְ שָׁעָה אַחַת קוֹדֶם לְמִיתָתוֹ אֲסוּרָה לֶאֱכוֹל בִּתְרוּמָה מִיָּד, we might understand as breira, that he is delivering it at the hour preceding it, and the eventual death makes it clear retroactively when that was.

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So breira came up in the analysis (IIRC about kodem mitato), and it was clear from Rav Schacter’s explanation of one piece of the gemara that he understood it as retroactive clarification.

So here is the question I posed.

When we say יש ברירה or אין ברירה, there are two possible interpretations of the shoresh. It could mean

1. barur as making something clear,

2. or it could mean borer (as in the melacha on Shabbat) in the sense of selection

With the first interpretation, the idea is that he put something into effect for some time in the future, but it was not immediately clear when it would be so. And only later, retroactively, would there be clarification. Or he put something (like terumah) into effect now, and it took hold of some particles of wine, but we only discover much later upon which it was chal.

With the second interpretation, the idea is that he is putting something into effect from this very moment (or from some very moment), but he it leaving it open to his later choice. He has bechira chofshit, free will (or if we assume a mechanical and deterministic universe where this is an illusion, he does not have free will). And so he is saying that what he selects at a later point will determine what is being chal now.

So are you saying that it is option 1?

Rav Schachter’s response was that there are some modern thinkers who suggest option 2, that it means bechira chofshit, but they are wrong. It is הוברר הדבר למפרע. (He might have further said: it doesn’t work with the various gemaras.)

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Lulei demistafina, despite this, I’d persist in promoting option 1 as a way of understanding breira.

However, we’d have to examine each case presented in the gemara, as understood in its place by the Amoraim, by the Stamma, by the Rishonim, and see if and how it applies or does not apply.

Why? Because I think that there can be breira, breira prime, and breira prime prime. That is, the same precise words, but used as a homonym, referring to slightly different concepts. Consider yesterday’s post, where I noted that Rava’s (or the Talmudic Narrator’s) usage of breira for the sotah waters and ink particles which eventually would end in sotah A’s cup, and in B’s cup, didn’t seem to fit the classic paradigm, since they had already been determined and fixed when he wrote sotah A’s parasha and dissolved it into sotah A’s cup (as Tosafot note). There might be other valid answers, but I suggested that this was an extension of, or re-usage of the term bereira.

So one classic example of breira is by eruv techumin. One may only venture 2000 cubits in any direction from one’s home base (mekom shevita) determined at the outset of Shabbat. But, one may have placed a meal at some distance and establish that as him home base.

This is useful if you want to travel 4000 cubits in a particular direction on Shabbat, say north. You may travel 2000 cubits north from where you are standing, to reach that eruv meal, and from that point, that home base, another 2000 cubits north.

Let us say that at the onset of Shabbat, you know that there is a Torah scholar visiting a nearby town, and you want to hear their lecture. You are uncertain where they will be, but will find out this information on Shabbat. Should your eruv be to the east or to to the west? Ayo taught a brayta about this (Beitza 37b, also Eruvin 36b, Chullin 14b), with Rabbi Yehuda’s opinion. You can set up two eruvin, one to the east and one to the west, and say: if he comes to the place to the east, the eruv I want to work is to the east. If he comes to the place to the east, the eruv I want to work is to the east. (A Sage came) to both locations, no.

The “gemara” poses the question there as to the difference between the former case (to east and west) and latter case (לְכָאן וּלְכָאן). Either we say there is breira or we don’t. (The question I think presumes selection rather than clarification). That answer, given by Rabbi Yochanan, in this Rabbinic case, is וּכְבָר בָּא חָכָם, that the Sage had already come. (Isn’t this clarification?) Thus, the case of eruv techumin is not really one of breira. This is Rabbi Yochanan who generally doesn’t maintain that breira works.

But there might be other ways of resolving the question. (See also the Tosefta Eruvin, and how their are girsalogical variants as to what is said. And the Mishnah in Eruvin, and the discussion in the gemara there, where the parameters of to the east and west vs. both directions are a matter of dispute.) Different Tannaim, Amoraim and Savoraim may have varying definitions of breira. The one that allows him to choose with direction on Shabbat, with it having taken effect as a mekom shevita earlier at the onset of Shabbat, certainly seems like option 2, that something takes effect now contingent on my later choice. So too the reisha of the brayta. As to the seemingly conflicting seifa, perhaps there’s some other resolution different from Rabbi Yochanan’s, like it is a chammar-gammal being tugged in both directions by his conflicting conditionals, both fulfilled.

Something for me to explore, bli neder, sometime in the future.