Weekly Dvar Torah

Our position, like that of all mainstream Jewish communities, is to follow the Rabbinic tradition. But we have to accept that there is some logic to the alternative viewpoint. We regard the Omer counting as the bridge between the Exodus and the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, and we accept from tradition that the latter event took place 50 days after the beginning of Pesach. But that is never stated in the Torah. The Boethusians held that the link between Pesach and Shavuot is agricultural, and that what Emor is saying is that the barley offering is to be brought on the first Sunday of Pesach and that fifty days later the wheat harvest and firstfruits were brought as offerings on Shavuot. In other words, the Boethusians tended to see the festivals, based upon the language of this Parsha, as secular agricultural events, whereas Chazal and later commentators highlighted the spiritual dimension. So this is clearly a major disagreement which goes to the very heart of what the festivals are there to celebrate.

You might think that by basing their approach on the actual words of the Torah, the Boethusians were on strong ground. But that is to overlook the subtlety of the Rabbinic tradition when it came to demonstrating that in this particular context Shabbat could not mean Shabbat. So what arguments did the Rabbis use to undermine their opponents? These are stated clearly in the Gemara (Menachos 65-66) as follows:

(1)  The Torah commands us to count fifty days to Shavuot; but if the first day of Pesach falls on a Sunday (as it can do) the Omer cannot be brought that day so is brought on the following Sunday, in which case there would be 56 days, ie eight weeks, to Shavuot.

(2)  If the Boethusians argue that the Omer on Pesach resembled the Two Loaves offered on Shavuot, it was inconsistent if the Omer was not brought as soon as possible on Pesach, ie on day 2.

(3)  Shavuot must occur on a fixed day of the month (as required in verse 2 of this chapter), but this could not happen if there was no fixed date for beginning the count of the Omer.

(4)  The Torah uses the phrase “You shall count for yourselves”, namely that the counting depends on the community, or more specifically the Bet Din which sets the festivals; if the counting were based on Shabbat, there would be no role for the Bet Din as everyone would know when Shabbat is.

(5)  The Torah refers to the day after Shabbat, with no mention of Pesach; without the tradition handed down by the Rabbis there is no reason to select the Shabbat of Pesach. The verse itself could refer to any of the Shabbatot of the year.

(6)  In this Sedra the commandment is to eat Matzot for seven days, whereas in the book of Devarim the commandment is to eat Matzot for six days. How do you reconcile the two? It means you can eat Matzot from the old crop for seven days, but you may eat Matzot from the new crop for only six days.

 

Additional arguments put forward by later Rabbis include the fact that seven is a significant number for festivals: Pesach and Succot each have seven days; the counting of the Omer lasts seven weeks; the most important month for festivals is the seventh month; the Shemitta and Yovel occur respectively after seven years and seven times seven years. If we counted the days between Pesach and Shavuot differently, there would not always be seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot. It is regarded as totally illogical not to have a set date for Shavuot, when every other festival has. And as the Sedra states: “These are the appointed seasons of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy gatherings” (v37). The word Moed indicates a fixed date, and it would be completely inconsistent to have a festival which had no fixed date.

Needless to say, the Boethusians had their responses to the arguments of the Rabbis. They claimed that nowhere else in the Torah is Shabbat used to refer to a festival. They also contested the view of the Rabbis that there are exactly 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot, even though the Torah stated fifty days. According to the Sadducees there might be some years when there could be 50 days, but some years might have as many as 56 days. In the Mishna, it was suggested that the Torah reference to fifty days was a rounding of 49 days, in the same way that the Torah spoke of seventy souls coming down with Jacob to Egypt, even though the list contains only 69 names. The Rabbis also noted that elsewhere in Emor the text describes Rosh Hashana (v 24), Yom Kippur (v 32) and Succot (v 39) as Shabbaton or Shabbat Shabbaton, so there was no reason why Pesach could not also be described as Shabbat. Ibn Ezra suggested that it is possible that the Torah referred to the day after Shabbat because that was the second day of Pesach in the year when the Israelites kept their first Pesach in the desert. This view is reinforced by the fact that the showbread was set up on the day the Mishkan was erected, and that had to be done on a Shabbat. As this was the first of Nisan, it followed that that year the first day of Pesach was a Shabbat, so the Omer would have to be offered the following day, ie Sunday.  

You might ask why the Torah did not simplify matters by referring to “the day after Pesach” rather than Mimocharat Hashabbat”. But that might imply the day after the paschal offering was brought on Erev Pesach, ie 15 Nisan. Alternatively it might have referred to “the day after the festival”, but that might mean the day after the last day of the festival. It is probably to dispel any confusion that we count the Omer by saying, “Today is one day of the Omer”, rather than “Today is the first day of the Omer”. If we said the latter, it might well be understood to be referring to the first day of the week.

Rabbi Elchanan Samet at Yeshivat Har Etzion has suggested a further argument based on an overlooked word in the verse. "The kohen shall elevate the sheaf before God “li-retzonkhem”; the kohen shall elevate it on the day following the Shabbat." This term, "li-retzonkhem," literally, "for your will," appears with reference to an individual offering a sacrifice four other times in Sefer Vayikra (1:3, 19:5, 22:19, 22:29.The Sifra and Talmud explain the "will" in the verse as referring not to God's will, but to that of the individual.

However, while the other four appearances involve individual, voluntary sacrifices, our context deals with a mandatory offering brought by the nation as a whole. How can the Torah require that a mandatory offering be brought "by the will" of the entire nation? The Sifra explains this term as indicating that the community at large is not to be coerced with regard to the Omer offering. The obvious question, however, is, to what kind of coercion does this refer? The answer is that there is only one detail of this sacrifice that indeed depends upon the decision of the nation - its date. The nation determines when the barley harvest begins, and thus, by extension, when to bring the Omer offering. This interpretation yields the following reading of the verse: "He shall elevate the sheaf before God by your will," meaning, whenever you decide, so long as "the kohen shall elevate it on the day following the Shabbat." Which Shabbat it is that will precede the day of the Omer depends entirely upon the will and decision of the people. And how does the nation express that will? Through the Bet Din. So the requirement to bring the Omer on Sunday applies only when the date depends upon the subjective determination of the people. However, once the Bet Din established a permanent date for the Omer offering (on the sixteenth of Nissan), the flexibility afforded by the term "by your will" no longer exists. Therefore, there was no longer any need for the restriction of "the day following Shabbat."

Alternatively, the Torah's requirement that the Omer be offered on "the day following Shabbat" may simply require that the offering be brought on the day following a day when no work is performed. In other words, the interpretation of "Shabbat" is open-ended: it can mean either the seventh day of the week, or a day upon which we desist from work. Thus, "the day after Shabbat" is either Sunday or the day following a Yom Tov. When the day of the Omer is subject to flexibility, then the most reasonable day of cessation of work to determine the day of the Omer is Shabbat, the most frequent day of rest. With the establishment of a permanent date for the Omer, the halakha determined that the day of rest to precede this day would be the first day of Pesach. If so, then the conventional understanding that Chazal actually interpret the word "Shabbat" as "Yom Tov," is, in a certain sense, correct. The Torah here refers to a day upon which no work is performed, be it Shabbat or Yom Tov. In actuality, however, when the day of the Omer depended upon the people's decision, it occurred on Sunday, whereas once a fixed date was established, it is brought on the day following Yom Tov.

 

It is interesting to note that Chazal say in the Gemara that they established a festival when they were able to defeat the Beitusim. There were other disputes, particularly over the immortality of the soul and resurrection, which the Boethusians denied. So we cannot be sure what defeat the Boethusians sustained or when the festival occurred. But of one thing we can be very sure, our religious practices would have been very different had the Rabbis not prevailed. And for all that we may criticise some of the interpretations of the Torah adopted by the rabbis, a literal reading of the Torah would have made our lives infinitely more difficult and probably much less rewarding.

 

Neville Nagler         7th May 2011