Talmud Commentary: Bavli 2/8. bSukkah 29a-b (mSukkah 2:9)

@Tal Ilan

@General observations

This short sugya is a response to mSuk 2:9 and as such, an expansion and reworking of the Tosefta parallel to it. In the mishnah we are informed that if it rains while a man is fulfilling the commandment of eating in the sukkah, he is entitled to leave and continue eating elsewhere only when his dish is on the verge of being destroyed. This statement is followed in an unusual fashion for the Mishnah by a parable which explains to what one may compare rainfall in Sukkot. It is like a king who, by throwing water on his slave, punishes and shames the latter while he is performing a service for the former. The king obviously stands for God and the servant is the observant Jew performing the commandment of sukkah. From this we can deduce that rain, while being eagerly anticipated afterwards,[1] is not seen as a positive sign during Sukkot.

The Tosefta is much more detailed here. tsuk 2:4 explains that rainfall also exempts a man from sleeping in the sukkah, and not just while it is raining but for the entire night. tsuk 2:5 now reverts to the issue of an eclipse. The logic for this seems to be that not just rain in Sukkot but also other natural phenomena can be perceived as signs of God’s displeasure. The Tosefta lists eight public moral sins such as slander, usury and perjury, which lead to God’s displeasure and to the eclipse of the heavenly luminaries. tsuk 2:6 is a rather long aggadic digression about eclipses in general, and about who they are intended to warn. It is considerably more optimistic in tone than the previous halakhah, because it understands the luminaries as serving as warning only for the gentiles, and not for Israel who, according to Jer 10:2, are “dismayed by the signs of the heavens.”

The Babylonian sugya changes this take on the mishnah only marginally. It cites all the Tosefta texts, but reverses the order of 2:5 and 2:6. It makes clear that the halakhah in tsuk 2:4 is associated with the first part of the mishnah, while tsuk 2:6 is associated with the parable presented in the Mishnah and it adds some minor comments to the text of the Tosefta as follows:

1. It inquires whether the reference to the length of time a person is allowed to stay out of his sukkah at night following a rainfall is described by a word spelt שיעור or by a word spelt שיאור. The difference is in one letter (aleph and ‘ain) and in a language which does not pronounce the gutturals the two also sound exactly the same. The stama brings another version of this tannaitic tradition which is supposed to clinch the argument in favor of the form שיאור (till it becomes light) but in the end remains undecided.

2. Since the formulation is not clear, our sugya inquired who in the parable threw water at whom, the master on the slave or the slave on the master. Here again an alternative tannaitic tradition clarifies that it is the master who wets the slave.

3. At the end of the midrash on Jer 10:2 the Bavli adds a short clarification – this verse indicates that luminaries control the fate of the gentiles but not of Israel.

4. Having replaced the order of tsuk 2:5 and tsuk 2:6 the Bavli adds to the eight ethical sins of the Tosefta two further lists of four which bring about eclipses. The first list precedes the text from the Tosefta and appears in the guise of a baraita, and the second list, which follows the Tosefta sins, is presented in the name of the amora Rav. Yet the two seemingly independent texts can be tied one to the other in a sort of inclusion. The first outrage described in the pseudo-baraita is the failure to mourn a head of a court-of-law who died, and the last is impertinence, which is described by Rav as overriding all other outrages. Obviously the failure to mourn the head-of-court can be viewed as the worst sort of impertinence. It is the duty of the head-of-court to enforce the law and by not mourning him the people indicate their impertinence and denigration of the law.

@Feminist observations

Only in the Bavli, under one of the lists of additional ethical sins, is the case of the betrothed maiden mentioned. This betrothed maiden is described as having cried out for help in the city but no one came to her assistance. This obviously refers to the law on rape found in Deut 22:23-27:

According to this text, if a girl claims to have been raped in the city she is not believed, because had that been the case, she could have cried out and someone would have come to her assistance. The assumption is that good people will be found in a city who will deliver the girl from the hands of her oppressor. The authors of the Bavli here are outraged that this is not the case, and see this as one reason why God brings about an eclipse of the sun.

The outrages outlined by the Tosefta here are more or less in dialogue with Deuteronomy 19-25, a catalogue of social laws which begins by stating that when God will bring Israel to their promised land, there are several outrages that they are not to commit, so as not to anger Him (Deut 19:1). At the end of this biblical section God sums up by stating that such actions constitute an abomination, similar to the crimes committed against Israel by its archenemy, Amalek (Deut 25:16-19). Four of the eight actions described in the Tosefta are a violation of injunctions found in this biblical section. Perjury is forbidden in Deut 19:18; the destruction of trees is forbidden in Deut 20:19; the withholding of paid bonds can be compared to the withholding of a deposit (Deut 24:10-11); and the withholding of charity can be derived from the injunctions about leaving part of the harvest for the poor (Deut 24:19-21). Similarly, some of the eight additional outrages listed by the Bavli, can be understood as violations of injunctions found in this biblical text: The withholding and manipulation of wages is forbidden in Deut 24:14-15 and the as we saw above, the outrage derived from the failure to come to the assistance of a betrothed maiden being raped, who cried out in the city can be deduced from Deut 22:23-27.

I wish to argue here that the third additional injunction in the Bavli’s pseudobaraita too may be seen as alluding to Deut 19-25, but may also be viewed as specifically relevant for a gender interpretation. Yet there is a difference between the outrages derived from Deuteronomic law listed in the Tosefta and in Rav’s comment, and the two sexual outrages found in the pseudo-baraita. These last mentioned are both not direct violations of the Deuteronomic vision. In the case of the betrothed maiden who cried in the city and was not answered, nowhere does Deuteronomy instruct one to save such a maiden. The text assumes this but does not lay it down as law.

The outrage associated with sodomy, which follows on the lament concerning the betrothed maiden, may be derived from the law outlined in Deut 23:18.

This law obviously views male (as well as female) prostitution as an outrage, and male prostitution entails sodomy. However, the sodomy mentioned here in the Bavli, is not exactly synonymous with male prostitution mentioned in Deut 23:18. The male prostitute in Deuteronomy is coupled with the female one, and this injunction is therefore a general prohibition of prostitution. The Deuteronomic code does not include a ban on homosexuality.

This of course does not mean that such a ban is not found in the Torah. Lev 18:22 expressly forbids lying with a man in the same way one lies with a woman וְאֶת זָכָר לֹא תִשְׁכַּב מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה תּוֹעֵבָה הִוא but this law is here associated with the prohibition of bestiality for both men and women בְכָל בְּהֵמָה לֹא תִתֵּן שְׁכָבְתְּךָ לְטָמְאָה בָהּ וְאִשָּׁה לֹא תַעֲמֹד לִפְנֵי בְהֵמָה לְרִבְעָהּ תֶּבֶל הוּא, obviously viewing the two as similar forbidden sexual acts.

Rabbinic literature, beginning with Sifra vayiqra, dibura de-hova parashah 1:8, reiterates the prohibition against sodomy, and yBer 9:2, 13c condemns the practice, listing it among the sins which brought about the destruction of the Temple. Also, in bSan 82a sodomy is the sin associated with the words: “An abomination in Israel and Jerusalem” (Mal 2:11). In all these cases the condemnation of sodomy is directly associated with Lev 18:22. In this last case, in close proximity, Deut 23:18, is used to condemn prostitution rather than sodomy. I thus conclude that the outrage of the Bavli on account of both the betrothed maiden who cried in the city and was not rescued and sodomy may be seen as hinted at in Deut 19-25, but not specifically legislated.

In light of this conclusion, the verse which condemns the spilling of blood of two brothers both at the same time may be alluding to another piece of gender legislation found in this Deuteronomic code. In Deut 25:5-6 we read the law of the levirate:

According to this law, it is of course a great tragedy when one brother dies childless, because he does not leave after him offspring, but there is hope, since his widow is now allowed to marry his brother and produce an heir for the dead man. Yet if he and his brother die together, there is no hope at all. It may well be therefore that this outrage is also formulated in dialogue with the social laws of Deuteronomy.

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