Babylonian Talmud

Rodkinson 1918 — source 8, scan section 6

of the festival ? (Shall we apply the Halakha to the first of those two days or to the last ?) Said Rabh : " The rain should be first mentioned in the Additional Prayer on the first of the two last days, then it should be omitted in all prayers until the Additional Prayer on the second of those days, when it should again be men- tioned." Said Samuel to those who repeated Rabh's statement : " Go ye and tell Abba this : ' Is it proper that after thou hast sanctified the day thou shouldst make it ordinary again ? For in the afternoon prayer of that day thou hast omitted the mention of the rain.' Therefore I say that mention should be made first at the Additional Prayer on the first of the two last days, also in the afternoon prayer, then it may be omitted at night and in the morning of the following day ; but it should be again mentioned in the Additional Prayer of the last day." Rabha, however, said : " As he once began to mention it, it should not be stopped again." And so also said R. Shesheth, and even Rabh retracted his former statement, for R. Hananel said in his name that twenty-one days should be counted from the New Year day the same as the ten days preceding the Day of Atonement are counted, and on the twenty-first day he should commence to make mention of the rain and should then not omit it in any of the prayers. So the Halakha prevails. MISHNA: Till what time is the rain to be prayed for? R. Jehudah says until after the Passover ; R. Meir says till the month of Nissan is passed, because it is said [Joel, ii. 23] : " And he hath caused to come down for you the rain, the first rain, and the latter rain in the first month." GEMARA : Said R. Na'hman to R. Itz'hak : " Does the first rain then descend in the month of Nissan, does it not descend in Mar-Cheshvan ? As we have learned in a Boraitha, namely : 8 THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD. 1 The first rains fall in Mar-Cheshvan and the latter rains in Nissan.' ' And R. Itz'hak answered : R. Johanan said thus : The passage quoted in the Mishna, which states that both the first and the latter rains come down in the first month, refers to the time of Joel the son of Pethuel, when, it is written [Joel, i. 4] : " What the caterpillar left, hath the locust eaten," etc. In that year the month of Adar had already passed, and the first rain descended in the month of Nissan. Said the prophet to Israel : " Go and sow your seed." And they replied : " Should one who has a patch of barley or wheat eat it and live, or sow it and die (until the new grain becomes ripe)?" And he said to them: " Still, see that ye sow as much as ye can." Thereupon a mira- cle occurred, and the grain which had been hidden in the walls and in the subterranean passages of the ants was discovered. They then went and sowed their grain on the second, third, and fourth days of Nissan. On the fifth of Nissan the second rain fell, and on the sixteenth of that month they already offered up the new grain which had ripened. Thus the grain which should have taken six months to ripen, matured in eleven days ; and the offerings which were usually brought of grain that had been growing six months, were that time brought of such as had only been growing eleven days, and concerning this generation it is written [Psalms, cxxvi. 5] : " Those that sow in tears shall reap in joyful song." R. Na'hman said again to R. Itz'hak: " It is written [II Kings, viii. 1] : ' For the Lord hath called for a famine, and it is also coming on the land for seven years.' What was eaten during these seven years?" And he answered : " So said R. Johanan: In the first year they ate the reserve store that they had in their houses ; in the second year they ate the reserve store they had in the fields ; in the third they ate the flesh of ritually clean ani- mals ; on the fourth, the flesh of ritually unclean animals ; in the fifth year they ate reptiles ; in the sixth year the famine was so severe that people had to eat their own children ; and in the seventh it reached a stage where some had to eat the flesh from off their own arms ; and the saying [Isaiah, ix. 19] : • They shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm,' was verified thereby." Again, R. Na'hman asked R. Itz'hak : It is written [Hosea, xi. 9] : " The Holy One in the midst of thee, and I will not come into the city." How is this to be understood ? Because the in- habitants did so much good in the city that they were called holy, and the Holy One did not wish to enter? And R. Itz'hak TRACT TAANITH (FASTING). 9 answered : " Thus said R. Johanan : The Holy One, blessed be He, said that He would not enter the Jerusalem of the heavens until he could enter the Jerusalem below." " Is there then a Jerusalem above? " asked R. Na'hman. "Yea," was the answer, " for it is written [Psalms, cxxii. 3] : ' Jerusalem ! which art built as a city wherein all associate together ' " {i.e., Jerusalem is built as that Jerusalem which is connected (associated) with it. Hence there is another Jerusalem, and that is above in the heavens). R. Na'hman again asked R. Itz'hak : " How is the passage [Jeremiah, x. 8] : ' But at once shall they be shown to be brutish and foolish : it is a doctrine of vanities, it concerneth but wood,' to be understood ? " And he replied : " Thus said R. Johanan : One thing will cause men to burn in Gehenna, and that is idola- try ; for it is said above, ' a doctrine of vanities, it concerneth but wood,' and further, we find it written [ibid. 15] : ' They are vanity, the work of deception ; in the time of their punishment shall they vanish.' " R. Na'hman asked R. Itz'hak again : " What does the passage [Jeremiah, ii. 13], 'For two evils have my people committed,' mean ? Are there only two, and the twenty-four which are sub- sequently enumerated * (in the same chapter) were forgiven them?" And R. Itz'hak answered : Thus said R. Johanan : One evil which is considered as two — namely, idolatry — as it is written further [ibid.] : " Me have they forsaken, the source of living waters, to hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot hold water"; and it is also written [ibid. 10 and n]: " For pass over to the isles of the Kittites, and see ; and unto Kedar send, and consider well : and see if anything like this hath happened. Hath a nation exchanged its gods, which are yet no gods ? and still my people hath exchanged its glory for that which cannot profit." In a Boraitha we have learned as follows : The Kittites worship fire and the inhabitants of Kedar worship water, and though knowing that water extinguishes fire, they nevertheless did not exchange their god, while my people exchanged their god for " that which cannot profit."