Sunday, November 27, 2011

Did Avraham specifically keep eruv tavshilin or erev techumin?

Summary: An analysis by the Gra.

Post: I saw the following nice piece in Kol Eliyahu, from the Vilna Gaon:
"In the verse עקב אשר שמע אברהם בקולי וישמור משמרתי, etc: Behold, from this pasuk, Chazal darshened in Masechet Yoma (daf 28) that Avraham Avinu kept eiruvei tavshilin, see there. And at first glance, this is extremely surprising, where eiruvei tavshilin is hinted to in this verse. And there is to say that the correct girsa was that Avraham Avinu kept even eruvei techumin.* And this derash is hinted to well in the word עקב, for via the eiruvei techumin, a man treads with his feet outside of 2000 cubits on Shabbat {Josh: and the heel is called עקב.} However, the second printed wrote the words ערובי תחומין in roshei teivos, as ע"ת. And the third printer thought, and erred, that the roshei teivos referred to ערובי תבשילין, and wrote out this error more clearly."
In the footnote designated by the *, someone refers to the teshuva of the Rashba I present in this other post, in which he says eiruvei techumin rather than eiruvei tavshilin.

This is quote plausible. Though the derasha was not explicitly on the עקב part. The gemara in Yoma ends:
א"ל א"כ מצותי ותורותי למה לי אמר (רב) ואיתימא רב אשי קיים אברהם אבינו אפילו עירובי תבשילין שנאמר תורותי אחת תורה שבכתב ואחת תורה. שבעל פה:

which is a derasha from the end of the pasuk. Still, it can be a contributing factor. I would rather find evidence to either from a described action of Avraham, based on a pasuk. Barring that, I would like to consider the type of enactment each of these are. Eiruvei techumin operate on a Biblical level as establishing a place of shevisa, though this fact might be the result of a derasha. (Though the smaller limit is Rabbinic, IIRC.) Eiruv tavshilin is entirely to combat a rabbinic concern of confusion of what sorts of activities are permitted. Are Rabbinic enactments combating Rabbinic concerns under the title of Torah SheBaal Peh?

2 comments:

Joe in Australia said...

I wonder if the derasha rests on two things: the fact that the pasuk says וְתֹורֹתָֽי means that he kept both the oral and the written Torah; but what sort of oral Torah did he keep specifically? Why, it was Shabbos because he was "שְׁמֹר֙ מִשְׁמַרְתִּ֔י" and "shmira" is a reference to Shabbos. This works for both sorts of eruvin, incidentally, but it works especially well for eruvin tavshilin - because if you read וְתֹורֹתָֽי as plural you might as well read מִשְׁמַרְתִּ֔י as plural too, and eruvin tavshilin apply when we have multiple days on which we must be shomer. Also, I think it's reasonable to include Rabbinic law with Oral law because the whole point of the Oral Law is that we're not Karaites and we have to listen to the rabbonim.

Dovid said...

The Ramban in some answers and the Sefornu, Rashbam and Ibn ezra say the simple peshat is Avraham kept the 7 mitzvos of Noach not all taryag.


Are they saying that Avraham kept all taryag, but this is learnt out from derash. Or do they disagree with Gemara ?
https://parsha.blogspot.com/2011/03/one-big-frog-did-derash-become-peshat.html

Rather, while derash is absolutely True, the Biblical text read without the derash level also has to be True. In fact, many midrashim run parallel to the peshat, and don't contradict it. It is difficult to find peshat contradicting derash, though I've managed to come up with a few.

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