Thursday, January 25, 2007

when love isn't appropiate

Rashi brings that when fighting about the date of the omer the tzdokim were stumped as rav yochanan asked them why should it be sunday. until some old man answered that Moshe Rabeni was a lover of the jewish people and he wanted shvuos to be 2 days and therefor made it always on a sunday.
just found it interesting that things don't change. how many times in history did people offer a compromise or other nonsense for the sake of Ahavas Yisroel!
Yossie (hakohen, perhaps great grandson of Pinchas...)
so when do we bend and when don't we...

2 comments:

Avi Lebowitz said...

I also found that argument interesting especially since there is truth to it.
first of all, shavuos is a day when everyone agrees you need "lachem" so the purpose is to be have oneg (or simcha).
second, we find that moshe was actually mosif yom echad mida'ato and did in fact institute both the 50th and 51st of the omer to be shavuos - as the magen avrohom (o.c. 494) points out that being mosif yom echad is a remez to yom tov sheini shel golyos - meaning that moshe really made a 2 day yom tov!

Zvi Katz said...

I found it interesting that what came out from the machlokes between the chachamim and tzdokim was a yom tov which means that the chachomim won. What does it mean they won? to the extent that they were kovea it a yom tov. Was it that klal yisroel was not sure who to follow the chachomim or tzidukim and they won means klal yisroel realized that the chachomim were right so they made a yom tov?