Resources for Rosh Hashana daf 3
Rabbi Yitzchok Gutterman
- The גמרא says that the פּסוק of וישמע הכנעני refers to “hearing” of the death of אהרן. תוספות points out that this is referring to the פּסוק in מסעי and not the פּסוק in חקת as the latter פּסוק explicitly says the כנענים heard that the Jews were coming. He also says that רש"י in חומש who quotes our גמרא by both פּסוקים was לא דק. Interestingly, see the תרגום יונתן on the פּסוק in חקת who says exactly like רש"י! See the ערוך לנר who says that רש"י understood that once we have the פּסוק in מסעי, it teaches us that even the פּסוק in חקת really referred to both “hearings”.
- The גמרא says that we never find a “שני בשבת” detailed in the תורה. See תוספות here who brings a ירושלמי who asks from the יום שני mentioned in בראשית. The ירושלמי answers that you can’t learn from בריאת העולם since it means the second day from creation of the world. See the שפת אמת here who asks a strong question. In פּרשת בשלח, in פּרק ט"ז פּסוק כ"ב, it says ויהי ביום הששי and it means Friday! He answers that perhaps the גמרא only meant יום שני is not mentioned but other days are.
See the ריטב"א here who explains in the name of the מכילתא that the reason the תורה does not give names for the days of the week like other languages is that the תורה wants us to always say “שני לשבת”, to remember שבת every day. Similarly, the תורה does not have names for the months since it wants us to say חודש ראשון and count from the time of יציאת מצרים to remember that miraculous event. See the רמב"ן in חומש on the פּסוק of זכור את יום השבת who says that this is part of the מצוה דאורייתא of remembering שבת.
- רב חסדא says that non-Jewish kings are counted from תשרי. See the טורי אבן who asks for a source that there is a specific date for non-Jewish kings. If you understand, as רש"י and תוספות do, that the reason for a set date was to avoid confusion in שטרות, then it makes sense that there must be a date for Jewish and non-Jewish kings alike. However, the ר"ן on the first דף did not understand the גמרא in the same way. According to the ר"ן, the reason we count kings from ניסן has nothing to do with שטרות, rather the תורה wants to give us another way to remember יציאת מצרים. According to the ר"ן, the question of למאי הלכתא was not why we count from ניסן but what’s the נפקא מינא from which date we count? If so, why would there be a set date for non-Jewish kings who we don’t count from ניסן anyway? The ר"ן himself answers this and say that it was just instituted אגב the Jewish kings. The טורי אבן points out that according to this, רב חסדא’s פּסוק is not proving that we must count kings from a specific date. Rather it is just showing how we know not to count non-Jewish kings from ניסן.
- The גמרא says that even though כורש was a king of the אומות העולם, they counted his reign from ניסן like Jewish kings since he was a מלך כשר. See the מאור ישראל here in כורש ד"ה who asks the following: תוספות here says that כורש was in fact the son of אסתר, which means that כורש was actually a Jewish king. If so, why didn’t the גמרא answer that they counted from ניסן since he was a Jewish king and not a gentile? He brings a fascinating possibility: the מהרי"ט אלגאזי in פּ"ח דבכורות בהלכות יו"ט אות ס"ה says that even though a child born to a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father is usually considered Jewish, this is only true if the mother raised the child. If the father raised the child, it’s איגלאי מילתא למפרע that the child is actually a גוי. If so, since כורש was likely raised by his father, he would have the status of a גוי. The מאור ישראל points out that we don’t pasken this way and that the simple answer would be that the year of the reign follows who you rule, not who you are.
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