Resources for Taanis daf 16

Daf A Week

Rabbi Yitzchok Gutterman

  1. The גמרא asks why we go out to the cemetery on fast days. The question of the גמרא seems strange since it doesn’t mention this topic anywhere in the משנה. רש"י explains it the question is based on the ירושלמי that speaks about going out to the cemetery. There is an important מהר"ץ חיות here who says this is a proof to the רי"ף at the very end of עירובין. The רי"ף there says we pasken like the בבלי against the ירושלמי because the בבלי was the בתראה (came last). He says the אמוראים in בבלי were great experts in ירושלמי and if they didn’t quote a הלכה from the ירושלמי, it means they knew it was not correct. The מהר"ץ חיות says our גמרא is also an indication that the אמוראים in the בבלי had the ירושלמי open in front of them when they wrote the בבלי. Interestingly, see the ביאור הגר"א in יו"ד סימן ס"ג ס"ק א (and in many other places) who says the רמב"ם actually paskens like the ירושלמי in most places.

 

  1. The גמרא gives two reason why we go to the cemetery to say תחנונים on a fast day—one is to show that we are like dead men. The other reason is so that the מתים will daven for us. One could easily understand from here that you are allowed and encouraged to go to the cemetery to be מתחנן to the צדיקים buried there to daven for you in שמים. See the שו"ת מנחת אלעזר ח"א סימן ס"ח who brings several proofs to this and points out a similar idea is found explicitly in the גמרא in סוטה דף ל"ד that says כלב went to חברון and asked the אבות to daven that Hashem save him from the עצת מרגלים. However, see the חכמת אדם שער איסור והיתר ס"ק ז who says people who go to cemeteries to speak to dead people are in violation of the איסור of דורש אל המתים, and because of this, some גאונים wanted to prohibit going to cemeteries altogether. He advises to go to the cemetery and daven to Hashem בזכות the צדיקים buried there, Hashem should answer their תפילות. See also the דרשות הר"ן in the דרוש השמיני לפּרשת בהעלותך who says we daven by the graves of צדיקים because the קדושה that attached to their bodies while they were alive remains with them in death and our תפילות are better answered when in the vicinity of that קדושה. See also the משנה ברורה in סימן תקפּ"א ס"ק כ"ז who warns about asking anything of the dead people themselves.

 

  1. The גמרא says that if one steals, is מתודה, but doesn’t return the lost item, he’s akin to someone who is טובל ושרץ בידו. See the גר"ח על הש"ס on כריתות דף י עמוד א who discusses the following famous חקירה: do we say when the person goes to the מקוה with the שרץ in his hand, the person first becomes טהור and then immediately becomes טמא again because he is still holding the שרץ? Or do we say that the whole טבילה never worked and the original טומאה never left? (There is a halachic נפקא מינה discussed there). The גר"ח proves from a ירושלמי that the old טומאה never left and the טבילה never worked at all. The reason is because it doesn’t have a שם טבילה if there was a never חלות טהרה. See the חידושי ר' ראובן quoted in the ספר אבן ציון דף תקל"ו who says our גמרא seems to prove this since certainly, one who does וידוי without returning the stolen item has no atonement whatsoever for his original act of theft. However, he himself disagrees with the גר"ח and holds that regarding a טובל ושרץ בידו, the original טומאה does in fact leave. He is therefore forced to be מדחיק  our גמרא and explain our גמרא is referring to someone who stole, returned the stolen item but without חרטה, then stole again and has חרטה on the first theft before returning the second theft. That is like טובל ושרץ בידו.

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