The halachic innovation of the Alter Rebbe regarding the reason the shofar is not blown on Rosh Hashanah that falls on Shabbos

00:00 Speaker 1 This year, Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos. It’s an interesting topic both in Nigleh and in Chassidus. It’s one of those topics where you can see how the two belong together: you can’t properly understand the Nigleh without Chassidus, and you can’t really understand the Chassidus without the Nigleh either. They complement each other. We all know that there are maamarim from all our Rebbeim on Rosh Hashanah falling on Shabbos. Of course, they mainly discuss the subject according to Chassidus. But when you look closely at the maamarim—the way they’re written, their questions, their wording, and various details—you also gain an understanding of the topic in Nigleh. So let’s first see how it appears in the Mishnah. It’s the first Mishnah of the fourth chapter of Rosh Hashanah. It begins: “When the Yom Tov of Rosh Hashanah fell on Shabbos, they would blow the shofar in the Mikdash, but not in the rest of the country.” That’s the Mishnah. The commentators ask: Why does it begin, “the Yom Tov of Rosh Hashanah”? Why not just say “Rosh Hashanah”? The whole tractate is Rosh Hashanah! The simple explanation is that, as we learned at the beginning of the tractate, there are several New Years, and not all of them are Yom Tov. So it specifies the Rosh Hashanah that is Yom Tov—1 Tishrei. That’s the straightforward explanation. Perhaps, based on the explanations we’ll discuss today, and on the novel approach of the Radbaz and the Rav to this topic, we can offer another explanation. “When the Yom Tov of Rosh Hashanah fell on Shabbos.” So what happened if Rosh Hashanah

02:08 Speaker 1 fell on Shabbos? In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, they would blow the shofar in the Mikdash, but not in the rest of the country. What does “in the Mikdash, but not in the rest of the country” mean? There are two interpretations. Rashi explains that “the Mikdash” means only the Beis Hamikdash itself. They would blow the shofar there, but not in the rest of the country—not in Jerusalem and not in the outlying areas. “The rest of the country” includes Jerusalem and all of Eretz Yisroel; they would not blow the shofar there. That is Rashi’s view. The Rambam, in his commentary on the Mishnah, disagrees. The Rambam says that “the rest of the country” means—oh, sorry. The Rambam says that “the Mikdash” refers not only to the Beis Hamikdash. When the Mishnah simply says “Mikdash,” it includes Jerusalem too. It’s a general term that encompasses all of Jerusalem. Sometimes all of Jerusalem is called “Mikdash.” This is a disagreement between Rashi and the Rambam, and it relates to the continuation of the Mishnah. Why do they disagree? Because later the Mishnah says: “Any city that can see and hear, is nearby, and can come there—they blow the shofar.” The Mishnah goes on to distinguish between Jerusalem and Yavneh. After the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, Rabban Gamliel—Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai enacted that the shofar should be blown wherever there is a beis din. What does “beis din” mean here? There are several opinions: whether it means a Sanhedrin, at least a court of twenty-three, or whether even a court of three counts as a beis din. There are several opinions about its definition. In any case, after the destruction, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai enacted that wherever there was a beis din, they would blow the shofar even when Rosh Hashanah fell on Shabbos. That was his enactment. Then the Mishnah says there was a difference between Yavneh, where the Sanhedrin was after the destruction of

04:29 Speaker 1 the Beis Hamikdash, and Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, they blew the shofar not only at the Beis Hamikdash but also in the cities around Jerusalem: any city that could see and hear, was nearby, and could come there. The Gemara discusses exactly which places qualified, but the shofar was blown in various places around Jerusalem as well. So what does this seem to show explicitly? That they blew the shofar not only in the Beis Hamikdash itself, but in the surrounding places too. That accords with the Rambam. What does the Rambam say? That “in the Mikdash” means not only in the Beis Hamikdash, but throughout Jerusalem; the term includes all of Jerusalem, including the Mikdash. And the Rambam seems to be right, because the continuation of the Mishnah says so explicitly: Jerusalem had an advantage over Yavneh in that they blew the shofar not only at the site of the Mikdash, but in the surrounding areas too. That’s what the Rambam says. The problem is that this contradicts Rashi. How did Rashi understand the Mishnah? Right at the beginning, Rashi says that “Mikdash” means only the Mikdash, and “the rest of the country” includes Jerusalem. So according to Rashi, there seems to be a contradiction between the first and last parts of the Mishnah. Do you hear the question? According to Rashi, the beginning says that they blew the shofar only in the Mikdash—literally, only in the Beis Hamikdash. That means they did not blow it in Jerusalem. But at the end, the Mishnah says they blew it not only in Jerusalem, but also in all the surrounding places. It’s a contradiction. There are two ways to resolve it. Tosafos actually raises this question, and there are two ways to explain Rashi’s position. Tosafos explains that the end of the Mishnah is talking about after the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, while the beginning is talking about when it still stood. That is, when the Beis Hamikdash

06:59 Speaker 1 stood, they blew the shofar only in the Beis Hamikdash. That was the only place. After the destruction, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai enacted that the shofar should be blown wherever there was a Sanhedrin, wherever there was a beis din. In that enactment he made a distinction between Jerusalem and Yavneh. In Yavneh, they blew the shofar only at the beis din itself. You had to come to the beis din and hear the shofar there. But out of respect for Jerusalem, he enacted a kind of leniency: they could blow the shofar throughout Jerusalem and in all the places near the site of the Mikdash. That’s how Tosafos understands it—and, seemingly, how Tosafos understands Rashi. Yes?

08:07 Speaker 2 Rashi says: “And in this respect, too, Jerusalem had an advantage over Yavneh.”

08:16 Speaker 1 Wait, first of all, that’s what Tosafos says. That’s Tosafos’s approach. So again, what does Tosafos say? There appears to be a contradiction between the first and last parts of the Mishnah, but Tosafos says there isn’t. The first part refers to when the Beis Hamikdash stood, when they blew the shofar only there—not anywhere else, not even in Jerusalem. After the destruction, they also blew it wherever there was a beis din, and he enacted that in Jerusalem they should blow it throughout the city and on all the nearby hills. That’s how Tosafos understands the Mishnah. We’ll look at Rashi’s interpretation afterward. Now, when you look at Rashi, it doesn’t sound that way. Rashi says, “And in this respect, too, Jerusalem, while it still stood, had an advantage over Yavneh.” Rashi says that while Jerusalem still stood, it had an advantage over Yavneh: they blew the shofar in all the nearby places. So Rashi clearly doesn’t understand it as Tosafos does. Rashi holds that the end of the Mishnah is also talking about when the Beis Hamikdash stood. How, then, can we understand Rashi? There are a few ways to explain it, broadly two approaches. One approach continues along the lines of Tosafos—not exactly like Tosafos, but in the same vein—and says there were three periods. Several Rishonim say this. One period was when the Beis Hamikdash stood and the Sanhedrin sat in the Beis Hamikdash. At that time, they blew the shofar only in the Beis Hamikdash, where the Sanhedrin was. In other words, Rashi holds that the whole reason they blew the shofar in the Beis Hamikdash

10:32 Speaker 1 Because that was where the Sanhedrin was. Wherever the Sanhedrin was, it was permitted to sound the shofar even on Shabbos. They permitted it there because the beis din would come there, and there they knew for certain, so to speak, when the new month had been established. There were explanations for that. Now, there was a period when the Sanhedrin left the Beis Hamikdash. As they began to go into exile, the first stage was that they left the Beis Hamikdash but remained in Jerusalem, outside the site of the Beis Hamikdash. That is the period Rashi is talking about; it is the continuation of the Mishnah. The Sanhedrin was already in Jerusalem, no longer at the site of the Beis Hamikdash, but still in Jerusalem. That is when Jerusalem had an advantage over Yavneh. That is what he is discussing. When the Sanhedrin was in Jerusalem, the Beis Hamikdash was still standing, but the Sanhedrin was no longer at its site; it was in Jerusalem. They then instituted that all the nearby towns could sound the shofar. That is how it works. Then there is a third period, after the destruction, when the shofar could be sounded wherever there was a beis din. Those are the three stages, the three periods. That is how some commentators want to resolve the plain meaning of the Mishnah according to Rashi. There is another approach, different from Tosafos: the Ramban’s. The Ramban has a discourse that was printed in several places, including books arranged around Rosh Hashanah. The Ramban once delivered this discourse, and it looks as though it took the whole day—I don’t know when he had the time, right? It is a very long discourse. He delivered it on a certain Rosh Hashanah, and in it he teaches all the laws of Rosh Hashanah and explains all kinds of homiletic matters. It is a very well-known discourse by the Ramban. There he offers an explanation of the Mishnah. How does he explain the apparent contradiction between its beginning and its end? He says—listen closely, this is a tremendous novelty—

12:45 Speaker 1 He says that the entire Mishnah is speaking about the time when the Beis Hamikdash stood, as Rashi says, right? And what does he say? In Jerusalem they prohibited sounding the shofar, but in the towns near Jerusalem they would sound it. In other words, while the Beis Hamikdash stood, they sounded the shofar at the site of the Beis Hamikdash, because that was its place, and there they sounded it even on Shabbos. But the Sages wanted the people who lived in Jerusalem to go to the Beis Hamikdash. So they prohibited sounding the shofar throughout Jerusalem. If you live in Jerusalem and want to hear the shofar, go to the Beis Hamikdash. This was to give prominence to the site of the Beis Hamikdash as the principal place where the shofar was sounded. But people living in the areas around Jerusalem who could not get all the way to the Beis Hamikdash, for whatever reason—perhaps because of the Shabbos travel limits; I’m not sure exactly what he says—were permitted to sound the shofar on Rosh Hashanah that fell on Shabbos. So according to this, there is no contradiction between the beginning and the end of the Mishnah. When the Yom Tov of Rosh Hashanah fell on Shabbos, they sounded the shofar in the Beis Hamikdash, but not elsewhere—not in Jerusalem and not in the outlying areas, as Rashi says. Ordinarily they did not sound the shofar in Jerusalem or in the outlying areas, but they did permit it in the places near Jerusalem. It is a major novelty, but that is what the Ramban says. Again, though, as we said earlier, all this follows Rashi’s understanding that “the Mikdash” means only the Beis Hamikdash, while “the outlying areas” includes all of Jerusalem, and certainly all of Eretz Yisroel. The Rambam disagrees. He holds that “the Mikdash” refers to all of Jerusalem, so according to the Rambam there is no contradiction between the beginning and the end of the Mishnah in the first place. “The Mikdash” means all of Jerusalem, and while the Beis Hamikdash stood, they sounded the shofar both in the Beis Hamikdash and in Jerusalem. The end of the Mishnah then explains that they also sounded it in the places near Jerusalem. Okay, that is one point. Now for the big,

14:57 Speaker 1 well-known question: What exactly is going on? Why don’t we sound the shofar when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos? What is the reason? That is the question the Gemara discusses here. What is the reason it is forbidden to sound the shofar when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos? The Gemara has two approaches here, an initial assumption and a conclusion. First the Gemara asks, “From where do we know this?” In other words, where do we learn that the shofar may not be sounded when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos? At first, the Gemara cites verses. Rabbi Levi bar Lachma says in the name of Rabbi Chama bar Chanina—they were apparently among the Amoraim of Eretz Yisroel—that it is learned from verses. One verse says “a day of sounding,” while another says “a remembrance of sounding.” What is the difference? Why does one say it one way and the other say it another way? One refers to Rosh Hashanah that falls on a weekday, and the other to Rosh Hashanah that falls on Shabbos. In other words, the Torah is speaking about two situations. When Rosh Hashanah falls on a weekday, the Torah says “a day of sounding”: we must actually sound the shofar. When Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos, the Torah says “a remembrance of sounding”: we only mention it. What does “a remembrance of sounding” mean? There is discussion of that too. This is the meaning of the verses: we recite the verses of Shofaros. So there are two novel points in the Gemara’s initial assumption. The first is that this is a Torah law—a remarkable point. According to Rabbi Levi, by Torah law we do not sound the shofar when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos. The second is that the recitation of the verses of Shofaros is a Torah requirement. That is not so simple. There is a major dispute among the Rishonim as to whether reciting the verses of Shofaros is a rabbinic enactment or a Torah requirement, and it depends on how we understand the Gemara here. How do we understand

17:08 Speaker 1 the verse here? When the Torah says “a remembrance of sounding,” does it mean that by Torah law, on a Shabbos like this, when the shofar is not sounded, we must mention the sounding of the shofar verbally? Is that the meaning of “a remembrance of sounding”—that the verses must be recited by Torah law? Or is it merely an asmachta, a scriptural allusion? Perhaps the Torah simply calls it a remembrance because it is a day of remembrance, whatever the explanation may be, and the Sages used the verse as support for a rabbinic enactment. There is a lengthy discussion about this, and we will get to the verses. We won’t discuss the verses today. I mainly want to discuss the sounding of the shofar itself. So as for the sounding of the shofar itself, it sounds as though Rabbi Levi bar Lachma and Rabbi Chama bar Chanina hold that it is a Torah law. There are two verses, one phrased this way and one the other way. We will soon see that this is disputed; it is not simple. The Rishonim disagree about whether it is a Torah law or only an asmachta, meaning the rule is rabbinic. In other words, at first these verses appear to give the actual meaning of the Torah’s words. Or perhaps the Sages merely derived support from them, using the verses as an asmachta. But at first glance it sounds as though the rule comes from the verses. The Gemara then asks: What do you mean? How can you say it is a Torah law? The Gemara has two questions. First, if it is a Torah law, how could they have sounded the shofar in the Beis Hamikdash? If the Torah says there is no sounding of the shofar on Shabbos, why did they sound it there? If it were a rabbinic enactment, a restriction of shevus, fine—perhaps shevus does not apply in the Beis Hamikdash, or whatever the explanation is. But if it is a Torah law, how could they sound the shofar there? The Gemara’s second question is: How could the Torah say not to sound the shofar on Shabbos when sounding the shofar is not a melachah? It is not a melachah, because the shofar is not

19:13 Speaker 1 A melachah. It is not a Torah prohibition at all. According to Torah law, there is no prohibition against blowing the shofar. He cites the Gemara in Shabbos, which says: “It was taught: Rabbi Yishmael says, ‘You shall do no laborious work’—this excludes blowing the shofar and removing bread from the oven, which are skills and not melachos.” Yes, the Gemara says this. It is a beraisa quoted several times. In Tractate Shabbos it appears at the beginning of the tractate, in the discussion of removing bread from the oven. Anyone who remembers Tractate Shabbos will know it comes up again later in Shabbos, and it comes up here too: “You shall do no work,” or “You shall do no laborious work.” Tosafos discusses this—the verse about Yom Tov, the verse about Shabbos, whichever it is—that blowing the shofar and removing bread from the oven are excluded because they are skills, not melachos. In other words, the Torah prohibited only melachos, and there are thirty-nine melachos. Melachah is forbidden on Shabbos. “Laborious work”—work involving effort. We have to know exactly what “melachah” means. Removing bread from the oven is not a melachah. Blowing the shofar is not a melachah; it is a skill. That is, you have to know how to do it. How do you blow a shofar? It takes skill, not melachah. Melachah means making something, performing an action. What is the definition of melachah? We have to know exactly what defines it. Blowing the shofar does not fall within that definition. The whole business of blowing the shofar is a skill. A person has to know how to hold the shofar and blow it. And likewise, removing bread—taking bread out of the oven—is not a melachah; it is called a skill. So under Torah law there is no problem: removing bread from the oven and blowing the shofar are permitted. The prohibition, then, is rabbinic. How can you say the Torah is commanding us about a rabbinic prohibition, that the Torah itself says not to blow the shofar? So the Gemara reaches its conclusion: Rava said that, in fact, blowing the shofar is permitted by Torah law. What is the Gemara’s wording? Rava said:

21:20 Speaker 1 “By Torah law, it is entirely permitted.” By Torah law, blowing the shofar is actually permitted even on Shabbos. The Sages made a decree. Why did they make it? Because of Rabbah’s decree. Now, of course, Rabbah did not enact the decree. Rabbah lived in the era of the Amoraim, while the decree dates from the era of the Tannaim. “Rabbah’s decree” means that Rabbah identified the decree—he explained its reason. The reason for the prohibition. When all these decrees were enacted, in the time of the Great Assembly—the Assembly... when was that? In the time of the Second Beis Hamikdash. When they enacted all the decrees; the Gemara discusses this too. In any case, why did they make this decree? The prohibition follows Rabbah’s reasoning: everyone is obligated to hear the shofar. Everyone needs the shofar blown, but not everyone knows how to blow it. The decree is lest—what might he do? He might take it in his hand and go to someone knowledgeable to learn, carrying it four amos in the public domain. The same applies whether it is a lulav or a Megillah. That is the sugya. So in the end, what is Rabbah saying? What is Rava saying? What is the nature of the prohibition against blowing the shofar when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos? It is a rabbinic prohibition: Rabbah’s decree, lest someone unfamiliar with the laws of shofar blowing carry the shofar on a Rosh Hashanah that falls on Shabbos. That is why they prohibited it. Yes?

22:44 Speaker 3 All right.

22:45 Speaker 1 All right, that is in Likkutei Sichos, volume 7. What about matzah? But here we are talking about lulav and Megillah, along with Rosh Hashanah. Okay. Now what is going on here? What is the issue? There is a lot to discuss here. Yes, there are many aspects to discuss, simple questions that come up. Why do we need to arrive at this? I will mention a few questions that arise here, throw out a few questions about the sugya. First, is there a disagreement between Rabbi Levi and Rabbah? Rabbi Levi holds that it is a Torah law, while Rabbah and Rava hold that it is rabbinic law. That is one point that needs examination. We need to clarify it. Or, as we said, there is another approach: Rabbi Levi also means that it is rabbinic, and the verses are only an asmachta, a scriptural allusion. But that is one general question. Soon we will see that there is a Yerushalmi. We will get to it and discuss it today. It is very interesting to see how the Yerushalmi understands the sugya. Then there is a question about the matter itself, about Rabbah’s decree. Why do we need that decree? There is a simpler decree: it is forbidden to produce musical sounds on Shabbos; it is forbidden to use musical instruments on Shabbos, lest one repair an instrument. So why not say that this is the decree? Simply, lest one repair an instrument. Why does the Gemara not say that? Why go to the concern that someone might carry it four amos, which is a rather incidental matter and requires someone to be that unfamiliar, and so on? Why seize on an incidental issue when you can point to a problem inherent in blowing the shofar: lest one repair an instrument? All use of musical instruments is forbidden lest one repair an instrument. A simple question. What? Ah, now you are already starting to offer explanations. Good, you are saying there is no problem, but nevertheless, yes? This is a question we need to discuss:

25:01 Speaker 1 What really is the issue, and why did they not include it all? Now, simply put, as you say, the Gemara says, “The same reason applies to Megillah; the same reason applies to Sukkah...” In other words, they made one enactment. We have shofar, lulav, and Megillah. So rather than prohibiting each for a different reason, there is one decree. There is one decree addressing one problem: carrying. By contrast, the concern about musical instruments applies only to the shofar, not to the lulav. But of course, we need a further explanation of why we do not see the reason of musical instruments being used. That is another question here. Tosafos addresses this in—at the beginning—in Sukkah. Tosafos says that a shofar is not really an ordinary musical instrument. Right? The whole concern of “lest one repair an instrument” applies to violins, delicate instruments like that, where there is more reason to fear that someone might repair one. A shofar, to begin with, is not a musical instrument. A shofar is—it is—it is not considered a musical instrument at all. It is not music. And on the other hand, as you said, it is also not something that ordinarily breaks so easily. So it is difficult to say that they would enact a decree on that account. And besides, even if something does happen to it, it is difficult to repair. I do not think a person would go and repair it. There are various factors that make such a decree unlikely. Right? That is one approach. But there is another approach in the commentaries: “lest one repair an instrument” is, in fact, one of the reasons as well. Tosafos seems to imply—we will soon look at the text of Tosafos—that the rabbinic decree is a combination of two things. Two decrees are combined here, a kind of decree upon a decree. If you look at Tosafos, the passage beginning

27:06 Speaker 1 “But,” Tosafos says—look. Tosafos asks why they were stricter about the shofar than about the lulav. Look: why? Why, in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, did they permit taking the lulav everywhere on Shabbos, but not blowing the shofar? Why is the shofar treated more strictly than the lulav? Tosafos says, “For the lulav involves nothing more than carrying, and since it was permitted in the Beis Hamikdash, they were not strict about it elsewhere. But the matter of the shofar involves an act of skill.” What does Tosafos mean here? What is Tosafos saying with those words? Look, there are several ways to understand Tosafos, several explanations in the commentaries. The commentators disagree on how to explain the plain meaning of Tosafos. One explanation is what we just said: there is a greater stringency with the shofar than with the lulav. With the lulav, the only concern is carrying. “Lest one carry it” is the only issue, and that decree itself is not so straightforward. We will soon discuss why. By contrast, with the shofar, besides the issue of carrying, there is another problem. So Tosafos says, what is the problem? It is “an act of skill.” What exactly does Tosafos mean by “an act of skill”? We need to understand that. There are different explanations, but one is what I just said: with the shofar there is also the concern that one might repair a musical instrument. Blowing the shofar is a skill in the sense that it involves an instrument. At any rate, there is a particular prohibition here, the prohibition that applies to all musical instruments. That is why, Tosafos says, blowing the shofar is treated more strictly than taking the lulav. Why? In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, when Sukkos fell on Shabbos—just as Rosh Hashanah can fall on Shabbos, so can Sukkos—they took the lulav not only in the Beis Hamikdash, but everywhere. Blowing the shofar, however, was not permitted, because here there are two, two rabbinic Shabbos prohibitions.

29:22 Speaker 1 There is the act of blowing the shofar itself, which is also forbidden. That is what the Gemara means when it says, “It is a skill, not a form of labor.” This is the basis for prohibiting shofar blowing: since it is not labor by Torah law, it should be permitted. But the Sages prohibited it because it is an act requiring skill, and there is a concern that one might repair a musical instrument. That is one way to understand it, and so this is a double decree. In other words, both decrees are needed together. That brings us to this issue. Then there is a remarkable insight of the Alter Rebbe concerning it. What is the reason shofar blowing is forbidden? Is the prohibition solely a rabbinic decree, or must we add another reason? The Alter Rebbe has a wonderful insight, and the Rebbe made a great deal of it. There is a letter from the Rebbe to Rabbi Zevin, from before the Rebbe’s leadership began. Rabbi Zevin did not believe it until the Rebbe showed it to him with his own eyes. The discussion between them was very interesting: the Rebbe pointed out to Rabbi Zevin that the Alter Rebbe had, in fact, made a revolutionary change. The Alter Rebbe offers a remarkable insight. It is based on the Magen Avraham, but look at what the Alter Rebbe writes in the laws of shofar blowing. When he presents the law concerning Rosh Hashanah that falls on Shabbos, he says that the reason one may not blow the shofar is that it is uvdin dechol, a weekday activity. That is what the Alter Rebbe writes: shofar blowing is forbidden on Shabbos because it is uvdin dechol. This is astonishing. Why are we talking about weekday activity? There is a decree here lest someone carry the shofar. Yet the Alter Rebbe begins by saying that shofar blowing is inherently forbidden because it is uvdin dechol. Now, the definition of uvdin dechol is interesting. It is not an ordinary shvus, a rabbinic Shabbos prohibition. There are two categories in the laws of Shabbos: uvdin dechol

31:19 Speaker 1 and shvus. We see this several times in the Alter Rebbe’s laws of Shabbos. A shvus is a decree; every shvus is a decree lest someone do this or that. But there is another category on Shabbos called uvdin dechol. It means activities that are characteristic of weekdays—things one does not do on Shabbos, things that are not appropriate for Shabbos and look like weekday activities. Several times the Alter Rebbe writes: Why did they prohibit this? Because it is uvdin dechol, a weekday activity. There are utensils one may not use and various other matters discussed in connection with muktzeh or weekday activities—different cases that fall under this category. So the Alter Rebbe says that blowing the shofar is a weekday activity; it is uvdin dechol. It is astonishing that he says this, but that is what he says. On an ordinary Rosh Hashanah, one that does not fall on Shabbos, we blow the shofar despite its being a weekday activity, because it is the mitzvah. Once the Torah said that there is a mitzvah to blow the shofar, it became a mitzvah and was no longer a weekday activity. But when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos, the Sages enacted that the shofar should not be blown, lest someone carry it four cubits in the public domain. What is the Alter Rebbe getting at? The Rebbe explains that the Alter Rebbe is actually addressing Tosafos’s question. Why is Rosh Hashanah different? The Alter Rebbe, too, holds that the rabbinic decree alone is not enough; something more is needed. That is why he first explains that shofar blowing is inherently something that one could not do on

33:18 Speaker 1 Yom Tov or on Shabbos. Not because of a rabbinic decree—it would be forbidden even on Yom Tov, because it is uvdin dechol. Shofar blowing is a weekday activity, and weekday activities are not done on Yom Tov or Shabbos. That is the foundation. But then the Torah came and said that on Rosh Hashanah we must blow the shofar. The Torah itself decreed this; after all, it said that a shofar is needed on Rosh Hashanah, so the blowing is no longer a weekday activity. But when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos, there is also the decree lest someone carry it, and so the two factors combine. There is something remarkable here. If you noticed, there is a very significant difference between the Alter Rebbe and Tosafos. According to Tosafos, the primary reason is the rabbinic decree. What does Tosafos add? Why were they stricter on Rosh Hashanah? Because shofar blowing raises an additional concern: it is an act requiring skill, as Tosafos says. But the main reason remains the rabbinic decree. According to the Alter Rebbe, it is the reverse. His great insight, which the Rebbe calls remarkable, turns the explanation around. The main reason we do not blow the shofar when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos is that it is uvdin dechol. But uvdin dechol alone is not enough, because on an ordinary Rosh Hashanah the Torah says we must blow it. So the rabbinic decree was added. That is how the Alter Rebbe understood the whole matter. This is a major insight of the Alter Rebbe, and we need to understand its reasoning in the revealed dimension of Torah. But another very important point comes in here, one that also helps us understand Chassidus. Based on everything we are learning here in Tosafos, and especially in the Alter Rebbe, two reasons are needed.

35:28 Speaker 1 Two factors are needed to prohibit shofar blowing on Shabbos: there must be an issue with the act of blowing the shofar itself, and, when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos, there is also the rabbinic decree. This fits very well with Chassidus, with all the maamarim of our Rebbeim. They repeatedly ask: How could such a great and important mitzvah be set aside because of a rabbinic decree, when the decree is only a concern about an ignorant, thoughtless person? All the maamarim ask this question. After all, the concern behind the rabbinic decree is only about such a person. So how could they set aside such an important mitzvah on his account? Usually we learn that this is a question from the perspective of Chassidus, but not a question at all in the revealed dimension of Torah. In a sicha on Pesach in Likkutei Sichos, volume 7, the Rebbe says that the question is not really a question in the revealed dimension of Torah, because this is how enactments and decrees work. The Sages have the authority to establish a law that sets aside a Torah commandment. We learned this in Gittin too: the Sages have authority. “Anyone who betroths a woman does so subject to the will of the Sages.” The Sages have the authority to affect Torah law. What is the question? Of course—that is how all decrees work. The Sages were concerned that someone might carry the shofar, so they set aside the mitzvah. What, then, is the question in Chassidus? We really need to understand it. But here we see that this is not only a question in Chassidus. We see that in the revealed dimension of Torah too, Tosafos and especially the Alter Rebbe look for another explanation. They do not consider the rabbinic decree sufficient. Apparently another reason is needed, as though the rabbinic decree is

37:24 Speaker 1 additional to the main issue. There are two factors here. First, blowing the shofar is inherently something unusual that ought not be done—whether because one might repair a musical instrument, because it is uvdin dechol, or because it is an act requiring skill, as Tosafos says. Some want to suggest that Tosafos is introducing a new category of prohibition. In other words, there is some prohibition inherent in shofar blowing, and the rabbinic decree is added to it. So even in the revealed dimension of Torah, the rabbinic decree is not the main point. It is interesting to see the parallel, the similarity between the revealed dimension of Torah and Chassidus in this matter. Since I mentioned the question asked in Chassidus—how could such an important mitzvah be set aside because of a decree concerned only with an ignorant, thoughtless person?—this is the place to add a beautiful insight from the Rebbe. The Rebbe wants to explain the deeper meaning of that question. He raises a very interesting point: Why that wording? What does “an ignorant, thoughtless person” mean? Why do all the maamarim use both descriptions? In a maamar from Erev Rosh Hashanah 5743, the Rebbe says that the wording emphasizes two distinct shortcomings. “Ignorant” means someone lacking knowledge; “thoughtless” means someone who casts off the yoke of Heaven. These are two different categories. A person can lack knowledge without casting off the yoke, or cast off the yoke without lacking knowledge. Some people simply lack knowledge but have yiras Shamayim; others, conversely, lack yiras Shamayim but know when not to... Here both shortcomings are needed: the person must be both ignorant and thoughtless. Why? Because the person who would carry the shofar in the street

39:20 Speaker 1 On Shabbos, he is committing two wrongs. He is also an ignoramus—he doesn’t know. Rosh Hashanah arrives, and he still doesn’t know how to blow the shofar; he doesn’t know the laws of shofar blowing. So he is an ignoramus, and he also lacks fear of Heaven. But this is Shabbos. What, you don’t know about Shabbos? That isn’t a lack of knowledge. Every Jew knows that on Shabbos you may not carry. So what is it? He lacks fear of Heaven, and therefore he might forget and suddenly carry the shofar. So this isn’t just any decree. It’s such a remote concern that, for it to happen, a person would have to be both careless and all that. That’s a point the Rebbe adds in the maamar to strengthen the question. But as the Rebbe says in section seven, from the standpoint of nigleh, the question isn’t really a strong one, because the Sages have the authority to do such a thing. The question is, as the Rebbe says in that sicha, that we see they didn’t enact this for matzah. The concern is real; they should have made such a decree for all the mitzvos. But they didn’t enact it for matzah. That implies that the Sages decided when to do so and when not to. On the other hand, sometimes, when they wanted to arrange things, they arranged the entire calendar so that something wouldn’t fall on Shabbos. The Sages made sure that Hoshana Rabbah would never fall on Shabbos. Why did they do that? Because they wanted to make certain that the hoshanos could be performed, right? It wouldn’t fall on Shabbos. In other words, the Sages knew how to arrange things when necessary, so there would be no conflict with the words of the Torah. And the fact that here, with Rosh Hashanah, it didn’t trouble them that Rosh Hashanah would fall on Shabbos, that people wouldn’t blow the shofar, and that they would leave this decree in place—that points to what Chassidus says: when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos, the blowing of the shofar isn’t needed in the first place, because

41:07 Speaker 1 what the shofar blowing accomplishes is brought about by Shabbos itself, and so on and so forth. And this is where all the explanations in Chassidus come in. There is a dispute here between the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud. Everything we’ve discussed until now is from the Babylonian Talmud. There are other points we haven’t discussed yet that aren’t simple, but perhaps we’ll leave them for another class. Why does it say, “lest he carry it four cubits in the public domain”? Why doesn’t it say, “lest he take it from a private domain into the public domain”? That is Tosafos’s question. Tosafos gives an answer, and there are other answers not given there. There are answers elsewhere; in Tosafos itself, there is a different answer in the discussion. The Rishonim give other answers to this question. Why does it say “lest he carry it” rather than “lest he take it out”? Rabbi Akiva Eiger gives an interesting answer. We’ll leave that for another time. But one more point: there is a dispute here between the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. The Babylonian Talmud concludes that this is only a rabbinic decree. In the Jerusalem Talmud, the whole decree isn’t mentioned at all. In the Jerusalem Talmud there is no decree—no decree is mentioned at all. There is the Mishnah, and after the Mishnah the Gemara relates a discussion, right? The Gemara tells us that Amoraim sat and discussed why we don’t blow the shofar when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos. Then a certain Kahana came and told them there was a verse: “A day of sounding the shofar,” and “a remembrance of the sounding of the shofar.” How do we reconcile them? One refers to Rosh Hashanah that falls on Shabbos, and the other to Rosh Hashanah that falls on a weekday. Then someone else came and said that Rav Zeira had told the Sages to go hear Rav Levi’s discourse. Is this the same Rav Levi as in our Gemara or not? Ours says Rav Levi bar Chama; here it just says Rav Levi. They went to hear his discourse, and he said: “One verse says, ‘A day of sounding the shofar,’ and another says, ‘A remembrance of the sounding of the shofar.’ How do we reconcile them? When it falls on a weekday,

43:30 Speaker 1 it is ‘a day of sounding the shofar’; when it falls on Shabbos, it is ‘a remembrance of the sounding of the shofar.’” So the Gemara goes on to ask: Wait, if this is Torah law, why is the shofar blown in the Beis Hamikdash even on Shabbos? The Gemara doesn’t answer that it is a rabbinic decree. Instead, it answers with a braisa: Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said that the verse says, “And you shall offer”—in a place where offerings are brought. Where offerings are brought, the shofar is blown even on Shabbos. That settles it: the whole thing is Torah law. And seemingly, the plain reading of the Gemara implies that the Jerusalem Talmud holds that this is a Torah law. Many commentators understand it that way. Along these lines, at the beginning of Hemshech 5659, the Rebbe Rashab presents this as a dispute between the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. That is what the Rebbe Rashab writes at the beginning of Hemshech 5659: according to the Jerusalem Talmud, it seems to be a Torah law. That’s what it says. And he says several things that are difficult to understand, about the offerings. He says explicitly: according to the Jerusalem Talmud, what is the answer to the question? If it is Torah law, how did they blow the shofar in the Beis Hamikdash? It is because the Jerusalem Talmud holds that in the Beis Hamikdash, it was openly revealed what Rosh Hashanah was about. [unclear] What does he mean by that? Our Jerusalem Talmud says that this is learned from a verse. We need to understand Hemshech 5659. We’ll leave that for the next class, along with understanding precisely what the dispute between the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds is throughout, and how the Rebbe Rashab understood the Jerusalem Talmud. We’ll see as we continue.