011b – אין נערכין - פרק שני – ערכין, דף יא ע”ב

Concerning matters of voice.^[1]

על עסקי קול - For He was commanding him to sing, since Moshe was a Levite.

Rav Ashi said: From here: (Divrei Hayamim II 5) “And it came to pass, when the trumpeters and the singers were as one, to make one sound heard.”^[2]

Rabbi Yonasan said: From here: (Bamidbar 18) “That they not die, neither they nor you.”^[3]

Just as you [Kohanim serve] in the service of the altar, so too they [the Levites serve] in the service of the altar.

אף הם - The Levites [serve] in the service of the altar; and you do not find Levites fit for the service of the altar except in song.

מה אתם - The verse refers to the Kohanim.

So too it was taught: “That they not die, neither they nor you” – you in theirs and they in yours are liable to death; they in their own are not liable to death, but only to a warning.^[4]

אתם בשלהם - Kohanim who entered upon the service of the Levites, for example, they sang.

והם בשלכם - A Levite who served at the altar like a Kohen.

הם בשלהם - For example, a Levite singer who closed the doors, or a Levite gatekeeper who said song; for the Levites were divided, these for gatekeeping and these for singing.

אלא באזהרה - It is not explained to us [where this warning comes from].

Abaye said: We hold that a singer who did gatekeeping, [the task] of his fellow, is liable to death,^[5]

אביי - He does not hold of this teaching taught above, “they in their own are not liable to death”, since he finds another Tanna who stands with him.

as it is said: (Bamidbar 3) “And those who camp before the Mishkan to the east, before the Tent of Meeting… and the stranger who approaches shall be put to death.”^[6]

What is “stranger”?

If you say an actual stranger – it is already written once!^[7]

זר ממש - For example, an Israelite.

הא כתיב חדא זימנא - In that very passage; and it too refers to the service of the Levites.

Rather, is it not a stranger to that particular service?

They raised an objection: A singer who did gatekeeping, or a gatekeeper who sang, is not liable to death but only to a warning!

It is a dispute of Tannaim, as it was taught: It happened that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya went to help close the doors alongside Rabbi Yochanan ben Gudgeda. He said to him: My son, turn back, for you are one of the singers and not one of the gatekeepers.^[8]

Rabbi Yehoshua and Yochanan ben Gudgeda were Levites. Yochanan ben Gudgeda holds that a singer who did gatekeeping is liable to death when he closes [the doors] alone, and the Rabbis decreed on helping, lest he come to do it alone; and Rabbi Yehoshua holds that even when he does it alone it is only a warning, and the Rabbis did not decree on helping.

Is it not that they disagree on this: one master holds it is [a matter of] death, and the Rabbis decreed [even on helping]; and the other master holds it is only a warning, and they did not decree on it?

No – all agree it is only a warning; one master holds that the Rabbis decreed on helping, and the other master holds that the Rabbis did not decree on it.^[9]

Rabbi Avin asked: Does a communal voluntary olah require song or does it not require song?^[10]

עולת נדבת ציבור - For example, “dessert for the altar,” which comes from the horn-shaped boxes into which they put the surplus money of a chatas and the surplus of an asham.^[11]

(Bamidbar 10) “Your olos” the Merciful One said – both an obligatory olah and a voluntary olah;^[12]

עולותיכם - “And you shall blow the trumpets over your olos” (Bamidbar 10), and this is song.

or perhaps “your olos” the Merciful One said of [the olos of] all Israel [i.e. the obligatory ones]?

Come and hear: (Divrei Hayamim II 29) “And Chizkiyahu said to offer the olah [on the altar]; and when the olah began, the song of Hashem began, and the trumpets, by the instruments of David king of Israel.”^[13]

ויאמר חזקיהו - This implies that he was consulting.

This song – what was it for?

If you say for an obligatory olah – why did he need to consult?

Rather, is it not for a voluntary olah?

אלא לאו נדבה - And he consulted whether they should sing; and it is written “the song of Hashem began” – for the court instructed him to sing.

Rav Yosef said: No, it was the olah of Rosh Chodesh, and they were in doubt whether Rosh Chodesh had been fixed in its time, so that it should be offered, or not.^[14]

עולת ר"ח - For it was the Mussaf.

Abaye said to him: Can you really say so?

But it is written: (Divrei Hayamim II 29) “On the sixteenth day of the first month…” “And Chizkiyahu said to offer the olah [on the altar]”!^[15]

Rather, Rami the son of Rav Yeiva said: It was the lamb that comes with the Omer that they were in doubt about – whether Rosh Chodesh had been fixed in its time, so that it should be offered, or not.^[16]

כבש הבא עם העומר - For it is an obligatory olah, on the 16th of Nisan.

Rav Avya objected to this: Let them look at how they made the Pesach, how they ate the matzah!^[17]

Rather, Rav Ashi said: It is just like the prayer leader of the congregation, who asks permission.^[18]

אלא אמר רב אשי - His consulting was not because he was in doubt, for certainly Rosh Chodesh had been fixed in its time; rather he was [only] taking permission.

מידי דהוה אשליח דציבורא דמימליך - And he takes permission whether to pray.

Now that you have come to this, you may even say it was an obligatory olah: it is just like the prayer leader of the congregation, who asks permission.

אפילו תימא עולת חובה - It was the olah of the Tamid of each and every day.

Come and hear: Rabbi Yosi says: Merit is brought about on a day of merit, and guilt on a day of guilt.^[19]

זכות ליום זכאי - In Nisan they were redeemed, and in Nisan they will be redeemed in the future.

They said: When the House was destroyed the first time, that day was Tisha b’Av, and it was the day after Shabbos, and it was the year after the shemittah year, and it was the watch of Yehoyariv; and the Kohanim and Levites were standing on their platform and saying song.^[20]

מוצאי שבת - The first day of the week.

ומוצאי שביעית - The eighth [year].

And what song did they say? (Tehillim 94) “And He turned their iniquity upon them, and in their evil He will cut them off”; and they did not manage to say “Hashem our God will cut them off” before the enemies came and conquered them. And so too at the second.^[21]

וישב עליהם את אונם - It is a verse in Tehillim, in the psalm “God of vengeance, Hashem.”

This song – what was it for?

If you say for an obligatory olah – was there one? On the 17th of Tammuz the Tamid ceased!^[22]

בטל התמיד - For they had no lambs, since [the enemy] was besieging Yerushalayim and no one could go out or come in.

Rather, is it not for a voluntary olah?

And do you think so? What is different about an obligatory olah, that there was none, and what is different about a voluntary olah, that there was one?

ומ"ש עולת נדבה דהואי - Surely lambs were not available!

That is no difficulty: a young bull happened to come their way by chance.^[23]

הא לא קשיא בן בקר בעלמא אתרמי להו - Which is not fit for the Tamid but is fit for a voluntary olah.

Rava said, and some say Rav Ashi: And do you think so? The song of that day [Sunday] is “The earth is Hashem’s and its fullness” (Tehillim 24), while “And He turned their iniquity upon them” is in the song of the fourth day of the week!^[24]

ותסברא - [Do you think] that this song was full song, over an offering? But the song of the first day of the week is “The earth is Hashem’s and its fullness,” as it says in Rosh Hashanah (31a); and this verse is in the psalm “God of vengeance, Hashem,” which is the song of the fourth day of the week.

Rather, it was merely a lament that fell into their mouths.

אילייא - A lament, as we translate “and take up a lament on the high places” (Yirmiyahu 7) [in the Targum]: “and raise a lament (אילייא) on the heights.”

But it teaches: “standing on their platform”!

דוכן - It was a kind of bench.

As Reish Lakish [taught], who said: One says [song] not over an offering.^[25]

If so, let them say it over a voluntary olah too!

אי הכי - That one says song even not over an offering – let them say it over a voluntary olah too, and resolve Rabbi Avin’s question.

Harm would come of it.^[26]

נפקא מיניה חורבא - For Reish Lakish’s [song] is optional; and if [song] were [said] over a voluntary olah as optional, people would come to say that [the song of] an obligatory olah is optional too. Therefore we do not say song at all over a voluntary [olah].

What was concluded about it?

מאי הוי עלה - Of Rabbi Avin’s question.

Come and hear, for Rav Mari the son of Rav Kahana taught: (Bamidbar 10) “Over your olos and over your shelamim”:

ותקעתם בחצוצרות על עולותיכם ועל זבחי שלמיכם - He compares the olah to the shelamim and the shelamim to the olah regarding song.

Just as the olah is kodshei kodashim, so too the shelamim are kodshei kodashim; and just as the shelamim have a fixed time, so too the olah has a fixed time.^[27][28]

מה עולה האמורה כאן קדשי קדשים - For there is no olah that is kodashim kalim; so too the shelamim mentioned here, which require song – [the verse] speaks of shelamim that are kodshei kodashim; and there are no shelamim that are kodshei kodashim except the lambs of Atzeres, which are communal shelamim, and of them it is written (Vayikra 23) “they shall be holy to Hashem, for the Kohen”. And just as the shelamim mentioned here regarding song have a fixed time, for we have set them as the lambs of Atzeres, so too the olah mentioned here is one that has a fixed time – to exclude a communal voluntary [olah], which has no fixed time.

Tosfos

מהכא ויהי כאחד למחצצרים - And in the verse (Bamidbar 10) it is written “And you shall blow the trumpets over your olos” – so there is song [from the Torah].

משוער ששורר - For in Divrei Hayamim (I 9) it is written of families who were gatekeepers and families who were singers.

מיתיבי - Rashi^[29] explained: I do not know where this warning comes from. And Rabbeinu Menachem, may his soul rest in Eden, explained that it is written (Bamidbar 8) “to keep the charge, but he shall do no work,” and it is written (ibid.) “so shall you do to the Levites in their charges.”

דמר סבר במיתה - If a gatekeeper [does it] alone, and the Rabbis decreed on helping together with another; and the other master holds it is a warning, and the Rabbis did not decree if he comes to help.

עולת נדבת ציבור טעונה שיר - For example, the olah of “dessert for the altar”; but an individual’s, even his obligatory one, does not require nesachim.

אלא אמר רמי בריה דרב ייבא כבש הבא עם העומר קא מיבעיא ליה - This is very puzzling: what was he thinking? For yesterday they offered the Tamid and Mussaf offerings – why did he consult only from the Mussaf of the 16th of Nisan?

איבעיא להו אי איקבע ר"ח - And this is difficult for Rashi, for in Divrei Hayamim this verse is written before “and the king took counsel to make the Pesach in the second month.”^[30]

אלא אמר רב (שימי) [אשי] מידי דהוי אשליח דציבורא דממליך - But in truth you cannot resolve [the question], for we may say it was the lamb that comes with the Omer.

שירה דיומא לה' הארץ ומלואה (תהלים כד) - And if the olah of “dessert” required song, it would be the song they said over the morning Tamid of that very day.

אי הכי בעולת נדבה - The Kuntres explained: and resolve Rabbi Avin’s question.

לעולותיכם ולזבחי שלמיכם מה עולה קדשי קדשים אף שלמים כו' ומה שלמים שקבוע להן זמן וכו' - This beraisa is found also in Zevachim, in the chapter Eizehu Mekoman (Zevachim 55a), and is taught there thus: “Just as the olah is kodshei kodashim, so too the shelamim are kodshei kodashim; just as the olah requires the north, so too the shelamim…” – and “just as the shelamim have a fixed time…” as it is here is not there. Perhaps the whole of it – both “require the north” and “have a fixed time” – is the beraisa, and so Rav Mari taught it, and there it is taught [only] what was needed of it. Or else, the beraisa has only “the olah is kodshei kodashim, so too the shelamim are kodshei kodashim” (ה"נ ומקשינן), [and it is applied] to a fixed time and to requiring the north of Zevachim. Rabbeinu Elchanan.^[31]

Notes

1. 1. Continues from the previous amud [Arachin 11a], where the Gemara seeks the Torah source for the Levites’ song. Chananya, the nephew of R’ Yehoshua, derived it from “Moshe would speak, and God would answer him with a voice” (Shemos 19:19): “with a voice” means concerning matters of voice, that is, song.
2. 2. The verse (Divrei Hayamim II 5:13) describes the bringing of the Ark into the Mikdash built by Shlomo: the trumpeters and the singers sounded as one. This shows that song is part of the Temple service.
3. 3. [Bamidbar 18:3] The Levites are warned: “But they shall not approach the holy vessels or the altar, that they not die, neither they nor you.” R’ Yonasan reads it: just as the Kohanim serve at the altar, the Levites too have a service tied to the altar – the song over the offerings.
4. 4. “Death” means death at the hands of Heaven; “a warning” means a plain prohibition with no death penalty. A Kohen doing a Levite’s service, or a Levite doing a Kohen’s, is liable to death; a Levite doing another Levite’s task has only a warning.
5. 5. The Levites were divided between two tasks: singers, who sang on the platform, and gatekeepers, who guarded the gates of the Mikdash and closed its doors. Abaye holds that a singer who did gatekeeping is liable to death.
6. 6. [Bamidbar 3:38] Moshe, Aharon and his sons camp before the Mishkan to the east, keeping the charge of the Sanctuary, “and the stranger who approaches shall be put to death.”
7. 7. That is, the death of a real outsider (a non-Kohen Israelite) who performs the service is already stated elsewhere in that same passage (e.g. Bamidbar 3:10), so why say it again?
8. 8. R’ Yehoshua ben Chananya and R’ Yochanan ben Gudgeda were both Levites: R’ Yehoshua was one of the singers, and R’ Yochanan ben Gudgeda one of the gatekeepers. “Closing the doors” – shutting the doors of the Azarah, the gatekeepers’ task.
9. 9. A helper (מסייע) assists another in his task and does not do it alone. The dispute is whether the Sages extended the ban to the helper too, lest he come to do it alone.
10. 10. Obligatory olos are the Tamid and the Mussaf offerings. Communal voluntary olos are bought from surplus funds and offered when the altar would otherwise stand idle (“dessert for the altar”). The question is whether the Levites sing over these too.
11. 11. The shofaros were the collection boxes of the Mikdash, narrow at the top and wide below like a horn. Money set aside for a chatas or asham that was left over went to the voluntary fund, from which olos were bought as “dessert for the altar.”
12. 12. [Bamidbar 10:10] “On the day of your gladness, on your festivals and new moons, you shall blow the trumpets over your olos and over your shelamim.” This is the source for song over the olos.
13. 13. The verse (Divrei Hayamim II 29:27) is told of Chizkiyahu’s purification of the Mikdash. “And Chizkiyahu said” implies that he asked whether to sing; for an obligatory olah there would be nothing to ask.
14. 14. That is, it was the Mussaf of Rosh Chodesh, and they were unsure whether the court had fixed the new month on that day; so they asked whether to offer it.
15. 15. [Divrei Hayamim II 29:17] They finished sanctifying the House of God on the sixteenth of the first month, Nisan, and only then did Chizkiyahu offer the olah; so it was not Rosh Chodesh.
16. 16. The lamb brought with the Omer is an olah offered with the Omer meal-offering on the 16th of Nisan (Vayikra 23:12). They were unsure whether this day was the 16th, depending on when Rosh Chodesh Nisan had been fixed.
17. 17. That is, the day before they had made the Pesach offering and eaten matzah, so they surely knew when the 15th of Nisan fell, and could not doubt the 16th.
18. 18. The shliach tzibbur, the prayer leader, takes permission before leading the prayer, though nothing is in doubt. So too Chizkiyahu asked out of courtesy, not out of doubt.
19. 19. That is, Heaven brings good events about on a day already marked for good, and calamity on a day already marked for calamity – such as Tisha b’Av, on which both Temples were destroyed.
20. 20. The Kohanim were divided into twenty-four watches (משמרות), each serving in the Mikdash for one week in turn; Yehoyariv was the first. “The year after the seventh” is the eighth year, following the shemittah year.
21. 21. [Tehillim 94:23] The close of the psalm “God of vengeance, Hashem,” which is the song of the fourth day of the week.
22. 22. On the 17th of Tammuz the Tamid ceased (Mishnah Taanis 4:6), for there were no lambs to offer it; from then on no obligatory olah was brought.
23. 23. The Tamid may come only from lambs; a young bull that happened to come their way was unfit for the Tamid but fit for a voluntary olah.
24. 24. The song of the day: each day the Levites said a fixed psalm (Mishnah Tamid 7:4): on Sunday “The earth is Hashem’s and its fullness” (Tehillim 24), on Wednesday “God of vengeance” (Tehillim 94) [Rosh Hashanah 31a]. If on a Sunday they were saying Wednesday’s psalm, it was not the song of an offering.
25. 25. That is, the Levites may sing on the platform even without an offering; so there is no proof that a voluntary olah was being offered.
26. 26. That is, if they sang over a voluntary olah, which is optional, people would come to say that the song over an obligatory olah is optional too.
27. 27. A hekesh: the verse sets the olah beside the shelamim. The only shelamim that are kodshei kodashim are the two lambs of Shavuos, communal shelamim with a fixed time; so the olah that requires song is only one with a fixed time, not a communal voluntary olah. The same beraisa is brought in Zevachim [Zevachim 55a].
28. 28. The discussion continues on the next amud [Arachin 12a]: they asked whether wine libations brought on their own require song.
29. 29. פ"ה – “the Kuntres explained,” that is, Rashi (see Rashi ד"ה אלא באזהרה). Rabbeinu Menachem cites [Bamidbar 8:26] “but he shall do no work.”
30. 30. That is, that year they made the Pesach in the second month, Iyar (Divrei Hayamim II 30:2); this is difficult for Rashi’s reading, which implies the Pesach was made in its time.
31. 31. [Zevachim 55a] There Rav Mari’s beraisa is cited for slaughtering communal shelamim in the north, without the clause “a fixed time.”