"The principal categories of labor, forty
less one, to what do they correspond? ...Rabbi Simeon the son of Rabbi Yossi
the son of Lakonia said: they correspond to the
words melachah [work], melachto [his work], and melechet [the
work of], which occur forty less one times in the Torah."
The Gemara continues to say that there are
really 40 occurrences of melachah, melachto, and melechet in the
Torah, and the Amora Rav Joseph doubts which of the two occurrences -- "Vayavo
habaytah laasot melachto..." (Genesis 39:11) and "Vehamelachah haytah
dayam..." (Exodus 36:7) -- should not be included in the count, for in the
context of one of these verses the
word melachah or melachto means something other than
"work" or "labor" (see Rashi on Shabbat 49b,
s.v. Mishum dektiv).
We have, according to the Gemara, 40
occurrences of the words melachah, melachto, and melechet in the
Torah, and each of them can also have grammatical prefixes (definite article,
prepositions, etc.), as we learn from the example of "Vehamelachah haytah dayam..."
Yet in our text of the Torah there are 35
occurrences of the word melachah, 5 of the word melachto, and 23 of the
word melechet (including those with grammatical prefixes). This
totals 63 occurrences! Either once again we have some manner of playful
hyperbole or in our Torah scrolls there are
23 melachah, melachto, and melechet occurrences which
were not in Rabbi Simeon's scroll.
Of course our rabbis were aware of this
difficulty. They suggested removing dozens of melachah, melachto, and melechet from
the count, but without any consistent criteria guiding them in this process.
Thus Ra'aban (Rabbi Eliezer the son of Rabbi Nathan), in his commentary on
Tractate Shabbat, paragraph 350, ruled that the phrases "kol melechet avodah,"
which refer to holidays and not to the Sabbath, should be excluded from the
count -- but not the phrase "kol melachah lo yeaseh" of Exodus 12:16,
for example, which also refers to Passover. The Jerusalem Talmud (Shabbat 7:2)
states explicitly that the verse "Sheshet yamim tochal matzot... lo taaseh
melachah" (Deuteronomy 16:8) though it also refers to Passover -- comes to
complete the count of the 39 melachot in the Torah which correspond
to the 39 categories of labor forbidden on Sabbath.
Yet this is far from the whole problem. Even
from what the Rishonim wrote on this matter it follows that the Torah texts
they possessed were different from those of the Gemara, from that of our time,
and even from each other! Rabbeynu Chananel (who lived in the beginning of the
11th century CE in al-Qayrawan, Tunisia) wrote in his commentary on Shabbat
49b: "And they
[melachah, melachto, and melechet in the Torah] are 61. But
when you draw out 3 occurrences written in the portion of 'Vayechulu hashamayim'
(Genesis 2:1-3), and 4 [occurrences], where it is
written ve'asita, vaye'aseh, vate'aseh, and the phrase 'leregel hamelachah'
(Genesis 33:14), and 13 occurrences where it is written 'kol melechet avodah'
-- which totals 21 -- you are left with 40 [occurrences, in accordance with the
Gemara]."
But in our Torah scroll there are 63
occurrences of the words melachah, melachto and melechet, not
61, and there is not a single place where the verb ve'asita is
written in proximity to one of these words.
Nachmanides and Rashba, the great Spanish
rabbis of the 13th-14th centuries, also adopted the view of Rabbeynu Chananel
on this matter. It seems they did not check the matter themselves, but just
copied Rabbeynu Chananel's figures -- they wrote that one should omit 14
occurrences of 'kol melechet avodah' from the count (and not 13), but there are
only 13 occurrences of 'kol melechet avodah' in the Torah; were there 14, the
number of the occurrences omitted would be 22, not 21 -- but they wrote that
one should omit 21 occurrences from the count. So, it is most plausible they
just copied Rabbeynu Chananel's comment and erred in copying. And they, of
course, did not solve the puzzle of ve'asita.
Raaban, in 12th-century Mainz, Germany, also
mainly adopted the view of Rabbeynu Chananel and even copied from him the total
number of occurrences -- 61 -- and the number of occurrences which one has to
eliminate from the count -- 21 -- but he was scrupulous enough to take the
Torah text and count those occurrences. And when one looks at his count
(brought in Sefer Ra'aban, paragraph 350), he will discover that:
1. For reasons unknown, Ra'aban also added the
occurrences of the word melachtecha to the count. In our Torah scroll
there are 2 such occurrences, and then the total count for our Torah scroll
becomes 65.
2. He found 62 occurrences
of melachah, melachto, melechet, and melachtecha in
the Torah. Two of them are of the word melachtecha, and 60 are
of melachah, melachto, and melechet. His Torah scroll was
apparently different from that of Rabbeynu Chananel.
3. Again, 62 occurrences are not 65 -- in our
Torah scroll there are 3 more such words than in Ra'aban's (in the portions
of Mishpatim, Pekudey and Bamidbar).
4. And of course, if one subtracts 21
occurrences from 62, 41, not 40, remain and so Ra'aban's work cannot solve the
problem even for his own Torah scroll (let alone ours, in which one would be
left with 44 occurrences after removing the 21).
It follows there was either error in counting
or Ra'aban's Torah text was different from Chazal's, R' Chananel's, and ours as
well!
The first rabbi whose explanation fits our
Torah text is R' Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, author of the Tosfot Yom Tov
commentary on the Mishnah. It seems that, despite his refusal to adopt R'
Chananel's figures (because they did not fit his Torah scroll), the Tosfot Yom
Tov was scared to state so explicitly and confined himself to a neutral
sentence, "And he [R' Heller's son] asked me that... he found many more
such occurrences [than the 40 mentioned in the Gemara]" (Tosfot Yom Tov on
Shabbat, chapter 7, mishnah 2, s.v. Avot). Still, the Tosfot Yom Tov's
answer does not seem plausible -- he rules that one should omit from the
Gemara's count those instances of melachah, melachto, and melechet which
appear in sentences constituting a prohibition against labor on certain
occasions or describing the punishment for such violations. There are neither
reasons nor hints which would allow one to ascribe such intentions to the
Gemara. The Tosfot (on Yoma 76a, s.v. Uva'asor) from which the Tosfot Yom
Tov tries to bring support implies quite the opposite.
And it is quite clear why the Tosfot Yom Tov is
the first rabbi whose comment on the issue fits our Torah text. The author of
Tosfot Yom Tov lived between 1579-1654, decades after the full printed edition
of the Masoretic Torah text -- Mikra'ot Gedolot -- was published in
1524-25 in Venice. (Interestingly, it was published by a non-Jew, Daniel
Bomberg, and proofread by Jacob ben Chayim of Tunisia, who later converted to
Christianity.) Due to the low cost of this edition and its rather close
correspondence to the Mesorah of Aaron Ben Asher, which was considered
authoritative by the Halachic arbiters since the time of Maimonides or even
before, Mikra'ot Gedolot spread quickly throughout the Jewish world of
that time and became the version accepted by virtually all the communities who
subscribed to mainstream Rabbinic Judaism. Printing allowed more exemplars of
the Torah text to be published so there were more opportunities for uniform
proofreading of each newly written scroll, and the Mikra'ot Gedolot version
became the base of the Torah text we use to this very day (with some changes in
spelling, but not to the extent of whole words). It is not surprising that R'
Yom Tov Heller had, 300 years ago, the same text we have today -- a text rather
different from that of Chazal and many Rishonim.
There is another attempt to explain the issue
expressed by Rabbi Steinsaltz in the name of "Sha'ar Ephraim." He
suggests that the Talmud text we have now is corrupt, and that instead of
"...melachah, melachto and melechet..." the wording
should be "melachah and melachto, which occur forty less one
times in the Torah" (that is, 40 times, minus the one which the Gemara
states should be eliminated). This wording meets the count in our Torah scroll,
but there is not a single manuscript or edition of the Talmud known to us where
the wording is "melachah and melachto" while
"melechet" is omitted. I should note that as early as the 11th-12h
centuries, Halachic arbiters living in as disparate places as Tunisia and
Germany offered various answers to explain the matter, but none of them
considered the Talmudic text corrupt and appealed to another,
"correct" wording that would solve the issue, though when they have
grounds for it, the Rishonim do not fear to correct the Talmudic wording. This
makes it rather doubtful that such "another, correct wording" ever
really existed. And anyway, the assumption of such wording does not explain the
discrepancies between the Torah texts of the Rishonim, on the one hand, and the
text we now use on the other.
Of course, the issue of counts brought in the
Talmud and by the Rishonim -- both the count of the middle letter, word, and
verse in the Torah and the count of melachah, melachto and melechet --
may be explained by assuming that the Talmudic Sages and the Rishonim simply
did not count very well or did not intend their numbers to be taken literally.
This, however, would imply that the Talmudic Sages were mistaken or unconcerned
in their count by dozens or even hundreds of words, and that several different
Rishonim could not arrive at the correct count of the 63 instances
of melachah, melachto and melechet in the Torah text.
And moreover, if the explanation of a miscount or deliberate playfulness is
reasonable, then it should be noted that the Rishonim themselves, instead of
admitting that the Talmudic Sages erred or were careless in their count,
preferred to appeal to rather farfetched explanations, omitting occurrences
of melachah, melachto and melechet from the count
without any consistent criteria, as I have shown above. If this is the degree
of responsibility for the correct transmission of our Torah text through the
generations, it leads to quite pessimistic conclusions concerning the
resemblance of the present-day form of our tradition to its original form.
The Ma’are Hapanim, on the similar section in the Jerusalem
Talmud that you referenced to above (Shabbat 7:2), explains that based on the
text of the Jerusalem Talmud, it can be deduced that the correct version of
this statement in the Babylonian Talmud should read: “they correspond to the
words melachah [work], melachto [his work], and melachtecha [your
work], which occur forty less one times in the Torah.”
The forty times where these words are found are:
1 & 2. Genesis 2:2 – ויכל אלקים ביום השביעי מלאכתו אשר עשה וישבת ביום
השביעי מכל מלאכתו אשר עשה:
3.
Genesis 2:3 – ויברך אלקים את יום השביעי
ויקדש אותו כי בו שבת מכל מלאכתו אשר ברא אלקים לעשות:
4.
Genesis 39:11 – ויהי כהיום הזה ויבא
הביתה לעשות מלאכתו ואין איש מאנשי הבית שם בבית:
5.
Exodus 12:16 – וביום הראשון מקרא קדש וביום
השביעי מקרא קדש יהיה לכם כל מלאכה לא יעשה בהם אך אשר יאכל לכל נפש הוא
לבדו יעשה לכם:
6.
Exodus 20:9 – ששת ימים תעבד ועשית כל מלאכתך:
7.
Exodus 20:10 – ויום השביעי שבת לה' אלקיך
לא תעשה כל מלאכה אתה ובנך ובתך עבדך ואמתך ובהמתך וגרך אשר בשעריך:
8.
Exodus 31:3 – ואמלא אתו רוח אלקים בחכמה
ובתבונה ובדעת ובכל מלאכה:
9.
Exodus 31:5 – ובחרשת אבן למלאת ובחרשת עץ
לעשות בכל מלאכה:
10.
Exodus 31:14 – ושמרתם את השבת כי קדש הוא
לכם מחלליה מות יומת כי כל העשה בה מלאכה ונכרתה הנפש ההוא מקרב עמיה:
11
& 12. Exodus 31:15 – ששת ימים יעשה מלאכה
וביום השביעי שבת שבתון קדש לה' כל העשה מלאכה ביום השבת מות יומת:
13
& 14. Exodus 35:2 – ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה
וביום השביעי יהיה לכם קדש שבת שבתון לה' כל העשה בו מלאכה יומת:
15.
Exodus 35:29 – כל איש ואשה אשר נדב לבם אתם
להביא לכל המלאכה אשר צוה ה' לעשות ביד משה הביאו בני ישראל נדבה לה':
16.
Exodus 35:31 – וימלא אתו רוח אלקים בחכמה
בתבונה ובדעת ובכל מלאכה:
17.
Exodus 35:35 – מלא אתם חכמת לב לעשות כל
מלאכת חרש וחשב ורקם בתכלת ובארגמן בתולעת השני ובשש וארג עשי כל מלאכה
וחשבי מחשבת:
18.
Exodus 36:2 – ויקרא משה אל בצלאל ואל
אהליאב ואל כל איש חכם לב אשר נתן ה' חכמה בלבו כל אשר נשאו לבו לקרבה אל המלאכה
לעשות אתה:
19.
Exodus 36:5 – ויאמרו אל משה לאמר מרבים
העם להביא מדי העבדה למלאכה אשר צוה ה' לעשות אתה:
20.
Exodus 36:6 – ויצו משה ויעבירו קול במחנה
לאמר איש ואשה אל יעשו עוד מלאכה לתרומת הקדש ויכלא העם מהביא:
21
& 22. Exodus 36:7 – והמלאכה היתה דים לכל המלאכה לעשות אתה והותר:
23.
Exodus 36:8 – ויעשו כל חכם לב בעשי המלאכה
את המשכן עשר יריעת שש משזר ותכלת וארגמן ותולעת שני כרבים מעשה חשב עשה אתם:
24.
Exodus 38:24 – כל הזהב העשוי למלאכה
בכל מלאכת הקדש ויהי זהב התנופה תשע ועשרים ככר ושבע מאות ושלשים שקל בשקל הקדש:
25.
Exodus 39:43 – וירא משה את כל המלאכה
והנה עשו אתה כאשר צוה ה' כן עשו ויברך אתם משה:
26.
Exodus 40:33 – ויקם את החצר סביב למשכן
ולמזבח ויתן את מסך שער החצר ויכל משה את המלאכה:
27.
Leviticus 7:24 – וחלב נבלה וחלב טרפה
יעשה לכל מלאכה ואכל לא תאכלהו:
28.
Leviticus 11:32 – וכל אשר יפל עליו
מהם במתם יטמא מכל כלי עץ או בגד או עור או שק כל כלי אשר יעשה מלאכה בהם
במים יובא וטמא עד הערב וטהר:
29.
Leviticus 13:51 – וראה את הנגע ביום
השביעי כי פשה הנגע בבגד או בשתי או בערב או בעור לכל אשר יעשה העור למלאכה
צרעת ממארת הנגע טמא הוא:
30.
Leviticus 16:29 – והיתה לכם לחקת עולם
בחדש השביעי בעשור לחדש תענו את נפשתיכם וכל מלאכה לא תעשו האזרח והגר הגר
בתוככם:
31
& 32. Leviticus 23:3 – ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה
וביום השביעי שבת שבתון מקרא קדש כל מלאכה לא תעשו שבת הוא לה' בכל
מושבתיכם:
33.
Leviticus 23:28 – וכל מלאכה לא
תעשו בעצם היום הזה כי יום כפרים הוא לכפר עליכם לפני ה' אלקיכם:
34.
Leviticus 23:30 – וכל הנפש אשר תעשה
כל מלאכה בעצם היום הזה והאבדתי את הנפש ההוא מקרב עמה:
35.
Leviticus 23:31 – כל מלאכה לא
תעשו חקת עולם לדרתיכם בכל משבתיכם:
36.
Numbers 4:3 – מבן שלשים שנה ומעלה ועד בן
חמשים שנה כל בא לצבא לעשות מלאכה באהל מועד:
37.
Numbers 29:7 – ובעשור לחדש השביעי הזה מקרא
קדש יהיה לכם ועניתם את נפשתיכם כל מלאכה לא תעשו:
38.
Deuteronomy 5:13 – ששת ימים תעבד ועשית
כל מלאכתך:
39.
Deuteronomy 5:14 – ויום השביעי שבת לה'
אלקיך לא תעשה כל מלאכה אתה ובנך ובתך ועבדך ואמתך ושורך וחמרך וכל בהמתך
וגרך אשר בשעריך למען ינוח עבדך ואמתך כמוך:
40.
Deuteronomy 16:8 – ששת ימים תאכל מצות
וביום השביעי עצרת לה' אלקיך לא תעשה מלאכה:
(In
truth, there are two more instances of the word melachah: Exodus 36:4 – ויבאו כל החכמים העשים את כל מלאכת הקדש איש איש ממלאכתו אשר המה עשים: and
Genesis 33:14 – יעבר נא אדני לפני
עבדו ואני אתנהלה לאטי לרגל המלאכה אשר לפני ולרגל הילדים עד אשר אבא אל
אדני שעירה:
The
first instance is explained by the Ma’are Hapanim as being discounted as Rabbi Simeon the son of Yossi only wished to count
instances where it was written the word melachah with either a prefex,
such as hamlachah or limlachah, or a suffix, such as melachto and melachtecha.
But in this case, where there is both a prefix and a suffix, ממלאכתו, it was obvious to Rabbi Simeon that it should not be included.
Although he doesn’t address the second
instance, I will suggest that it should be discounted as it is the only
instance that where the word מלאכה is translated as “possessions” or “droves [of cattle]”, rather
than the usual “work” or “labor”.)
This also explains the basis of the whole confusion. Evidently,
the original version in the Babylonian Talmud was melachah, melachto and
melachtecha, and somewhere along the line, the last word was miscopied,
omitting its last letter – instead of being written מלאכתך, it was copied as מלאכת. So rather than suggesting that there was some dubious
misconduct on the part of our Rabbis, or even that the Tannaim had a different
text of the Torah than to what was in the possession of later generations, I
would think that it would be more probable to suggest that it was an
inadvertent mistake, one that later caused much difficulty and confusion to the
later Rishonim.
Lastly, to address some of the technical
details:
1. The word ve’asita is mentioned in
proximity to the two occurrences of the word ‘melachtecha’, which evidently,
was included in the count of Rabbeynu Chananel and Ra’aban.
2.
The explanation for the different numbers provided by Nachmanides and Rashba is
rather evident, when examining their writings. When Rabbeynu Chananel
originally wrote: “And
they are 61. But when you draw out 3 occurrences written in the portion of
'Vayechulu hashamayim' (Genesis 2:1-3), and 4 [occurrences], where it is
written ve'asita, vaye'aseh, vate'aseh, and the phrase 'leregel hamelachah'
(Genesis 33:14)” – his original intention (as explained by the Ra’aban), was
that one should detract the 4 occurrences where it is written ve'asita
(one in Exodus 20:9 and another in Deuteronomy 5:13), vaye'aseh (Exodus
31:15), vate'aseh (Exodus 35:2), plus the additional occurrence of the phrase
'leregel hamelachah' (Genesis 33:14), which would be the fifth occurence.
Nachmanides and Rashba seemingly misread that as 4 instances including the
phrase 'leregel hamelachah'. As they had now unintentionally missed an
occurrence, they had to add one to the 13 instances of ‘kol melechet avodah’ to
balance the numbers (which is especially understandable when considering that
there is an additional instance of
‘לכל מלאכת העבדה’
(Exodus 35:24) that Rabbeynu Chananel does not exclude, in addition the 13
instances of ‘כל מלאכת עבדה’ that he does).
3.
As the Torah contains 79,976 words, I think that for the Rishonim to reach a
count of 62 out of 65, or even 61 out of 65, is actually quite good, considering
the margin of error usually prevalent in the manual count of such a large text.
4.
But even that is debatable.
Firstly,
it is possible that the Rishonim felt that it was obvious that the occurrence
of ‘ממלאכתו’ in Exodus
36:4 should not be counted, as mentioned by the Ma’are Hapanim. That would leave us with a total of 64
occurrences.
Secondly, when examining the writings of the Ra’aban, a
number of significant questions come to mind. He lists the occurrences as follows:
“And now I will explain the 61 [occurrences] of melacha that are written in the Torah: 3 in ויכולו השמים,
לרגל המלאכה [is] 4,ויבא הביתה לעשות מלאכתו, כל מלאכה לא יעשה בהם [is] 6, 2 [more] in the first Ten
Commandments and 2 [more] in the second Ten Commandments, altogether 10, in the
section ואלה המשפטים [there is one
instance of] במלאכת רעהו, in כי תשא, 5 [instances], in ויקהל משה, 18 [instances], in אלה פקודי, 4 [instances], altogether 38, in צו את אהרן, [there is one instance of] לכל מלאכה, in ויהי ביום השמיני, [there is one
instance of] כל כלי אשר יעשה מלאכה בהם, in אשה כי תזריע, 2 [instances],
in אחרי מות, [there is one instance of] כל מלאכה לא תעשו, altogether 42, in the section of שור או כשב, 11 [instances], altogether 53, in פנחס, 7 [instances], altogether 60, in ראה אנכי, [there is one instance of] לא תעשה מלאכה [altogether 61 occurrences].”
The
first problem is that although he actually list 62 occurrences as you
originally note, he explicitly writes that the total count is 61.
Secondly,
when he writes, “… altogether 38, in צו את אהרן, [there is one instance of] לכל מלאכה, in ויהי ביום השמיני, [there is one
instance of] כל כלי אשר יעשה מלאכה בהם, in אשה כי תזריע, 2 [instances],
in אחרי מות, [there is one instance of] כל מלאכה לא תעשו, altogether 42 …” the total should be 43, not 42. How can one
make such a simple mistake?
Thirdly, when he
mentions that, “in the section ואלה המשפטים [there is one instance of] במלאכת רעהו” there is in fact two occurrences, in very close proximity to each other.
Does it really make sense that he missed the second occurrence, when they are
so close?
It might be that the Ra’aban was of the opinion that when there are two occurrences with
very similar wording that are in close proximity to each other, they should
only be counted as one. This would explain why he counts the two instances of ואלה המשפטים as one, and why although he writes that there are two instances in אשה כי תזריע, he only counts them as one in the total, and why he gives the
complete total as 61.
If the above is true, it could be argued that the Ra’aban (and Rabbeynu
Chananel) actually managed to locate 64 instances from the 65 – the 61 that
they write, plus an instance in ואלה המשפטים and another in אשה כי תזריע, as well as the instance of ‘ממלאכתו’, which were
not included in total for various reasons. Accordingly, the only instance that
was missed by the Rishonim, would be the instance of – ‘כל בא לצבא לעשות מלאכה באהל מועד’
in Numbers 4:3.
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