TWO DAYS ROSH HASHANAH IN ERETS YISRAEL
QUESTION:
At a joint meeting between the leaders of the Conservative rabbinate and the leaders of our Conference, the Conservatives proposed that both our movements should agree on the dating, i.e., the duration of the holidays; that we should both accept the present observance followed in Erets Yisrael, namely: seven days of Passover, one day of Shavuot, eight days of Sukot (with Shemini Atseret), but two days of Rosh Hashanah. Since our Conference has already followed the custom of Reform Judaism which is to observe seven days of Passover, one day of Shavuot, eight days of Sukot and one day of Rosh Hashanah, to achieve such an agreement we would need to add one day to Rosh Hashanah and observe it henceforth for two days. Since the motivation for this change is to harmonize the observance within presentday Israel, the president of the Conference, at the suggestion of the Executive Board, has asked me to present a statement which would deal with the question of whether or not it is a historical fact that Rosh Hashanah was always (or at least generally) observed in Erets Yisrael for two days.
FIRST, AS TO THE motivation for this proposed change: The desire to harmonize our observance with that of Israel is understandable and in many ways, laudable. It is analogous to the motivation which in many congregations, Conservative and Reform, underlies the change of the pronunciation of Hebrew in the service and in the schools from our inherited Ashkenazic to the prevalent Israeli Sephardic. This change of pronunciation, although debatable from the point of view of the halachah, nevertheless can be understood and appreciated. But the fact is that the change at the beginnings of our Reform movement to seven days Passover, etc., occurred before the beginning of the modern settlements in Palestine and had, therefore, another motivation entirely. We wanted to return to the Biblical observance. Therefore our observance of Rosh Hashanah was only for one day, as the Bible requires in Leviticus 23:23-25, where Scripture simply says that on the first day of the month of Tishri there must be a Sabbath of the blowing of the trumpet. We are, and have been, consistently Biblical as to the duration of all the holidays.
This modern motivation to harmonize with the holiday observance of modern Israel is not as strong a moti-vation as the desire to harmonize with the Israeli pronunciation of Hebrew. The new Hebrew pronunciation adopted by many congregations is the Hebrew spoken by those elements in Israel which have built the modern state and are now heroically defending it, whereas the observance of Rosh Hashanah for two days, as in Israel, is our attempt to harmonize with Israeli Orthodoxy, of which a large element is consistently opposed to the modern state. However, our primary concern is with the actual historical facts. Did they or did they not in Israel extend the one-day Biblical ob-servance to two days?
This is a complicated question because the sources are frequently in mutual contradiction. Those sources which are cited in favor of the opinion that in Israel two days were observed are the following:
a) The statement in the Jerusalem Talmud (Eruvin 21c) : “The Rabbis agreed with Rabbi Judah with regard to the two days of Rosh Hashanah, that they go back to an ordinance of the earlier prophets.”
b) Isaac Alfasi (the Rif) to Betsah (3a in our Vilna edition) says: “At all events, the Jews of Erets Yisrael should observe two days holiday.”
c) Finally there is a statement in the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chayim 601:2) : “Even in Erets Yisrael they observe the New Year for two days.”
The opposite opinion is given by the following:
a) The responsum of Hai Gaon (see Otsar Hageonim to Betsah (i.e., “Yom Tov”) 4. He answers Alfasi and says positively: “Do we not see that even up to today they (in Erets Yisrael) observe only one day?”
b) Zerachiah Halevi of Provence, the pupil of Ramban, says in Hamaor, (to the passage referred to in the “Rif”,) that the Jews in Erets Yisrael changed to two days at a certain definite time due to a specific historical fact, namely, that when immigrant scholars came to Erets Yisrael from Provence (apparently this was in the eleventh century) they convinced the people of Erets Yisrael to change their observance from one day to two days.
Clearly these opposing sources cited add up to a confused impression as to what were the actual facts. How could there be all this uncertainty? It is, I believe, possible to clarify the actual situation.
There was, indeed, an observance of two days of Rosh Hashanah in Erets Yisrael even when the Temple was still standing, but this two-day observance would occur only occasionally. The Mishnah tells us (Rosh Hashanah IV, 4) that when the witnesses testifying to having seen the new moon, would come late in the day, this would confuse the Levites in the Temple as to which Psalm they would need to chant. Therefore when that happened, the Bet Din would declare that day holy and also the next day holy. In other words, only when the witnesses were late in coming and the Temple still stood and Levites still officiated, was there occasionally a two-day observance of Rosh Hashanah. Then the Mishnah tells us that after the Temple was destroyed (and the Levitical chanting no longer important) Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai ordained that the Bet Din wait all day for the witnesses; and so they reverted to having one day of Rosh Hashanah. See Rashi to Betsa 5a, who makes it quite clear that they returned to one-day observance. Thus it sometimes happened that there were two days, but usually only one day. Both Maimonides and the Ramban tried to develop some systematic explanation of this mixed form of observance. The Rambam (Hilchot Kidush Hachodesh 5:11) says that whether they observed one day or two in Palestine depended on how near the city was to Jerusalem (these near cities observed one day after the Temple was destroyed when, as Rashi explains, the Levites were no longer to be confused and they reverted to one day). Nachmanides in his Milchamot, to the Rif, in the passage discussed, says that in Israel they have two days, except in the places where the Sanhedrin in-terviewed the witnesses, where they sometimes had one day and (if the witnesses were late) sometimes two days.
The fact of the matter is that those references would seem to indicate that they regularly observed two days in Erets Yisrael, do not actually say so. The passage in the Yerushalmi, Eruvin, deals with the question of whether both days (when it was necessary to observe two) were to be considered holy. This was important for a number of reasons, first, as to the preparation of food on one for the other, and also (more directly in the passage in the Yerushalmi) whether each day was holy enough for a man to be permitted or forbidden to set aside his tithes on that day. So the passage cited does not mean to say that the earlier prophets ordained that two days must be observed, but that whenever it happened that two days were observed (because of late witnesses) both days are considered holy and no tithing may be made on either day. As for the statement of Alfasi, it begins with the word “nevertheless”; i.e., what he actually says is that, in spite of the arguments to the contrary, he believes that in Erets Yisrael they should observe two days; though apparently from the question directed at Hai Gaon, he must actually have believed that they did observe two days. The statement in the Shulchan Aruch is from the sixteenth century after the custom (as referred to by the Hamaor) had been changed to two days. In other words, the statement in the Shulchan Aruch is too late to have any bearing on the historical question. But even so, Joseph Caro shows some surprise when he says: “Even in Erets Yisrael they observe two days.”
Against these debatable statements just discussed, there is the clear witness of Hai Gaon who certainly knew better than Alfasi in far-away Spain what the actual practice in Palestine was. In fact, the Babylonian Geonim had careful lists of the differences between the observances in Babylon and in Palestine, and the contact between the two countries was a constant one. The testimony of Hai Gaon is that in his time, the tenth to the eleventh centuries, it was an actual and well-known fact that the people in Palestine observed only one day. This testimony is unimpeachable. Furthermore, the statement of Zechariah Halevi as to how the change was brought about by immigrants from Provence is so factual that it bears the stamp of truth.
It might be of interest to note that there is another (although indirect) evidence from one of the Geonim during the Gaonic period that they observed only one day in Palestine. The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 16b) speaks of the purpose of blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, le’arvev satan, to confuse or to thwart the evil power. In other words, if the shofar is not blown, the evil power can bring calamity. So immediately following, the Talmud says in the name of Rabbi Isaac, “Every year at whose beginning the tekiah is not blown will have to hear the teruah before the year is over.” The teruah was blown at the time of fast days called because of national calamities, drought, plague, invasion, etc. Therefore the statement means that if the shofar is not blown on Rosh Hashanah in a certain year, that year will see many calamities before the year is over. This statement is explained by Yehuda Gaon in his Halachot Gedolot (ed. Hildesheimer, p. 150). He says that does not mean that the calamities will come on every year when the shofar is not blown. If the shofar is not blown because the New Year came on the Sabbath, that is no ill omen. Calamity comes only if the shofar is not blown because of some duress (ason); that is to say that some tyrannical ruler in Palestine prohibited the blowing of the shofar. The very fact that Yehudah Gaon says that it is not an ill omen if the shofar is not blown on a certain year because the New Year hap pens to be on the Sabbath, is in itself a proof that they observed only one day. Because if they observed two days, they could blow it on the second day which never occurs on the Sabbath. Thus Yehuda Gaon’s explanation of when the failure to sound the shofar is ominous, is in itself an evidence that only one day was observed.
Of course, eight centuries before Yehuda Gaon, Yochanan ben Zakai had ruled that the shofar could be sounded on Saturday wherever there was a bet din (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah IV, 1) but the authority of the Bet Din must have faded over the centuries, and by the time of Yehuda Gaon they had ceased to avail themselves of that special permission. Thus in Erets Yisrael where they observed only one day, and that day happened to come on the Sabbath, the shofar was not sounded that year. Hence Yehudah Gaon’s explanation.
Therefore it is clear from the implication of Yehuda Gaon’s statement and the forthright evidence of Hai Gaon’s statement that, except for the chance occasions in early days when the witnesses came late, the Jews of Erets Yisrael observed Rosh Hashanah only one day up to the eleventh century. We in the Reform movement observe Rosh Hashanah one day. Our primary motive was to follow the Biblical observance, but as an actual fact we are also in harmony with the observance of the Jews of Erets Yisrael from the time of Hai Gaon, for fifteen hundred years back to Ezra the Scribe.