All right, everyone. We are studying the Maharsha on page 29, the page we learned for Shabbat. We have not yet read the Maharsha, so let us first read the aggadic section. Look at the Chiddushei Aggadot, page 29, side A. There is actually a great deal of material here, but we will take it one point at a time.
The Gemara is attempting to prove how we know that the spies returned on Tisha B’Av, which then became a weeping for all generations. The Gemara begins with the verse, “In the first month.” This refers to the first year, or more precisely, the first month of that year. The Gemara says that they built the Tabernacle, and from there they began traveling on the twentieth of Iyar. They traveled for a month, arriving on the twenty-second of Sivan. Miriam was then placed in quarantine, and seven days later they arrived at the twenty-ninth.
The Maharsha explains that all of these verses are being brought to establish that the spies were not sent until the second year. The first purpose of the verses is to identify the year in which the spies were sent. That point is not established by the teaching that they were sent on the twenty-ninth of Sivan; the Gemara still has to prove which year that was. That is what these verses are doing. The Gemara then proves that the spies must have returned on the ninth of Av, based on the sequence of events that took place.
There is a difficulty here in the notes. The question is a good one, and it may answer our original problem: perhaps the source in question did not have all of these verses. It may have had only the basic statement, without all of the verses that establish the chronology. Although it is helpful to have the entire chronological sequence, not every source necessarily included all of those verses. That may resolve the difficulty.
We then calculated the forty days. Sivan had two days remaining, and ordinarily that calculation would leave us one day short. The Gemara answers that, in that year, Tammuz also had an extra day. Thus the calculation is thirty days, plus nine days, plus one additional day, giving forty days.
The question is why only one day of Sivan is counted. The answer is that the night is not included, because they began traveling during the day. They left on the twenty-ninth, but the twenty-ninth itself is not counted as one of the forty days. The counting begins on the thirtieth. In other words, the twenty-ninth is included in one sense, as the day on which Miriam’s quarantine ended, but it is not counted twice. It is counted only for that event, and the forty-day period begins afterward.
If we pause the calculation there, the forty days should end on the eighth of Av. We would then want the spies to return on the eighth and for the people to cry that night. But according to the calculation as it now stands, they actually returned on Tisha B’Av itself. If they cried that night, it would already be the night leading into the tenth of Av. That seems problematic.
According to the Gemara’s calculation, the count runs from the twenty-ninth to the thirtieth and then through the eighth of Av: thirty days, the two days of Sivan, and the eight days of Av, making forty. The eighth of Av is therefore significant as well. The spies returned on the eighth, but the actual crying took place that night. Although the night is not counted as an additional day, the forty-day period was not described as forty complete twenty-four-hour periods.
This may be connected to the statement of Moses our teacher, where the verse says, “When the day was turning into evening,” or “when the day was ending.” We previously asked whether “the eve of Tisha B’Av” means the night of Tisha B’Av or the day preceding Tisha B’Av. According to the Maharsha, this helps resolve the matter: the spies returned on the eighth of Av and the people cried that night. That night can be called the eve of Tisha B’Av.
We find the same usage regarding Yom Kippur. Sometimes we refer to the night of Yom Kippur as the eve of Yom Kippur, even though technically it is already the night of Yom Kippur. Thus, when a source says “the eve of Yom Kippur,” it may mean the night of Yom Kippur itself. This shows that “eve” can sometimes refer to the night of the day in question, even though in other contexts it means the preceding day.
According to Tosafot, then, the chronology works out very well. The spies returned on the eighth of Av, but they did not begin crying until that night, which was the night of Tisha B’Av. Historically, this also corresponds to the fact that the Temple was destroyed primarily on the tenth of Av. The Maharsha points out that this is connected to the dispute over which day is considered the principal day of the destruction. Was the central destruction on the ninth, or on the tenth? One can allude to that dispute through the different ways the verses are understood.
It is striking that something so fundamental depends on the question of when the spies returned. Did they return on the eighth of Av, or on the ninth? The calculation indicates that they returned on the eighth, while the crying occurred that night, on Tisha B’Av.
The Gemara then discusses what the people actually said. They returned and reported, and the people said that the land was being given to them because God hated them. The verse itself tells us what they said, but it does not immediately explain why they said it. The Maharsha analyzes this carefully.
It sounds from the verse in Deuteronomy as though this was a private matter that the people brought only to Moses. If so, how did the entire nation know what was happening? The report appears to have been given in the Tent of Meeting, which suggests a public matter. The people claimed that God was bringing them into the land because He hated them. But does the passage in the section concerning the spies actually mention that? The Maharsha asks this question as well.
The verse says, “You all approached me.” But this occurred in the fortieth year, after everyone from the generation of the wilderness had already died. If anyone under the age of twenty had been present when the spies were sent, that person would have been permitted to enter the Land of Israel. Therefore, the people Moses was addressing were their children, not the original generation. This creates a difficulty: how could Moses say that they themselves had approached him and made these claims?
The Maharsha answers that the parents had been sitting in their tents with their children and frightening them. They told their children, in effect, “We are going to the Land of Israel, and the inhabitants will kill you. They will hang you.” The children were therefore stirred up by their parents, who already had this complaint before the spies returned.
That explains the statement, “You said.” The children were also saying that God would kill them, even though they had not themselves been punished in the same way as their parents. They were alive at the time and would eventually enter the Land. Nevertheless, they complained without having heard the report of the spies.
This is what Moses was telling them: You said that God hated you, even though He loves you and is bringing you into the land. The Maharsha brings the analogy that people say, “What is in your heart about your friend is what you imagine is in your friend’s heart about you.” If you claim that God hates you, that reflects your own attitude toward God. The feeling is mutual in the sense that the person who says, “God hates us,” is revealing that he himself hates God.
This is a major point. There was no reason for the children to have such hatred. Their parents had already instilled the complaint in them. Later, in the fortieth year, they continued complaining, even though the original report had not yet been given to them. Why were they complaining? The Maharsha understands that this began on the night of the spies, because the parents had gathered their children into their tents and frightened them.
That is what is meant by a baseless weeping. The people were crying because of hatred without a proper cause. This eventually led to hatred without a cause among Jews, which brought about the destruction of the Temple, as the Gemara says in the first chapter of Yoma. The original baseless hatred was not initially Jews hating other Jews; it was Jews hating God. That hatred ultimately led to the baseless hatred that caused the destruction of the Temple.
This gives us a different understanding of the phrase “a weeping for all generations.” We had always understood that the people cried for no reason. The Maharsha’s point is that they did have an apparent reason: they had been told that there was a powerful nation in the land and that their children would be endangered. Whether or not that fear was justified, they believed they had a reason to cry. Why, then, is it called baseless weeping?
The answer is that the children began crying before they had even heard the report. The report was delivered to Moses in the Tent of Meeting, but the children were already complaining. They had not heard what the spies had said, so their crying was baseless in that sense. Their parents had aroused their fear before the report was brought to them.
This is the Midrash that clarifies the point. It is found in the Sifrei on Devarim, section 22. The people were making all sorts of claims and complaining. They told their children, in effect, “Woe to you; tomorrow you will be in danger.” They stirred up the children and frightened them before the children knew what had happened.
Now we can return to the Maharsha. He is saying that the same advice and attitude that the parents had received was passed on to their children. There was already a complaint before the spies returned. Thus, the claim was that the people had begun with baseless crying before they had even heard the report. The crying was baseless against whom? It was originally directed against God. The people said that God hated them, even though the land was good and God was bringing them there.
This is a new way of understanding the passage. What triggered the fear before the report? We do not know exactly why they became upset. Perhaps they wanted to remain in the wilderness; the Maharsha does not explain that point. But it is clear that their fear began before the report was delivered. The parents had already frightened their children, and the children were already complaining.
The Gemara then says that the destruction of the Temple extended over several days. The enemy entered on the seventh, and they did not actually burn the Temple until the ninth. Most of the burning took place on the tenth. The Temple was not burned on the seventh; rather, they entered on that day, and the process continued until the tenth.
The verse says, “Do not save us, for the day has turned,” referring to the end of the day and the completion of the afternoon service. The burning began at the end of the ninth, as the tenth day was beginning. When the sun was setting on the ninth and the night of the tenth was beginning, the fire started. It continued throughout the entire day, until the sun set again and the tenth day ended.
Rabbi Yochanan therefore says that he would have established the fast on the tenth, because most of the Temple was burned on that day. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the burning occurred on the ninth, the fast was established on Tisha B’Av.
The Maharsha asks that this seems to be the same issue discussed earlier: if the spies arrived on the ninth of Av, then that day was established as a day of weeping for all generations. According to Tosafot, however, the chronology works out: the spies arrived on the eighth, and the people cried that night, which was the night of Tisha B’Av.
We therefore have to be careful when reading the expression “the eve of Tisha B’Av.” Depending on the context, it can mean the eighth of Av, the day before Tisha B’Av, or it can mean the night of Tisha B’Av itself. We must examine the surrounding passage to determine which meaning is intended.
The Gemara then says that one should not pursue a legal case in Av because the astrological sign is unfavorable, but one should pursue a case in Adar because the sign is favorable. In other words, there are better times and worse times. On a day when good things happen, good fortune is associated with it; on a day when bad things happen, it is considered an unfavorable time.
This raises a significant point. There is indeed such a thing as an astrological influence in the Land of Israel, but this does not mean that people are absolutely subject to unchangeable decrees. The decrees can change, yet there is still an influence or fortune associated with particular times. Everyone has such an influence, and the question is how it operates and whether it can be changed.
The Gemara then returns to the scent that Isaac detected when Jacob entered dressed as Esau. Jacob came in smelling like an orchard, and the Targum Jonathan renders this as the fragrance of an etrog tree. According to one interpretation, Jacob’s garments carried the fragrance of the Garden of Eden because he had come into contact with the tree associated with that fragrance.
Another interpretation is that it was not literally the fragrance of the Garden of Eden that came from Adam. Rather, when Jacob entered, the fragrance of the Garden of Eden accompanied him. These are two different ways of understanding the passage: either the scent came directly from the tree, or the fragrance of the Garden of Eden was present with Jacob independently of the tree.
We also learned about the dispute concerning the mourning period. Is the relevant period only the week containing Tisha B’Av, or does it extend throughout the entire month? The different rabbis derive their positions from different words in the verse. The verse contains several expressions, including the festival, the month, and Shabbat. Each authority uses a different expression to establish a different aspect of the mourning practices.
The Maharsha asks: if one expression is being used to establish the mourning period, what is the need for the other expressions? Why would the verse mention all of them? The answer is that the rabbis are not necessarily debating every element of the mourning practices. Their dispute concerns specifically when haircuts and washing are prohibited. The other elements may begin at a different time.
Thus, even when the rabbis agree that there is an element of mourning before Tisha B’Av, they may disagree about the scope of the restriction. One authority may understand the relevant expression as referring to the entire week, while another understands it as referring to the entire month. Each word in the verse is then used to establish a different element of the mourning practices.
That is the Maharsha’s question and answer: the verse includes several terms because each one contributes a distinct legal detail. The disagreement is not necessarily about whether there is mourning before Tisha B’Av, but about which practices begin when and how long they continue.