"His Fearless Roar"
Ein Yaakov
- The World of Talmudic Aggada
By Dr.
Moshe Simon-Shoshan
Lecture 5: Daf 3a
His
Fearless Roar
In Italy,
for thirty years under the
Borgias,
they had
warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed,
but they
produced
Michelangelo,
Leonardo da Vinci and the
Renaissance.
In
Switzerland, they had brotherly love,
they had five
hundred years of democracy and peace
and what did
that produce? The
cuckoo
clock.
Orson Wells, The Third Man
The next
sugya deals with one of the underlying issues in the first mishna and in
Massekhet Berakhot as a whole: division of the day into units of time. The way in which a society divides
and measures time is one of its most fundamental organizing and identifying
principles. As the great social
critic, Lewis Mumford, wrote, The clock is not merely a means of keeping track
of time, but of synchronizing men. The halakhic divisions of the day organize
all (male) Jews into a common pattern of prayer, synchronizing their activities. A common system of time measurement
can connect two different cultures, just as differing systems can divide them. In addition, many systems of time
measurement are based to a greater or lesser degree on the natural cycles of the
heavens, so these systems mediate the individuals relationship with the cosmos.
The most
basic division of the day is between daytime and nighttime light and dark. Almost everyone can discern the
change from day to night. This
division is also central to the creation story.
However, even this division is dependant on social convention and
technology. As we saw in the
previous class, the question of when exactly the day begins and ends is far from
a straightforward one.
The progress
of the sun across the sky allows the individual to measure daylight hours. The day can be divided further, into
morning and afternoon, based on whether the sun is ascending or descending. Further division of the day requires
a sundial, a technology first developed by the ancient Egyptians, and then
perfected by the Greeks and Romans.
The sundial allows people to accurately divide the day into twelve hours, the
length of which varies throughout the year depending on the length of the day. The Roman world used this time
system, and Halakha also used this system to set prayer times during the day.
But how can
we measure time at night? Without the sun, measuring time is more difficult,
though in pre-modern times it was also less necessary. The work day ended at sundown, and
people did not venture out much at night, so there was much less of a need to
synchronize activities.
Halakhically, measuring nighttime is also less central. The Temple did not function at night,
so the Rabbis did not institute mandatory prayers at night (Maariv was
originally an optional prayer.) It is as if the night is not a time for Divine
service, and God is not as accessible at night.
The only
mandatory prayer said at night is the evening Shema. The Mishna mentions two points in
time during the night, a first watch and midnight. Our sugya opens by referring
to three distinct systems of dividing nighttime:
UNTIL THE END
OF THE FIRST WATCH.
What opinion
does R. Eliezer hold?
If he holds
that the night has three watches,
let him say:
Till four hours [in the night].
And if he
holds that the night has four watches,
let him say:
Till three hours?
The Gemara
here actually asks two questions.
First, when R. Eliezer uses the term first watch, how many night watches does
he assume in total? The Gemara is aware of two possibilities, dividing the night
into three or four watches. Second,
why did the Mishna use the ambiguous term watches when it could have given a
more precise time in hours? This
passage sets out three different ways of breaking down the night: three watches,
four watches, and 12 hours. What is
at stake in choosing among these systems? Where do these systems come from?
First, let us
turn back to the Bible and examine the way in which the night was divided in
biblical times. On several
occasions, the Bible uses the term ashmoret in discussing nighttime
events. Ashmoret seems to be
a variant form of the Mishnas term for the night watch, ashmura. In Eikha 2:19, the speaker
declares, Arise and cry out at night, at the beginning of the watches (be-rosh
ashmurot). On two
occasions, Shemot 14:24 and I Shmuel 11:11, the text refers to
ashmoret ha-boker, the morning watch, which seems to be the final watch
before sunrise.
How many
watches were there in total? The
answer to this question lies in Shoftim 7:19:
Gideon and
the hundred men with him arrived at the outposts of the camp at the beginning of
the middle watch (rosh ashmoret ha-tichona) just after the sentries were
posted.
This verse
refers to a middle watch, which means that there was an odd number of watches
and a minimum of three. While it is
possible that there were five or even seven watches, most likely there were only
three. This verses reference to the
posting of sentries also shows us that the term watches refers to a practice
in military encampments of dividing the night into three watches, with a
changing of the guard at the start of each watch.
So the Rabbis
inherited the practice of dividing up the night into three watches from the
Bible itself. Most likely, this was
the traditional Jewish way of keeping time at night. Then what is the source for breaking
the night into four? This was the practice of the Roman army. We know from numerous references in
Christian Scriptures that Jews in the land of Israel not long before the period
of the Mishna used a system of four watches.
So the choice
between a three part night and a four part night is not simply a technical one;
it is laden with cultural significance.
Choosing a tripartite night means identifying with the worldview of
biblical Israel, while choosing a four part night means assimilating into the
dominant Roman culture.
Then what is
the source of dividing the night into twelve hours? This practice is obviously
meant to parallel the twelvefold breakdown of the day using a sundial.
This takes us
back to a fundamental question given the lack of sunlight to power a sundial,
how does one keep time at night? We know that the beginning of the fourth Roman
watch was marked by the crowing of the rooster.
We will soon see that the Gemara also linked the various watches to
noises made by animals.
Alternatively, time was kept by watching the movements of the constellations
throughout the night. However,
keeping precise track of the stars is not a simple matter. Around 600 BCE, the Egyptians
invented a tool called the merkhet which allowed one to accurately track
the movement of the stars at night.
As far as I understand it, in order to accurately divide up the night into 12
hours, one needed to possess and know how to use a merkhet. Lastly, the clepsydra, or
water clock, measured time at night through dripping water from one container to
another.
We can
speculate that the Mishna does not use the more precise twelve hour measurement
system of the night because keeping track of a twelve hour night required
technology to which most people did not have access. The Mishna, therefore, uses the
simpler division of the night into watches.
The Gemara
now answers its question regarding the Mishnas system of measuring time at
night:
He holds
indeed, that the night has three watches,
and he wants
to teach us that
there are
watches in heaven as well as on earth.
According to
the Gemara, R. Eliezer in the Mishna presumes a division of the night into three
watches. We have already argued that
this choice shows a preference for biblical tradition over contemporary Roman
culture. By instructing the Jews to
use a tripartite division of the night in scheduling their recitation of the
Shema, R. Eliezer is calling upon them to engage in an act of cultural
resistance. The Jews must reject the
time reckoning of the Roman conquerors and hold fast to their own traditional
form of reckoning. The Jews system
of time becomes another way in which they become a people apart.
The Gemara
then makes a further claim. The
system of three night watches is not merely that of the Jews; it is that of God
Himself. The four watches of the
Romans and the twelve hours of the night are essentially arbitrary divisions of
the night, imposed by people in order to synchronize human behavior, while the
three night watches of the Bible reflect cosmic reality.
The Gemara
then cites a baraita in the name of R. Eliezer, the same rabbi who
referred to the watches of the night in the Mishna:
For it has
been taught: R. Eliezer says:
The night has
three watches,
and at each
watch the Holy One, blessed be He, sits and roars like a lion.
For it is
written:
The Lord
does roar from on high,
and raise His
voice from His holy habitation;
'roaring He
does roar' because of his fold (Yirmiyahu 25:30).
R. Eliezer
declares that God Himself roars three times a night, marking each of the
watches. He cites as his proof-text
a verse from Yirmiyahu. R.
Eliezer learns from the threefold appearance of the word roar in the verse
that God roars three times.
In order to
better understand the significance of R. Eliezers statement, we need to examine
the original context of the verse in Yirmiyahu. Chapter twenty-five of Yirmiyahu
records a prophecy that Yirmiyahu delivered in the fourth year of the reign of
Yehoyakim king of Yehuda.
Nebuchadnetzar has just taken the throne in Babylonia, and the days of the
Kingdom of Yehuda are limited.
Yirmiyahu declares that because of the Jews failure to repent, God will bring
down upon Yehuda the full force of Nebuchadnetzars armies who will lay the
country to waste. Yirmiyahu then
predicts that Nebuchadnetzar will ravage all the nations of the Near East as an
instrument of Gods wrath.
At the end of
this prophecy, Yirmiyahu declares that, The Lord does roar from on high, and
raise His voice from His holy habitation; 'roaring He does roar' because of his
fold. The prophet then describes a sudden devastation that will descend upon
the shepherds. He declares,
Hark, the
outcry of the shepherd,
and the howls
of the lords of the flock,
for the Lord
is ravaging their pasture (25:36).
In their
original context, Gods roars are part of an extended metaphor, in which Gods
vengeance against Israel and its neighbors through Nebuchadnetzar is compared to
the attack of a lion coming from nowhere to devour a flock of sheep. The roaring is a one-time
historical event, in which God engages himself in human affairs in order to
restore the moral balance of the world.
In contrast,
according to R. Eliezers reading, Gods roaring is taken literally and refers
to a regular, thrice nightly event, which happens with complete regularity and
precision. In this reading, Gods
time keeping in heaven parallels the Jews time keeping on earth, giving cosmic
significance to our actions. R.
Eliezer has also transformed God in his re-reading of the verse from
Yirmiyahu. God no longer appears as an
independent moral force who controls human history. Now God Himself obeys a set of cosmic
laws, roaring on cue like a creature from an elaborate Renaissance clock. R. Eliezers God is quite different
from the one we are familiar with from the Bible.
He is a more mythic god who stands at the top of the cosmic order, rather
than beyond it.
The
baraita goes on to tell us more about the ways in which the three night
watches are delineated:
And the sign
of the thing is:
In the first
watch, the ass brays;
in the
second, the dogs bark;
in the third,
the child sucks from the breast of his mother,
and the woman
talks with her husband.
The
baraita explains that the three night watches are also marked by events that
happen here on earth. These events
turn our attention away from the technical aspects of nocturnal time-keeping and
towards the existential experience of night in the ancient world. Until the modern era, the night was a
time of unseen danger. Humans left
the outside world to the forces of darkness and retreated to the safety of their
homes.
The first two
watches are marked by noises made by animals donkeys and dogs. How did ancient people understand the
nighttime braying and howling that they heard through their bedroom windows?
There was a widespread belief that animals in general and dogs in particular had
the capacity to see spirits and demons, and they responded to these sightings by
making noise. The Gemara on Bava
Kama 60b states that, When dogs cry the Angel of Death has come to town. When they laugh Elijah the Prophet
has come.
The Torah may
even refer to the idea that dogs see and bark at the Angel of Death in the
middle of the night. In describing
the coming plague of the first born, God declares not a dog shall move his
tongue at any of the Israelites, at man or beast (Shemot 11:7). One can interpret this verse as
saying that dogs will be silent in the precincts of the Israelites, because the
Angel of Death will not be present at all there that night.
I would like
to suggest that the Gemaras description of first the donkeys braying and then
the dogs barking refers to the mounting powers of the Angel of Death and other
demons as the night progresses. When
a person in the Gemaras time heard donkeys braying and dogs barking outside of
his house at night, it reminded him of the great dangers that lurk at night
beyond the safety of the home. This
image of the night contrasts sharply to the celestial night in which God roars
over his dominion.
With the last
night watch, the scene changes. We
move from outside to inside, from the animal kingdom to the human realm. With the approaching dawn, the
dangers of night recede, and humans begin to stir. While human society on the communal
level breaks down at night, night is a time for bonding on the family level. Freed from the demands of work and
society, we find the entire family together in bed. The mother nurtures her baby, and
husband and wife converse. These
bonds formed before the sun rises allow the family members, individually and
collectively, to make it through the stresses of the day.
The Gemara
now scrutinizes the baraitas proposed breakdown of the night:
What does R.
Eliezer understand [by the word watch]?
Does he mean
the beginning of the watches?
The beginning
of the first watch needs no sign, it is the twilight!
Does he mean
the end of the watches?
The end of
the last watch needs no sign, it is the dawn of the day!
He,
therefore, must think of the end of the first watch,
of the
beginning of the last watch,
and of the
midst of the middle watch.
If you like I
can say:
He refers to
the end of all the watches.
And if you
object that the last watch needs no sign,
[I reply]
that it may be of use for the recital of the Shema,
and for a man
who sleeps in a dark room
and does not
know when the time of the recital arrives.
When the
woman talks with her husband
and the child
sucks from the breast of the mother,
let him rise
and recite.
The Gemara
seeks to integrate the baraitas signs of the night watches with its own
concern with precise time measurement.
The Gemara therefore assumes that the three events mentioned refer to
precise points in time which demarcate the watches. The problem with this assumption is
that that since the beginning and end of the night are easily observed, one only
needs two markers to divide the night into three.
The Gemara resolves this problem in two ways. The first possibility is that the
first and the last sign demarcate the transitions from the first to the second
watch and from the second to the third watch.
The middle sign of the barking dogs marks the middle of the middle watch
in other words, midnight. This
interpretation raises the issue that, at first glance, the tripartite division
of the night does not mark midnight, a point of central significance. The Gemara suggests that it does
indeed mark midnight.
Alternatively, the three signs mark the end of each of the three watches. The end of the final watch is, of
course, the dawn. However, the
baraita supplies an additional sign, of the mother nursing and the couple
conversing, because people cannot always see the dawn in the darkness of their
houses. This provides a person
another sign to mark the beginning of the obligation to say the morning Shema.
It seems to
me that the signs of the baraita the braying of the donkey, the barking
of the dog, and the family awake in bed actually each occur at various points
throughout their respective watches.
The baraitas purpose is not to provide an exact charting of the
night, but an account of the experience of night the mounting dominion of the
powers of evil, which eventually gives way to the dominion of humans as they
arise and prepare for another day of sunlight and activity.
This website is constantly being improved. We would appreciate hearing from you. Questions and comments on the classes are welcome, as is help in tagging, categorizing, and creating brief summaries of the classes. Thank you for being part of the Torat Har Etzion community!