Proposition: Certain laws apply specifically on Shabbat. Yet, the Tanakh does not tell us exactly the time on which Shabbat begins and ends. How can we know when these laws apply? There must be an Oral Torah to tell us.
Response: 1. The issue here is not one of law, but of definition. The definition of the word day (yom in Hebrew) includes in it the time when it begins and when it ends. The definition of the word was known to the ancients without the need for any Oral Torah. Remember that the Oral Torah is not a dictionary, but a set of additional laws which, Orthodox Jews believe, were given to Moses, as well as all other laws sanctioned by it.
When trying to understand the meaning of a word, we should use the best knowledge available to date. This includes information from the text itself, from history, and from linguistics. If a Rabbinical tradition helps shed light on the definition of a word, so much the better. But one would have to first show that this particular tradition is reliable. Also, just because the tradition helps clarify the meaning of a word does not mean that the gamut of additional laws that are the Oral Torah is valid. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
See also the "ambiguity argument" and Forbidden Birds.
2. We can see the meaning of the word day from the text itself. Leviticus 23:26-32:
Mark, the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. ... It shall be a sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall practice self-denial; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall observe this your sabbath.
The tenth day of the month begins in the evening, when the ninth day ends, and continues to the following evening. From this, we know that every day begins and ends in the evening.
Now, the question becomes, when in the evening? We do not know. For practical purposes, as long as one is consistent and begins and ends his day at the same point in the evening, that is fine. If one wants to be "stringent", and make sure that he does not transgress Shabbat or another holy day, he can begin following the prohibitions of the holy day before the evening starts and stop following them after the following evening ends.
3. In fact, the Oral Torah says exactly the same thing. Under the Oral Torah, observances of holy days begin in the evening and last longer than twenty-four hours, precisely because Rabbinical tradition does not give the exact point in the evening at which a day begins and ends. This argument for the Oral Torah does not even claim to provide a better solution than we already have from the text. What then, is the point of the argument?
Posted by Ami at August 1, 2004 01:50 AM | TrackBack