Halakhah zu Bereschit 11:33

I shall explain the verse “it will bring forth produce for the three years” (ibid. 25:21).⁸⁸ Scripture states: “If you should say: ‘What will we eat on the seventh year? Behold we will neither plant nor gather our produce.’ I shall command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce for the three years. You will plant in the eighth year and eat of the old produce until the ninth year, until the arrival of its produce, you will eat old” (Leviticus 25:20–22). Among the problems that these verses present are: (1) the “three years” are listed as through the ninth year, which tallies to four years (6, 7, 8, and 9) instead of three. (2) We do not even have three full years, since the produce serves for half the sixth year, the whole seventh year, and half the eighth year. (3) Why would they be eating old produce through the ninth year when they can plant and harvest on the eighth year (since the year begins with Tishre)? Ibn Ezra addresses these problems. Be aware that a minute remaining of a Biblical day is considered a full day. For example, it is written “On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised” (ibid. 12:3). If one is born on Friday one-half hour before the Sabbath commences, he is circumcised the following Friday morning, even though he has not completed seven full days.⁸⁹ Thus we see that when Friday ends one full day is completed, even though it was not 24 hours. Therefore the following Friday is the eighth day. Similarly, one day in the year is considered a full year. Sometimes it is counted as a separate year and sometimes it is left as part of the previous full year. Thus it is written “you will bear your sins for forty years” (Numbers 14:34). Now this incident occurred in the second year, and God did not punish them before they sinned.⁹⁰ The problem is how to arrive at a figure of forty years of wandering from the time they sinned (the slanderous report of the spies), when they remained in the wilderness only 39 more years. The number forty was due to their not crossing the Jordan until the “tenth of the first month” (Joshua 4:19) in the forty-first year.⁹¹ In this case part of one month counted as a year. This is in contrast to “they ate the manna forty years” (Exodus 16:35).⁹² The manna began in the first year of the exodus from Egypt and continued into the forty-first year. Yet Scripture writes “forty years,” omitting the one month of the forty-first year. In Scripture the “seventeenth” (1 Kings 14:21) is identical with “the eighteenth year” (ibid. 15:1);⁹³ We know that Rehoboam and Jeroboam began their reigns in the same year, with Rehoboam preceding Jeroboam by a few weeks. Also, Scripture relates that Rehoboam ruled for seventeen years (1 Kings 14:21), which would likewise be the seventeenth year of Jeroboam. Yet Scripture states that Rehoboam’s son, Abijam, began his reign in the eighteenth year of Jeroboam (ibid. 15:1). Obviously here “seventeenth year” and “eighteenth year” were the same year. also the “nineteenth.”⁹⁴ The eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 52:29) is also referred to as the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar (ibid. 52:12). “The eleventh year” (2 Kings 9:29) is the same as “The twelfth year” (ibid. 8:25).⁹⁵ The verse relates that Ahaziah began his reign in the eleventh year of Jehoram (2 Kings 9:29), while in 2 Kings 8:25 it is written that Ahaziah began his reign in the twelfth year of Jehoram. Also, Ahaziah ruled for two years beginning with “the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat” (1 Kings 22:52), yet Jehoram his brother ruled after him “in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat” (2 Kings 3:1). There are many similar examples.

Due to the reported existence of unscrupulous batei din, we have chosen to add a few criteria by which to assess a beit din’s credibility. An honorable Beit Din must avoid conflicts of interest (Shulchan Aruch, C.M. 7:12 and 37:1), anything that even slightly resembles bribery (C.M. 9:1), and excessively high fees (C.M. 9:5).¹¹Also see Teshuvot Minchat Yitzchak (7:131), who assumes that honorable dayanim will charge only enough to compensate them for the fact that they could not do other work during the court proceedings (s’char batalah), and they will not charge more than the litigants can afford. In addition, they may not accept the testimony of one litigant when his adversary is not present (C.M. 17:5), and they must thoroughly investigate all facts (see Rashi’s commentary to Bereishit 11:5). Indeed, the Chazon Ish is often quoted as saying that most erroneous halachic rulings stem from a deficient understanding of the facts.¹²For example, Rav Mordechai Willig (addressing an RCA convention) once recounted how Rav Yonah Reiss traveled to a Midwestern city in order to investigate whether a particular woman had been institutionalized (which might have enabled her husband to receive a document known as a heter me’ah rabbanim). Rav Reiss could have relied on the testimony of local rabbis in that city regarding the woman’s mental state, but he nevertheless traveled there himself, as dayanim must always investigate the facts as thoroughly as possible. Finally, the beit din must not allow rabbis of ordinary stature to rule on matters of great complexity or import (see Teshuvot Meishiv Davar 4:50). For example, the Noda Biy’hudah (vol. 2 Y.D. 88) criticizes an ordinary rabbi for ruling on a case of ro’eh machmat tashmish, a complex area of the laws of family purity that can potentially result in forcing a couple to divorce (see Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 187). Rav Moshe Feinstein (Teshuvot Igrot Moshe, Even Ha’ezer 1:64) similarly writes that ordinary rabbis should not rule on matters of contraception.¹³Regarding the pervasiveness of this problem in our generation, see Nishmat Avraham (4:13-16) and Rav Tzvi Gartner’s essay in Tradition (32:3:94-95). Also see Pitchei Teshuvah (Y.D. 99:6).