Great summary. חזק וברוך! Maybe it would be also good to mention the article "צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים" by שלמה נאה, summarized in the comments in אור לישרים:
צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים
לכאורה, הברייתא "צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים" מוסבת על המשנה "ואיכן היו מנענעים". ואולם, כפי שכבר הדגיש ר"מ המאירי, מסדר המאמרים בירושלמי עולה, מפורש שאין הברייתא מוסבת על חלק זה של המשנה, אלא על חלקה השני של המשנה "מי שבא בדרך...". כלומר, אין היא עוסקת במי שמנענע את הלולב בהלל אלא במי שאינו נמצא עם הקהל בשעת ההלל והוא מנענע את הלולב. זה גם עניינה של ההלכה שלפני הברייתא: "המשכים לצאת לדרך..." (הלכה זו מופיעה גם בתוספתא), ושתיהן קובעות שמי שאינו יכול לנענע עם הקהל בהלל חייב לעשות זאת בינו לבין עצמו, קודם שייצא לדרך או אחרי שיחזור לביתו.
מעתה נשאלת השאלה: מדוע דווקא מי שנוטל בביתו, שלא בהלל, צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים? אם חשוב לנענע שלוש פעמים, מפני מה המנענע את הלולב בהלל אינו צריך לעשות כך? והתשובה פשוטה: המנענע את הלולב בהלל באמת מנענע שלוש פעמים, שהרי הוא מנענע בשלושה מקומות בהלל - "בהודו לה' תחילה וסוף ובאנא ה' הושיעה נא". לפיכך אומרת הברייתא שמי שמנענע בביתו צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים כנגד שלוש פעמים שהיה מנענע אילו קיים את המצווה כהלכתה, בהלל.
ממש כדוגמתה של הלכה זו מצאנו בתקיעת שופר בראש שנה. גם תקיעת שופר, כשהיא נעשית כמצוותה, היא משולבת בתפילה (בברכות של ראש השנה: מלכויות, זיכרונות ושופרות), וגם היא, עיקר מצוותה אינו תלוי בברכות, אלא היא מוטלת על היחיד בכל מקום שהוא. לפיכך קובעת המשנה (ראש השנה ד,ט): "מי שבירך ואחר כך נתמנה לו שופר - תוקע ומריע ותוקע שלוש פעמים". כלומר, מי שלא היה בידו שופר בשעה שבירך את הברכות, ולא היה יכול לתקוע בתפילה, חייב לתקוע אחר כך כשיזדמן לידו שופר, וכשהוא תוקע הוא צריך לתקוע ולהריע שלוש פעמים, במקום שלוש הפעמים שתוקעים ומריעים ותוקעים בתפילה.
בשל דמיון זה בהלכותיהם, השופר והלולב באים יחד אצל המשכים לצאת לדרך: "נוטל לולב ומנענע, שופר ותוקע". הלכה זו באה בירושלמי בתחילת הסוגיה, ומיד אחריה הברייתא "צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים". זו משלימה את ההלכה בלולב בהקבלה להלכה בתקיעת שופר: כשם שהתוקע שלא בזמן הברכות צריך לתקוע שלוש פעמים, כך גם הנוטל לולב שלא בזמן ההלל צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים ("צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים", "כתבור בהרים", עמודים 96-97).
I am not convinced by this theory and give it no more than 50% chance of it being true. First, it hinges on the order of the statements in the Yerushalmi, but you can't do that really. There are just too many examples of items clearly being inserted in the wrong place or inserted in the middle of a section. Secondly, I don't find the parallel with shofar very persuasive. The fundamental mitzvah of shofar is to hear תר''ת three times and its insertion in the liturgy is obviously rabbinic, so it makes sense that when you miss davening it defaults to it's basic form, but who says that there is any such obligation of נענוע outside of Hallel in the first place? Third, there's a chance that the Rishonim's girsa including על כל דבר ודבר is correct (perhaps 20%) in which case this whole theory doesn't work. Fourth, the introductory formula תני fits awkwardly with it being a response to Rav's statement. It could be the case, but you would expect a different formula. Fifth, I think the suggestion that Rava's requirement of מוליך מביא מעלה מוריד is an extension of an original practice of מוליך מביא מעלה or something similar is quite persuasive, about as plausible off the bat as this theory.
Thank you for your reply. While I agree that this is not a bulletproof explanation (not 100%, if I need to do numbers), it explains the Yerushalmi well, and makes the fact that the Bavli omits this otherwise crucial detail less problematic.
1. Context matters. Not always, but that's the default presumption.
Clearly, there is an obligation to נענוע outside of Hallel... Actually, the custom to do נענועים right after the ברכה comes likely from the times when most people didn't have their own set of ארבעת המינים for the הלל.
3. .על כל דבר ודבר - בהודו לה' תחלה וסוף, ובאנא ה' הושיעה נא, אלו שלוש פעמים
4. In בבלי this is a ברייתא (see 2 above). Either way, I don't see the difficulty with תני here.
5. I'm afraid I'm not following. מוליך מביא מעלה מוריד is much older then רבא. Could you please elaborate on this point?
0. I agree that this is a key advantage of the theory, but to some extent it only relocates the problem. If the Yerushalmi means that someone who takes the lulav without saying hallel needs to shake it 3 times, why does the Bavli not teach this?
1. This is a great example of what Jewish studies still lacks, namely enough quantitative studies. I'm giving my subjective impression of how important juxtaposition is in interpreting obscure passages in the Yerushalmi, and you are giving yours, but the truth is neither of us really know. Does doing this give misleading p'shat 10% of the time, 20% of the time? We're just spitballing really.
2. You are correct, but the nature of this requirement is not analagous to shofar. The three תר''תs exist completely prior (logically, and almost certainly temporally) to their position in the Amidah. When the mishnah says you can do them in a row outside of tefilah, it's really just saying something obvious. Conversely, *if* there is an obligation to shake the lulav precisely 3 times, this can only be because of it being shaken 3 times in Hallel. It's not impossible that, nevertheless, Hazal could have seen the parallel as legitimate, but it doesn't strike me as as persuasive as it is presented in the excerpt in Or leYesharim.
3. If the girsa is צריך לנענע שלשה פעמים על כל דבר ודבר then the obvious meaning, is '3 times each time you shake it' not '3 times k'neged the three times you shake it'. I think the article is premised on על כל דבר ודבר not being the correct girsa, and this having misled earlier commentators. I don't want to stress this point though, because I'm reasonably confident it is indeed not the right girsa.
4. Indeed, and it is not uncommon for the Bavli to re-present Amoraic material as a baraita (I do not necessarily think, as some would claim, that it is trying to present the material as tannaitic, though this is certainly how most people erroneously have read it) but in the Yerushalmi it appears like this:
רב חייה בר אשי בשם רב. זה שהוא משכים לצאת לדרך נוטל לולב ומנענע. שופר ותוקע. לכשתגיע עונת קרית שמע הרי זה קורא את שמע ומתפלל. תני. צריך לנענע שלשה פעמים.
I think I am simply correct in pointing out that it is unlikely that you would find תני as a kind of comment on a statement of Rav. This is sufficient reason to think that the juxtaposition is actually not important and the statement is referring back to the Mishnah. This is not a bulletproof argument either, but it is sufficient I think to remove most of the persuasive force of the hypothesis.
5) Rava's chiddush is to take the concept of מוליך מביא מעלה ומוריד from korbanot and apply it to lulav. One theory of why he did this is because there was *already* a practice of מוליך - shake מביא - shake מעלה shake, and his only chiddush was to add מוריד shake. This would mean the Rava assumes knowledge of the practice taught in the Yerushalmi. Again, it's just speculation really, but it seems to me to be equal in plausibility to Shomo Naeh's hypothesis.
Yes, the way how the Meiri understands the Yerushalmi creates a new question, but at least it returns the simplicity to the נענועים, simply מוליך מביא מעלה מוריד. That seems to be fitting the sources better than the explanations by other Rishonim.
I agree that the basic mitzvah of lulav (as defined by Chazal) does not include נענועים and therefore the parallel with shofar is just partial (and 3x not mentioned in the Mishna, unlike shofar). At the same time, the first source I know to explain the reason behind 3 times תר''ת is ספרא (in אמור). I'm not sure why this would be older or more logical than any other דרשות there.
But that is really not the point. Great presentation of sources. Please keep them coming - it doesn't have to be season related, Pesach is only in 6 months.
I'm not familiar with the study if Girsaot, but doesn't it make sense to assume the Rambams and Rifs Girsa of the Yerushalmi was more accurate than ours since he lived much closer to it's writing?
Thankyou for raising this because what I said about it wasn't very good.
The gap between the production of the Yerushalmi in its final form and the Rishonim is quite large (650 years for Rif, 750 for Rambam) and that's plenty of time for errors to creep in, but the same goes for extant manuscripts too. Especially for the Yerushalmi, where we have an extreme shortage of manuscripts (only 1 for Succah, not 2 like I said), citations in Rishonim are very valuable for establishing correct girsaot.
In this case, not only Rif and (presumably) Rambam have the girsa with על כל דבר ודבר, but also Rabbeinu Hananel, Tosefos, the Aruch, and Ramban - i.e. all of them that quote it. This is not as strong evidence as it may appear, though, because Rif almost certainly copied it from Rabbeinu Hananel, and the others from Rif (this is shown, among other things, by the quotation starting in the same [irrelevant] place). The chain thus goes back to Rav Hai Gaon, who Rabbeinu Hananel is citing, who is not an especially trustworthy source for Yerushalmi girsas. Unfortunately, we don't have what he himself wrote.
With all that said, the reason I prefer the Leiden MS girsa over that of the Rishonim is that there are two options:
1) The passage originally lacked על כל דבר ודבר and it was added in error
2) The passage originally had על כל דבר ודבר and it was omitted in error
While both are possible, (1) is a very common scribal mistake in which words that appear in an adjacent parallel text (in this case the mishnah quoted straight afterwards - צריך לכסכס שלשה פעמים על כל דבר ודבר) are added to its pair. (2) could happen, but it's a lot less common type of mistake.
In any case, as regards halacha, it makes no odds as Ramban shows, because על כל דבר ודבר could not possibly refer to the four movements required by Rava in the Bavli.
Great summary. חזק וברוך! Maybe it would be also good to mention the article "צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים" by שלמה נאה, summarized in the comments in אור לישרים:
צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים
לכאורה, הברייתא "צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים" מוסבת על המשנה "ואיכן היו מנענעים". ואולם, כפי שכבר הדגיש ר"מ המאירי, מסדר המאמרים בירושלמי עולה, מפורש שאין הברייתא מוסבת על חלק זה של המשנה, אלא על חלקה השני של המשנה "מי שבא בדרך...". כלומר, אין היא עוסקת במי שמנענע את הלולב בהלל אלא במי שאינו נמצא עם הקהל בשעת ההלל והוא מנענע את הלולב. זה גם עניינה של ההלכה שלפני הברייתא: "המשכים לצאת לדרך..." (הלכה זו מופיעה גם בתוספתא), ושתיהן קובעות שמי שאינו יכול לנענע עם הקהל בהלל חייב לעשות זאת בינו לבין עצמו, קודם שייצא לדרך או אחרי שיחזור לביתו.
מעתה נשאלת השאלה: מדוע דווקא מי שנוטל בביתו, שלא בהלל, צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים? אם חשוב לנענע שלוש פעמים, מפני מה המנענע את הלולב בהלל אינו צריך לעשות כך? והתשובה פשוטה: המנענע את הלולב בהלל באמת מנענע שלוש פעמים, שהרי הוא מנענע בשלושה מקומות בהלל - "בהודו לה' תחילה וסוף ובאנא ה' הושיעה נא". לפיכך אומרת הברייתא שמי שמנענע בביתו צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים כנגד שלוש פעמים שהיה מנענע אילו קיים את המצווה כהלכתה, בהלל.
ממש כדוגמתה של הלכה זו מצאנו בתקיעת שופר בראש שנה. גם תקיעת שופר, כשהיא נעשית כמצוותה, היא משולבת בתפילה (בברכות של ראש השנה: מלכויות, זיכרונות ושופרות), וגם היא, עיקר מצוותה אינו תלוי בברכות, אלא היא מוטלת על היחיד בכל מקום שהוא. לפיכך קובעת המשנה (ראש השנה ד,ט): "מי שבירך ואחר כך נתמנה לו שופר - תוקע ומריע ותוקע שלוש פעמים". כלומר, מי שלא היה בידו שופר בשעה שבירך את הברכות, ולא היה יכול לתקוע בתפילה, חייב לתקוע אחר כך כשיזדמן לידו שופר, וכשהוא תוקע הוא צריך לתקוע ולהריע שלוש פעמים, במקום שלוש הפעמים שתוקעים ומריעים ותוקעים בתפילה.
בשל דמיון זה בהלכותיהם, השופר והלולב באים יחד אצל המשכים לצאת לדרך: "נוטל לולב ומנענע, שופר ותוקע". הלכה זו באה בירושלמי בתחילת הסוגיה, ומיד אחריה הברייתא "צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים". זו משלימה את ההלכה בלולב בהקבלה להלכה בתקיעת שופר: כשם שהתוקע שלא בזמן הברכות צריך לתקוע שלוש פעמים, כך גם הנוטל לולב שלא בזמן ההלל צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים ("צריך לנענע שלוש פעמים", "כתבור בהרים", עמודים 96-97).
I am not convinced by this theory and give it no more than 50% chance of it being true. First, it hinges on the order of the statements in the Yerushalmi, but you can't do that really. There are just too many examples of items clearly being inserted in the wrong place or inserted in the middle of a section. Secondly, I don't find the parallel with shofar very persuasive. The fundamental mitzvah of shofar is to hear תר''ת three times and its insertion in the liturgy is obviously rabbinic, so it makes sense that when you miss davening it defaults to it's basic form, but who says that there is any such obligation of נענוע outside of Hallel in the first place? Third, there's a chance that the Rishonim's girsa including על כל דבר ודבר is correct (perhaps 20%) in which case this whole theory doesn't work. Fourth, the introductory formula תני fits awkwardly with it being a response to Rav's statement. It could be the case, but you would expect a different formula. Fifth, I think the suggestion that Rava's requirement of מוליך מביא מעלה מוריד is an extension of an original practice of מוליך מביא מעלה or something similar is quite persuasive, about as plausible off the bat as this theory.
Thank you for your reply. While I agree that this is not a bulletproof explanation (not 100%, if I need to do numbers), it explains the Yerushalmi well, and makes the fact that the Bavli omits this otherwise crucial detail less problematic.
1. Context matters. Not always, but that's the default presumption.
2. ברכות ל׳ א:י״ב
דְּתַנְיָא: הִשְׁכִּים לָצֵאת לַדֶּרֶךְ, מְבִיאִין לוֹ שׁוֹפָר וְתוֹקֵעַ, לוּלָב וּמְנַעְנֵעַ, מְגִילָּה וְקוֹרֵא בָּהּ, וּכְשֶׁיַּגִּיעַ זְמַן קְרִיאַת שְׁמַע — קוֹרֵא.
Clearly, there is an obligation to נענוע outside of Hallel... Actually, the custom to do נענועים right after the ברכה comes likely from the times when most people didn't have their own set of ארבעת המינים for the הלל.
3. .על כל דבר ודבר - בהודו לה' תחלה וסוף, ובאנא ה' הושיעה נא, אלו שלוש פעמים
4. In בבלי this is a ברייתא (see 2 above). Either way, I don't see the difficulty with תני here.
5. I'm afraid I'm not following. מוליך מביא מעלה מוריד is much older then רבא. Could you please elaborate on this point?
0. I agree that this is a key advantage of the theory, but to some extent it only relocates the problem. If the Yerushalmi means that someone who takes the lulav without saying hallel needs to shake it 3 times, why does the Bavli not teach this?
1. This is a great example of what Jewish studies still lacks, namely enough quantitative studies. I'm giving my subjective impression of how important juxtaposition is in interpreting obscure passages in the Yerushalmi, and you are giving yours, but the truth is neither of us really know. Does doing this give misleading p'shat 10% of the time, 20% of the time? We're just spitballing really.
2. You are correct, but the nature of this requirement is not analagous to shofar. The three תר''תs exist completely prior (logically, and almost certainly temporally) to their position in the Amidah. When the mishnah says you can do them in a row outside of tefilah, it's really just saying something obvious. Conversely, *if* there is an obligation to shake the lulav precisely 3 times, this can only be because of it being shaken 3 times in Hallel. It's not impossible that, nevertheless, Hazal could have seen the parallel as legitimate, but it doesn't strike me as as persuasive as it is presented in the excerpt in Or leYesharim.
3. If the girsa is צריך לנענע שלשה פעמים על כל דבר ודבר then the obvious meaning, is '3 times each time you shake it' not '3 times k'neged the three times you shake it'. I think the article is premised on על כל דבר ודבר not being the correct girsa, and this having misled earlier commentators. I don't want to stress this point though, because I'm reasonably confident it is indeed not the right girsa.
4. Indeed, and it is not uncommon for the Bavli to re-present Amoraic material as a baraita (I do not necessarily think, as some would claim, that it is trying to present the material as tannaitic, though this is certainly how most people erroneously have read it) but in the Yerushalmi it appears like this:
רב חייה בר אשי בשם רב. זה שהוא משכים לצאת לדרך נוטל לולב ומנענע. שופר ותוקע. לכשתגיע עונת קרית שמע הרי זה קורא את שמע ומתפלל. תני. צריך לנענע שלשה פעמים.
I think I am simply correct in pointing out that it is unlikely that you would find תני as a kind of comment on a statement of Rav. This is sufficient reason to think that the juxtaposition is actually not important and the statement is referring back to the Mishnah. This is not a bulletproof argument either, but it is sufficient I think to remove most of the persuasive force of the hypothesis.
5) Rava's chiddush is to take the concept of מוליך מביא מעלה ומוריד from korbanot and apply it to lulav. One theory of why he did this is because there was *already* a practice of מוליך - shake מביא - shake מעלה shake, and his only chiddush was to add מוריד shake. This would mean the Rava assumes knowledge of the practice taught in the Yerushalmi. Again, it's just speculation really, but it seems to me to be equal in plausibility to Shomo Naeh's hypothesis.
Good Yom Tov!
Great points. Thank you.
Yes, the way how the Meiri understands the Yerushalmi creates a new question, but at least it returns the simplicity to the נענועים, simply מוליך מביא מעלה מוריד. That seems to be fitting the sources better than the explanations by other Rishonim.
I agree that the basic mitzvah of lulav (as defined by Chazal) does not include נענועים and therefore the parallel with shofar is just partial (and 3x not mentioned in the Mishna, unlike shofar). At the same time, the first source I know to explain the reason behind 3 times תר''ת is ספרא (in אמור). I'm not sure why this would be older or more logical than any other דרשות there.
But that is really not the point. Great presentation of sources. Please keep them coming - it doesn't have to be season related, Pesach is only in 6 months.
Very interesting, thank you for posting!
I'm not familiar with the study if Girsaot, but doesn't it make sense to assume the Rambams and Rifs Girsa of the Yerushalmi was more accurate than ours since he lived much closer to it's writing?
Thankyou for raising this because what I said about it wasn't very good.
The gap between the production of the Yerushalmi in its final form and the Rishonim is quite large (650 years for Rif, 750 for Rambam) and that's plenty of time for errors to creep in, but the same goes for extant manuscripts too. Especially for the Yerushalmi, where we have an extreme shortage of manuscripts (only 1 for Succah, not 2 like I said), citations in Rishonim are very valuable for establishing correct girsaot.
In this case, not only Rif and (presumably) Rambam have the girsa with על כל דבר ודבר, but also Rabbeinu Hananel, Tosefos, the Aruch, and Ramban - i.e. all of them that quote it. This is not as strong evidence as it may appear, though, because Rif almost certainly copied it from Rabbeinu Hananel, and the others from Rif (this is shown, among other things, by the quotation starting in the same [irrelevant] place). The chain thus goes back to Rav Hai Gaon, who Rabbeinu Hananel is citing, who is not an especially trustworthy source for Yerushalmi girsas. Unfortunately, we don't have what he himself wrote.
With all that said, the reason I prefer the Leiden MS girsa over that of the Rishonim is that there are two options:
1) The passage originally lacked על כל דבר ודבר and it was added in error
2) The passage originally had על כל דבר ודבר and it was omitted in error
While both are possible, (1) is a very common scribal mistake in which words that appear in an adjacent parallel text (in this case the mishnah quoted straight afterwards - צריך לכסכס שלשה פעמים על כל דבר ודבר) are added to its pair. (2) could happen, but it's a lot less common type of mistake.
In any case, as regards halacha, it makes no odds as Ramban shows, because על כל דבר ודבר could not possibly refer to the four movements required by Rava in the Bavli.
Thank you for your response! 🙏