WEEKLY DAFootnotes #49
Bava Batra 100-120; Issue #49
For the week of 26 Tammuz, 5762 / July 6
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A Run for His Life
Planning and building roads for the enormous amount of today's automobile traffic is one of the great challenges of modern engineering and technology, and drivers caught in traffic jams will always be dissatisfied with their achievements. A different sort of challenge faced those who had to plan and build roads in days of old for human traffic.
“Prepare for yourself the road” (Devarim 19:3) is how the Torah cryptically instructs those in charge of planning the roads which will lead to the Cities of Refuge. Should a Jew unwittingly kill another Jew he was not punished by death, but the victim's blood avenging kin had the right to put him to death. Cities of Refuge were therefore established in evenly separated sections of Eretz Yisrael to which the killer could flee and be safe from the avenger.
The Torah's carefully calculated concern for proper accessibility to these cities is expressed in the cryptic com- mand to “prepare the road”. The word “prepare” is inter- preted by Rabbi Kahana (Mesechta Makkot 10b) as a direc- tive to place at every crossroads leading to one of these cities a clearly marked sign indicating which of the roads leads to the refuge city. While the Babylonian Talmud defines this as a sign reading “Miklat” (Refuge) pointing the way, the Jerusalem Talmud interprets it as a hand-shaped structure indicating which road to take.
Our own gemara goes beyond signposts to aid the fleeing killer escape the avenger and discusses the quality of the road itself. Although a normal public thoroughfare was 16 cubits wide, the use of the term “the road” rather than just a “road”, says Rabbi Huna, is a directive to make the road leading to the refuge cities twice as wide. On the basis of other Talmudic sources Rambam (Laws of Murder and Life Saving 8:4) writes that the road builders had to make sure that no obstacle along the roads to these cities would obstruct the killer's flight. This meant the removal of any mounds, and the erection of bridges over any gorges or rivers along the way. A road free of obstructions and wide enough to avoid any human traffic jams gave this fellow a fair chance to run for his life.
Bava Batra 100b
The Seven Vanities
“Vanity of vanities… all is vanity.” (Kohelet 1:2) Seven times is the term “vanity” mentioned by King Solomon in this passage. (Twice in the plural and three times in the singular.)
Rashi, in his commentary on Kohelet, writes that this num- ber corresponds to the seven days of creation, and was intended to convey the message that everything created in those seven days is meaningless. As the wisest of men points out in the very next passage, “What gain is there for Man in all of his efforts under the sun?” which our Sages interpret as implying that only the service of Hashem, which is “above the sun,” has lasting value.
In our gemara, however, the number seven is seen as the source for the seven stoppings and sittings which used to be done in some places when returning from a burial. Rashbam cites two explanations for this custom of walking and then stopping. One approach is that this was done in order to comfort the mourners, or to inspire tears over the loss and move all the participants to give serious thought and repent their sins because all of life is such vanity. The seven vanities of Kohelet correspsond to these seven pauses for reflection on the vanities of life and the need to seek the meaningful aspects of life.
A second approach which Rashbam cites from other commentaries is that since evil spirits attach themselves to those returning from the cemetery, the stoppings and sit- tings are done in order to allow these spirits to depart. This approach, he notes, is problematic because it fails to explain the connection to the seven vanities of Kohelet.
Nimukei Yosef offers a third approach. Following the Great Deluge Noach was told by Hashem that the six two-month seasons of the year and the daily cycle of day and night would resume and continue without interruption (Bereishet 8:22). The seven stoppings and sittings were intended to communicate to all those involved that everything in this ongoing world is mere vanity and that the only thing worth- while is involvement in Torah and good deeds.
Bava Batra 100b
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