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Rosh Hashanah

Babylonian Talmud

About this book
Chapter 11b

And immediately afterward it is written: “This He ordained in Joseph for testimony, when he went out over the land of Egypt” (Psalms 81:6), implying that Joseph’s release from prison took place on Rosh HaShana. It was also taught in the baraita: On Rosh HaShana our forefathers’ slavery in Egypt ceased. From where is this known? It is written here: “And I will bring you out from under the burdens of Egypt” (Exodus 6:6); and it is written there, with regard to Joseph: “I removed his shoulder from the burden” (Psalms 81:7). From here it is derived by verbal analogy between the two instances of the word “burden” that just as Joseph was released from prison in Tishrei, so too, the slavery of our forefathers in Egypt ended in Tishrei. It was taught in the baraita: In Nisan our forefathers were redeemed from Egypt, as it is explicitly stated in the Torah. The baraita continues: In Tishrei in the future the Jewish people will be redeemed in the final redemption. This is derived by means of a verbal analogy between one instance of the word shofar and another instance of the word shofar. It is written here, with regard to Rosh HaShana: “Sound a shofar at the New Moon” (Psalms 81:4), and it is written there, with regard to the final redemption: “And it shall come to pass on that day, that a great shofar shall be blown” (Isaiah 27:13). It was also taught in the baraita: Rabbi Yehoshua says: In Nisan our forefathers were redeemed from Egypt; and in Nisan in the future the Jewish people will be redeemed in the final redemption. The Gemara asks: From where do we derive that the final redemption will be in Nisan? The verse states: “It is a night of watching for the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt; this is the Lord’s night of watching, for all the children of Israel throughout their generations” (Exodus 12:42). This teaches that the night of Passover is a night that has been continuously watched, i.e., set aside for the purpose of redemption, from the six days of Creation, and it will continue to be so until the final redemption. The Gemara asks: And how does the other tanna, Rabbi Eliezer, understand this verse? He derives from it that this is a night that is continuously watched and protected from demons, meaning that demons have no power on the first night of Passover. And Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua follow their lines of reasoning, as they disagreed about this same issue in another context as well. As it is taught in a baraita: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day were all the fountains of the great deep broken open, and the windows of heaven were opened” (Genesis 7:11). Rabbi Yehoshua says: That day was the seventeenth of Iyyar, the second month of the year counting from Nisan, which is the day that the constellation of Kima sets during the day⁠ and the season that the springs diminish with the increased heat. But because the people of the generation of the flood changed their actions for the worse, the Holy One, Blessed be He, changed for them the acts of Creation, and instead of Kima setting, He caused the constellation of Kima to rise during the day and He removed two stars from Kima, and in this way He brought a flood to the world. Rabbi Eliezer disagrees and says: That day was the seventeenth of Marḥeshvan, the second month counting from Tishrei, which is the day that the constellation of Kima rises during the day and the season that the springs increase.

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 7:11 and Rosh Hashanah 11b

Hebrew Bible · Rabbinic

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Summary

In Genesis, the flood begins on the seventeenth day of the second month. Rabbinic tradition in tractate Rosh Hashanah links that date to the setting of the Pleiades and says the flood began when God made them rise and removed two of their stars.

Passages

Genesis 7:11

Hebrew Bible
10 And after seven days the floodwaters engulfed the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month—on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And the rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Rosh Hashanah 11b

Rabbinic · Babylonian Talmud
And Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua follow their lines of reasoning, as they disagreed about this same issue in another context as well. As it is taught in a baraita: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day were all the fountains of the great deep broken open, and the windows of heaven were opened” (Genesis 7:11). Rabbi Yehoshua says: That day was the seventeenth of Iyyar, the second month of the year counting from Nisan, which is the day that the constellation of Kima sets during the day and the season that the springs diminish with the increased heat. But because the people of the generation of the flood changed their actions for the worse, the Holy One, Blessed be He, changed for them the acts of Creation, and instead of Kima setting, He caused the constellation of Kima to rise during the day and He removed two stars from Kima, and in this way He brought a flood to the world.
450–550 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Rosh Hashanah

References

“... R. Joshua argues that the Pleiades originally set at daybreak in the spring (hence their name), but that they were made to rise at daybreak (which they have done ever since) and two stars were removed thereby 'unplugging' a hole from which the floodwaters came; on the other hand, R. Eliezer argues that the original heliacal rising of the Pleiades in the autumn was changed to heliacal rising in early spring, now setting in the fall. Their arguments accept a causal association of Pleiades and rain: for both, the 'change in the work of the creation' involved reversing the seasons of heliacal risings and settings, as well as reversing the causal association from setting/dry season to rising/dry season. Understood in this way, there is no longer any confusion in the text. ...”
Ellen Robbins, “Studies in the Prehistory of the Jewish Calendar” (PhD diss., New York University, 1989), 13.
“... The specific tale of Asterah may have developed from more “scientific” speculations about the Pleiades and the Flood, as found in b.Rosh Ha-shanah 11b–12a; notably, this source evinces the cultivation of both calendrical and chronographical astronomy among Rabbinic Jews in late antique Mesopotamia, as well as their familiarity with the views on such matters current among their non-Jewish counterparts (consistent with the element of intercultural exchange suggested by the very name “Asterah”). [...] The stress on two stars being removed from heaven to cause the Flood might help to explain the consistent focus on two fallen angels in Jewish traditions about fallen angels ...”
Annette Yoshiko Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 264.

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Genesis 7:11 and Rosh Hashanah 11b

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