Despite the scope of our discussion so far, we have yet to meet a primary character in the drama of Jewish history: The land of Babylonia.
The story of this land reveals our calendar’s roots in diaspora and refugee crises.
As discussed in the previous article, the material facts of the land of Israel are fundamental to Jewish liturgy. As Jews spread across the Near East, the diaspora populations became increasingly significant to prayer and practice. Babylonia, centered in modern-day Iraq, had one of the largest and most influential Jewish communities in Jewish history, particularly under the Sasanian Empire in the 3rd–7th centuries, when Jewish tradition as we know it today was being formalized in the Babylonian TalmudReferring to one of two collections, the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, edited in the 6th century, that contains hundreds of years of commentary, discussion, and exploration of the ideas in the Mishnah. One could describe it as Mishnah + Gemara = Talmud Read more. These diasporic communities became central to the formation of modern rabbinic Judaism.
When it comes to the question of rain, this spiritual geography becomes increasingly practical. Babylonia does not rely on rain in the same way that Israel does; instead, its agriculture is supported by two large rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the government’s extensive system of public aqueducts—relatively independent of meteorology… or God.
The mishna recorded two dates to begin requesting rain in Birkat Hashanim. The majority opinion was the third of Marcheshvan (October/November), and the opinion of the second century Palestinian sage Rabban Gamliel was the seventh of Marcheshvan. Ultimately, the opinion of Rabban Gamliel became normative—so says Rabbi Elazar, an authority from third century Palestine.
However, the Babylonian Talmud follows this with another opinion. A second century authority named Chananya reports that in Babylonia, they don’t start saying the insertion until sixty days after the autumn equinox, because there is much less need for rain there. Chananya’s position is also presented as normative—so says Shmuel, an authority from third century Babylonia.
So: the minority opinion of the mishnaA collection of rabbinic teachings edited in Israel around 225 CE. Organized in six sedaraim by subject matter and dealing with both ritual and civil law. Both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud are expansive discussions of the Mishnah. Read more (the 7th of Marcheshvan) has been favored by the Talmud, but not for Babylonians! Instead, a different opinion has taken precedence, an opinion which does not appear in the mishna, nor in any other contemporary source.
The opinions in the mishna do not just differ by four days; they differ in reasoning as well. The majority opinion, the third of Marcheshvan, is based around when the rainy season tends to begin in the land of Israel. Rabban Gamliel’s position is based on a secondary consideration—pilgrims have arrived in Jerusalem from across the Jewish world for Sukkot; he attempts to give Babylonians enough time to return home to the Euphrates before the rain begins.
Thus, even in the opinion codified by the Palestinian Rabbi Elazar, the Babylonian Talmud prioritizes Babylonian needs. This is particularly striking when one notes that the Palestinian Talmud, which was composed in the Land of Israel, does not record Rabban Gamliel’s position as normative. It goes by the majority opinion, and attributes that opinion, the third of Marcheshvan, to the same Rabbi Elazar! To this day, the opinion of Rabban Gamliel is followed in the land of Israel, despite opposing an explicit tradition from that same land.
The characters of these stories matter. The Sifrei, a second century midrashThis word is used in two ways, as both a concept and a literature. As a concept, midrash is the expansive interpretation of biblical texts. The term is used to describe the practice of rabbinic interpretation. As a text, it refers to specific collections of interpretations, particularly from the third to ninth centuries in the Land of Israel and Babylonia. Plural: Midrashim
Read more, says that Chananya left the land of Israel with a group of sages of the early second century. The Talmud (Sanhedrin) reveals that he led a yeshiva in Babylonia. In Babylonia, he began to set the calendar himself, declaring the upcoming dates of the year’s holidays. This violated a rabbinic norm that the calendar must be set in the land of Israel.
Authorities from Israel objected. According to the Palestinian Talmud, he replied: “I don’t know who I left there [in Israel]; how do I know they are knowledgeable about the calendar like I am?” In the Babylonian Talmud, his justification is given in starker terms: “There is no one of my level left there.” To which the sages of Israel responded, “The kids you left have become rams.”
The sources do not explain why Chananya and his fellow sages left the land of Israel to establish their centers of learning throughout the world. However, identifying the historical period reveals the answer. In 136 CE, the failed Jewish rebellion against the Roman empire, the Bar Kokhba revolt, was followed by severe penalties imposed by the Emperor Hadrian—including the deportation of Jews from the area around Jerusalem. Jews were sold into slavery and resettled throughout the Roman Empire. Historians understand these events—perhaps even more than the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE—as the beginning of the Jewish diaspora.
Chananya and his colleagues were forced to leave the land of Israel by the Hadrianic decrees, and he settled in Babylonia, where he created a center of Jewish learning. That is why he believed there was no learning left in the land, and why he started setting the calendar from the diaspora. However, after he and his fellow sages left Israel, the remnants of TorahRefers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, also called the Five Books of Moses, Pentateuch or the Hebrew equivalent, Humash. This is also called the Written Torah. The term may also refer to teachings that expound on Jewish tradition. Read more learning in the land were rebuilt, and wrested their authority over the Jewish people from the sages of Babylonia, where Chananya had become the greatest sage in the Jewish world.
And yet, despite the unparalleled strength of Chananya’s court in Babylonia in his time, it is the sages of the mishna, living precisely during the darkest days of the Hadrianic decrees, who determined the development of Jewish law. Only rare exceptions in the Babylonian Talmud originate from Babylonia.
It is one of these rare examples of surviving early Babylonian tradition which ultimately determined the diasporic date at which we start requesting rain, passed down outside of Palestinian tradition to Shmuel, one of the earliest Babylonian sages of the Talmudic period.
Although the rabbinic court of Israel set each year’s calendar, it was nevertheless a diaspora community which determined the rules of calendar-based prayer—both for Jews living in the diaspora, and arguably for Jews living in the land of Israel as well. The Judaism that we live today is the product of a proud diaspora.
In diaspora, we encounter foreign systems and technologies, including the use of calendars. In the next essay, we’ll discuss how we arrived at the use of a Gregorian date for a rain insertion—the only Gregorian date in the annual Jewish calendar.
Read on: Rain Insertions Part 4: The Lunar Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar
