Communities Never Disappear: Masechet Horayot Daf 6a

This is another in a series of posts for each of the different Masechtot of the Talmud.

Masechet Horayot is one of the shortest masechtot in the Talmud, and it feels like yesterday that we completed Masechet Avodah Zarah, but here we are again, back at the siyyum table,

with another post in Words Have Wings.

Masechet Horayot is a short masechet, but it is packed with questions about what happens if an erroneous judgement is made. You can find an overview of the masechet here.

This post will hone in on one page, specifically page 6a.

From the Talking Talmud podcast, here is an overview of the page:

"When people returned to the land of Israel from Babylonia after that exile, they brought an offering on behalf of the people from the era of Tzedkiyahu. But all of that generation and long died! Normally, a designated sin-offering that isn't offered before the person offering it dies is left alone to get a blemish. But for a public offering, that doesn't work. But an inference can be made from the he-goat of Rosh Chodesh, in terms of it being a communal offering. But maybe the cases aren't comparable, say, if nobody died before the offering was made? Maybe eglah arufah is a good comparison? Some of the returning members of the community were actually still alive at this time - survivors from the time of the First Temple, which was certainly a sad time for them, but they were able to offer the sin-offering. Were they the minority or the majority? Also, the case where one of the public dies - when all the people must bring the offering. Now what? And so a search for parallel categories begins."

On Daf 6a, we learn that a community never dies.

But these pictures Rav Pappa said: When it is learned as a tradition that the fate of a sin-offering whose owners have died is to allow the animal to die without its being sacrificed, this matter applies specifically with regard to an individual who died but not with regard to a congregation, because there is no death with regard to a congregation; the entity of the congregation remains even when specific members die. 

אָמַר רַב פָּפָּא: כִּי גְּמִירִי חַטָּאת שֶׁמֵּתוּ בְּעָלֶיהָ בְּמִיתָה – הָנֵי מִילֵּי בְּיָחִיד, אֲבָל לֹא בְּצִבּוּר, לְפִי שֶׁאֵין מִיתָה בְּצִבּוּר

Please come on a short journey with me as we imagine communities that never die. This post brings back imagined memories of eastern Europe, but one's imagined memory can bring an individual to a myriad of communities, once here, but now gone.

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Portraits are built in our imaginations,

fed by images seen, music heard.

Once in Poland or Belarus or Hungary

or so many other places,

there was a town.

No, it was a village,

No, really it was a city.

In that place people lived,

Young, old,

male, female,

They worked, they played.

They argued, they learned.

They did what people do.

In that place there was a shul.

Maybe there was one?

Perhaps there were two or three?

Maybe one existed on a wide city block,

a large imposing shul with high ceilings,

or perhaps it was shtiebel,

tucked into a storefront,

or an old home with shuttered windows.

I can imagine people walking up and down those streets.

Men in overcoats passing by,

black umbrellas open against a rainy day.

Children holding their mother's hands.

Gawky teens exchanging jokes as they passed by.

I can almost hear the tap, tap, tap of heels against cobblestones,

the sound of people going up the steps,

the squeak of the door as it opened.

Do you hear it? Can you imagine along with me?

The shuffling sounds of feet on wooden floors,

Murmurs of prayers that drift through open windows.

I imagine entering into that shul,

large or small.

softly, without a sound,

Unannounced

I would look up and see the balcony,

Women, hair covered, overlooking the men.

I'd squint and then

I would catch a glimpse through flimsy curtains,

I'd see my grandmother,

my aunts

and they would be peaceful and calm,

smiling smiles I never saw.

I would note,

finally, after all these years,

how I resemble my grandmother

In some small way,

how my niece resembles her great aunt.

In that narrow dusty space of memory,

The men swayed in their tallitot,

draped in white,

like Gabriel, Refael,

and like angels,

I could feel their spirit.

In that space, among the men, there was a man

A stern mustached man, in what must have been his spot.

Next to him sat a boy,

with wavy black hair,

a mischievous child,

who fidgeted at his father’s side

while his father stared intently at his siddur

the boy looked here and there,

everywhere but at the words.

Behind my eyes, a glimpse of their time,

their space,

their happy faces,

There they were in that hazy room.

I see them seat by seat,

row by row,

Prayer by prayer.

Life by life.

Soon after that most were no more.

Time stopped.

Or no, time did not stop,

but their lives were stopped short

in their tracks.

Only a handful remained,

but here they are behind my closed eyes.

It is a small comfort to learn Daf 6 of Masechet Horayot

that communities live forever,

 that in some small way, in our hearts,

in our memories,

in our imaginations they never die.

Pictures of communities past..

Too many to put down in words on this page.

Lives that reflect back like a multi-mirrored room

6 million places.

6 million times.

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History is an answer to the question, ‘What happened?’ Memory is an answer to the question, ‘Who am I?’ History is about facts, memory is about identity. History is about something that happened to someone else, not me. Memory is my story, the past that made me who I am, of whose legacy I am the guardian for the sake of generations yet to come. Without memory, there is no identity, and without identity, we are mere dust on the surface of infinity.”

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

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