[Avodah] Pesach mitzvos at night

Akiva Miller akivagmiller at gmail.com
Wed Apr 24 20:49:54 PDT 2019


.
I wrote:
> Keep in mind that prior to Matan Torah, nights came *after*
> the days...

R' Micha Berger countered:
> Is that so? Rashbam aside, the prooftext for our days is from
> Maaseh Bereishis and "vayhi erev vayhi voqer".

I anyone wants more info about that pasuk and how Rashbam understood it,
check out the archives, on the thread titled "night before day or after
day".

But that thread doesn't include any mention of Rav Moshe Sternbuch, who
wrote at length on this in Moadim Uzmanim 5:315

> The truth is that prior to Matan Torah, the night was after
> the day, and it was only after Matan Torah that the day begins
> in the evening.
(in the paragraph Amnam L'achar)

For more information, you can check out the Moadim Uzmanim, or click on
http://old.torah.org/advanced/haaros/behar97.htm  Here's one piece of what
you'll find there:

> Rav Moshe Sternbuch (Moadim Uzmanim, part 5, #315) and Rav Yaakov
> Kamenetsky (Emes L'yaakov Parshas Bo 12:2) show how this concept
> fits perfectly into the verse: "Eat matzos on the fourteenth at
> night." (Shmos [Exodus] 12:18). Pesach is the fifteenth of the
> month -- why does the Torah here state the "fourteenth at night?"
> Since they still had the laws of Bnei Noach (the Torah hadn't yet
> been given), the night belonged to the previous day. The night of
> Pesach actually occurred on the night of the fourteenth (that is,
> the night following the fourteenth day). In later years it would
> be seen as the night of the fifteenth, because the night would
> precede the day.

DISCLAIMER: I make no claims that this is absolute Truth for everyone. I
apologize for giving that impression in my previous post. Rather, I
recognize that not everyone holds this way. But for me, it is very
reasonable, especially in light of the current question about the timing of
the Seder.

[And on a personal note, even from before I really learned Torah, this
seemed to be the simplest meaning of the pasuk in Bereshis: "God made the
light, and then it was evening, and then it was morning, and that defines
one day." If the pasuk was intended to define a day as being a nighttime
and the following daytime, then it would have used the words Layla and Yom;
by choosing the words Erev and Boker, the Boker seems to demarcate the end
of the day. In my opinion.]

Akiva Miller
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