[Avodah] When was Pi haAretz created?

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 08:55:08AM -0400, Zvi Lampel wrote:
>> I am sure this is addressed by primary sources.
>> ... "ve'im beri'ah yivra H' ufatzesa ha'adamah es piha..."
>> But according to Avos, the mouth was already created well before Moshe
>> spoke! So, why does Moshe describe the earth opening up to swallow people
>> as a new beryah?
...
> Sanhedrin 110a, invoking the principle that G-d does not create any new
> entities after the original Creation, concludes that the term beriah here
> cannot be understood literally....

Is seems to me that gemara starts with the assumption that bara must
indeed mean something new, yeish mei'ayim. Thus the question about "ein
davar chadash tachas hashemesh". And even in the answer contrasts this to
"lemavrei mamash".

But this is RAM's answer as well. He gave more detail, but no source.

The Maharsha points you to what he says on Nedarim 39b, where it asks
based on a beraisa about 7 things created before the universe, including
gehennom.

There he quotes the Ran that they were "alu beMachashavah lehibar'os".
Which would mean this bara could be literal.

The Meharsha objects based on Pesachim 54a where it distinguishes between
the chalalah of gehenom being created before the world, and the fire
within it were created day 2. Then Pesachim says normal fire was oleh
beMachashavah on erev Shabbos, but was actually created motza"sh. The
Maharsha cannot imagine that fire would be explicitly only ObM but it
would be left implicit in the same sentence WRT the "fire" of gehennom.

But I'm liking the Ran.

> The rishonim on this posuk and on the posuk in Breishis about the tanninim
> point out that the term beriah is sometimes used for significant events
> even though they are not ex nehilo.

Thank you.

That said, I want to quible with what RAM wrote on Tue, Jun 15, 2021
at 11:05am EDT:
> Words can mean slightly different things when they are in different
> contexts. One of my favorite examples is "melacha", which is defined
> differently for Shabbos, for Chanuka, and in business. Sometimes a "yad"
> means an arm in general, and sometimes it means specifically a hand.

The different physical meanings of yad (in contrast to extending it into
the abstract "control") isn't a great example. We learn from hilkhos
tefillin that the concept of "yad" as arm even if there is no hand at
the end of that arm is subject to machloqes.

But "melakhah" is closer to my point anyway. We have multiple similar
words: melakhah, avodah, and likely others are eluding me right now.
Yes, "melakhah" can be used in a variety of ways, or in one way but
the details of what kinds of "constructive work" is prohibited for legal,
not semantic reasons.

But I wouldn't expect the contrasting feature with the near-synonym to
be eradicated. We wouldn't expect "melakhah" to be used for something that
isn't constructive, since we could use extend "avodah" in that case.

Same here, beri'ah has asiyah and yetzirah as similar but different terms.
I would expect the usage in the pasuq to be somethign that is closer
to other uses of beri'ah than something I could just call "asiyah" or
"yetzirah".

Moving the pi ha'aretz to where is was needed seemed more like yetzirah
to me. Everything existed as before, but moved around.

But the two of you convinced me the key nequdah for beri'ah is not "yeish
mei'ayin" but newness. Yeish mei'ayin being but one example where you
would emphasize that what is being made is totally new.

> Specifically, the Torah refers to the creation of Adam and Chava in several
> places (Bereshis 1:27, 5:2, 6:7, Devarim 4:32). But they were explicitly
> made from pre-existing things - Adam from adamah, and Chava from Adam...

>                          ... Perhaps this new aspect was their neshama,
> or bechira, or something else. But whatever it was, it was so significant
> that the word beriah could be used to describe it.

But that "new aspect" is the essence of being human and was being created
yeish mei'ayin just then.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 When faced with a decision ask yourself,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
Author: Widen Your Tent      at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                          - Rav Yisrael Salanter