Shalom Aleichem Rebbe,
I hope that everything is well with Rebbe. I have stumbled into a question and I am not sure who I can ask. Rebbe seems like exactly the right person for this. I teach children who are either from not religious homes or from quasi-religious homes. This year my gemorah class is particularly bright and I found them questioning certain things that I had never thought to discuss before. Basically, I find myself confused about how to present the machlokes Rabbi Yehudah and the Tana Kama/Chachomim in Mincha.
The chachomim hold that mincha can be until Shkiyah because the Tamid shel Bein Harbaim COULD have been brought until sunset. Although practically speaking it would seem as though the chachamim hold that it was usually done at 9 1/2 hours in the day. Still, since until shkiyah it is technically still the time for the korban you can daven mincha then.
(a) Where does Rabbi Yehudah get plag hamincha from? From the braysa on 26b it would seem as though he is saying the the tamid shel bein harbayim is also only until plag hamincha. Does he darshan a pasuk for that? Is it a "syag latorah" type halacha, similar to chatzos halayla for the emurim/korban pesach/etc.? Is he arguing with the shita of the tanna in pesachim about the FACT of when the korban was brought?
(b) Also, the gemorah introduces the terms mincha ketana and mincha gedolah. Rashi just tells us WHAT they are, not WHY they are. Why are those sections of times significant? In other words, are there any halachos that depend on these designations?
(c) What got all of this started was that the gemorah on 27A determines that in fact Rabbi Yehudah must have meant AD V'Ad Bchlal. In order to try and explain the phrase Ad plag hamincha in the mishnah works the gemorah reinterprets our understanding of how ad vad bchlal would work in the mishnah. But from the stand point of complete intellectual honesty, it seems an awful stretch. The most simple reading, that he meant up to but not including the period of time that the Tanna Kamma was talking about, seems the most correct. Why not just say that Rabbi Yehudah didn't have a standard use of AD and you'll have to check each case to figure out what he meant?
In general it seems as the gemorah would rather go out of it's way to accept a far fetched reading than to accept that someone is wrong or that there is an inconsistency. I'm confused by that preference.
Thanks for any insight that rebbe can share.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi Mordechai Soskil, Baltimore, Maryland
Middle School Principal, Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School
Rav Mordechai, Shalom!
(a) Tosfos Berachos 26b DH Ad asks a similar question. He answers that according to Rebbi Yehudah, Minchah was instituted to correspond to the afternoon offering of the Ketores . Since the Ketores was offered after the Tamid, it could have been offered as lates as Plag Minchah Ketanah (on the days that the Tamid was slaughtered at Minchah Ketanah).
(b) Minchah Gedolah and Ketanah represent the earliest and latest times, respectively, that the Korban Tamid of the afternoon was brought. The source for these times, as well as the reasons behind them, can be found in Pesachim 58a.
Because the Minchah prayer was instituted to correspond to the Korban Tamid, its times were chosen according to the times during which the Korban Tamid was offered.
(c) The Gemara's assertion does not sound so far-fetched to me. I didn't follow your argument about what would be the simplest interpretation of the Mishnah. It seems pretty straightforward to say that Rebbi Yehudah was referring to the first half of Minchah, and he meant that one can Daven until Plag ha'Minchah (and not until the evening). What would be the easier way of understanding his words?
Best wishes,
Mordecai Kornfeld