Elul 5784: Yarchei Kallah

🌘Beginning in the Talmudic period, the month of Elul, along with the month of Adar, was a time when students in Bavel would gather to learn Torah—a practice renewed by some yeshivas in our own time.

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In this issue:

• Kallah Months in the Talmud

• Rishonim on Yarchei Kallah

• Kallah Months Today

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Elul is renowned as a month of spiritual preparation—taking account, introspecting, saying selichot (prayers of penitence) according to the various traditions, setting goals for the year ahead. It is also a period of learning (zman Elul or “Elul Zman”) in contemporary yeshivas, generally stretching from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur. In late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the month of Elul specifically was one of two months of the year, the other being Adar, in which a tractate of the Talmud was assigned to elite students. They would prepare the tractate and then gather at the appointed time at the major yeshivot to review, analyze, ask questions, and be tested on mastery.

In a way, this might be said to be akin to the practice of Daf Yomi, instituted in the early twentieth century, a program of study in which people learn a daily double-sided page of Talmud according to a set schedule. Like Daf Yomi, the Yarchei Kallah of the first millennium of the common era put students (and instructors) on the same page for coordinated learning. Also like Daf Yomi, it attracted and served both high-level students and more casual ones, institutionally speaking, making it an important communal and cross-communal affair.

Kallah Months in the Talmud

There is ample mention in the Talmud of the practice of holding “Kallah” (convocation) months in the yeshivot, in which students would gather at a yeshiva from their various hometowns to review and master a pre-assigned tractate. (The origin of the term kallah and its meaning are debated, but by the medieval period it came to connote a convocation.) By the Geonic period, the Kallah months were an institution among the Jews of Bavel (Babylonia); later, the practice of holding them was widely known among Ashkenazi and Sefardi Rishonim alike. Much of what we know about the Kallah months comes from the detailed, early medieval account of R. Natan ha-Bavli, which I wrote about here and here, but which should not necessarily be retrojected onto earlier periods. However, what R. Natan ha-Bavli’s account does clearly show is that there was some continuity of practice from the Amoraic period, as recorded in the Talmud, and the Geonic period, as recorded by R. Natan.

In relating a long aggadeta (a narrative story about the rabbis) about the death of Rabba (bar Nachmani, but usually referred to simply as Rabba), a prominent third-generation Amora who was head of the yeshiva of Pumbedita, the Gemara mentions the Kallah months:

אָמַר רַב כָּהֲנָא, אִישְׁתַּעִי לִי רַב חָמָא בַּר בְּרַתֵּיה דְּחַסָּא: רַבָּה בַּר נַחְמָנִי אַגַּב שְׁמָדָא נָח נַפְשֵׁיהּ. אֲכַלוּ בֵּיהּ קוּרְצָא בֵּי מַלְכָּא, אֲמַרוּ: אִיכָּא חַד גַּבְרָא בִּיהוּדָאֵי דְּקָא מְבַטֵּל תְּרֵיסַר אַלְפֵי גַּבְרֵי מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל יַרְחָא בְּקַיְיטָא וְיַרְחָא בְּסִתְוָא מִכְּרָגָא דְּמַלְכָּא.

Rav Kahana said: Rav Chama, son of the daughter of Chasa, told me that Rabba bar Nachmani died due to the fear of a decree of religious persecution. The Gemara explains: His enemies accused him of disloyalty in the king’s palace, as they said: There is one man from among the Jews who exempts twelve thousand Jewish men from the king’s head tax two months a year, one month in the summer and one month in the winter.

Bava Metzia 86a

From this story we see that the practice of setting aside one summer month and one winter month was known in Amoraic times. We learn from other texts that the summer month was Elul and the winter month was Adar.¹ Why these two months? Ostensibly because they were quieter months in terms of professional obligations for the students, who had the available time to travel and gather.