The safek of bein ha-shemashot

Shabbat 34–35 discusses the laws of bein ha-shemashot, the period of twilight between sunset and full darkness. This time has a status of safek, uncertainty, when it comes to laws that depend on the time being day or night. There was no way I was going to skip a sugya on uncertainty.

A berayta on 34b states:

תנו רבנן: בין השמשות ספק מן היום ומן הלילה, ספק כולו מן היום, ספק כולו מן הלילה - מטילין אותו לחומר שני ימים.

Bein ha-shemashot is a three-sided safek: it might be fully day, it might be fully night, and it might be some combination of the two. In any question of halakhah we treat it stringently, as either one, or the other, or both of the days that it bridges.

There are two main shittot on understanding the side of the safek that bein ha-shemashot could be both days. Rabbeinu Tam understands the safek to be that any moment between sunset and nightfall could be the dividing line for when the previous day ends and the new day begins. The Ritva (as understood by some aharonim based on a comment on Yoma 47b) understands the safek to be that the entire period of bein ha-shemashot might be ruled as both days intertwined, just as an adroginus might be ruled both male and female.

In this post I discuss Rashi's shittah on how this safek works. It's a shittah whose meaning is, well...uncertain.

Making up a tefillah

The Gemara on 26a–b discusses the laws of tashlumin, making up a prayer you had missed by saying shemoneh esrei twice at the next prayer.

The Gemara raises the issue as a challenge to the fixed times of prayer:

וכולי עלמא עד חצות ותו לא? והאמר רב מרי בריה דרב הונא בריה דרבי ירמיה בר אבא אמר רבי יוחנן: טעה ולא התפלל ערבית - מתפלל בשחרית שתים, שחרית - מתפלל במנחה שתים! - כולי יומא מצלי ואזיל, עד חצות - יהבי ליה שכר תפלה בזמנה, מכאן ואילך - שכר תפלה יהבי ליה, שכר תפלה בזמנה - לא יהבי ליה.

Soncino:

And may other people delay till midday, but no longer? Has not R. Mari the son of R. Huna the son of R. Jeremiah b. Abba said in the name of R. Johanan: If a man erred and did not say the evening Tefillah, he says it twice in the morning. [If he erred] in the morning, he says it twice in the afternoon? — He may go on praying the whole day. But up to midday he is given the reward of saying the Tefillah in its proper time; thereafter he is given the reward of saying Tefillah, but not of saying Tefillah in its proper time.

By the way, right before that passage, Soncino translates ותיקין as “wathikin.”