1The Festivals of the Lord were stated, but Shabbat, which commemorates Creation, was not stated. Ben Azzai says: The Festivals of the Lord were stated, but the dissolution of vows was not stated. This concludes the baraita .
2The Gemara recounts: Rabbi Yosei bar Natan learned this baraita and did not know how to explain it. He followed Rav Sheshet to Neharde’a in order to ask him about it, but he did not find him there. He followed him to Meḥoza and found him, and he said to him: What is meant by Rabbi Yosei HaGelili’s statement: The Festivals of the Lord were stated, but Shabbat, which commemorates Creation, was not stated? What does he mean, as Shabbat of Creation is explicitly mentioned in that section of the Torah (Leviticus 23:3)?
3Rav Sheshet said to him: The Festivals of the Lord require sanctification by the court. This means that the start of the month, which is dependent upon the appearance of the New Moon, which determines the Festivals, can be established only by a court composed of experts. Shabbat, which commemorates Creation, does not require sanctification by the court. Shabbat is sanctified every week independent of any court action. It may enter your mind to say: Since Shabbat is written adjacent to the Festivals, it should require sanctification by the court as do the Festivals. Rabbi Yosei HaGelili teaches us that Shabbat does not require this.
4Rabbi Yosei bar Natan asked: What is meant by ben Azzai’s statement: The Festivals of the Lord were stated, but the dissolution of vows was not stated? After all, the Torah writes explicitly about the dissolution of vows. Rav Sheshet answered him: The Festivals of the Lord require experts to determine when the months begin and when the Festivals will be observed, but the dissolution of vows does not require experts.
5The Gemara questions this explanation. But it is written: “The heads of the tribes” (Numbers 30:2), in the portion discussing the halakhot of vows. How, then, can it be said that vows can be dissolved by laymen? Rav Ḥisda says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: The phrase teaches that vows can be dissolved by a single expert authority. In any event, the Gemara has established that Beit Shammai can derive that dissolution of vows can be performed by laymen in the manner stated by ben Azzai, as explained by Rav Sheshet.
6§ The Gemara discusses a mishna that addresses the issue of inter-tribal marriages. We learned in a mishna there ( Ta’anit 26b): Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: There were no days as joyous for the Jewish people as the fifteenth of Av and as Yom Kippur, as on these days the daughters of Jerusalem would emerge in white garments, which each woman borrowed from another. Why did they borrow garments? They did this so as not to embarrass one who did not have her own white garments. The Gemara analyzes the mishna: Granted that Yom Kippur is a day of joy, because it is a day of pardon and forgiveness, and moreover, it is the day on which the last Tablets of the Covenant were given. But what is the special joy of the fifteenth of Av?
7Rav Yehuda says that Shmuel says: This was the day when the members of different tribes were permitted to marry into one another’s tribe. Such marriages were restricted for the first generation to enter Eretz Yisrael, as discussed above (120a). What verse did the sages of that time interpret in support of their conclusion that this halakha was no longer in effect? The verse states: “This is the matter” (Numbers 36:6), meaning, this matter shall be practiced only in this generation, in which Eretz Yisrael is being divided among the tribes.
8Rabba bar bar Ḥana says that Rabbi Yoḥanan offered another explanation: The fifteenth of Av was the day when the tribe of Benjamin was permitted to enter into the congregation of the other tribes of Israel through marriage, after the other tribes found a way to dissolve the vow that had prohibited them from marrying a member of the tribe of Benjamin in the aftermath of the episode of the concubine in Gibeah (Judges, chapters 19–20). As it is written: “And the men of Israel had taken an oath in Mizpah, saying: None of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife” (Judges 21:1). The Gemara asks: What verse did the sages of that time interpret that enabled them to dissolve this vow? The verse states: “None of us,” and not: None of our children; therefore, the oath applied only to the generation that had taken the oath.
9Rav Dimi bar Yosef says that Rav Naḥman says: The fifteenth of Av was the day on which those designated to perish in the wilderness stopped dying, as the entire generation that had left Egypt had died due to the sin of the spies (Numbers 14:29–30). As the Master says: As long as those designated to perish in the wilderness had not stopped dying,