276 Shalom Carmy
seventh day of the week (specifi cally, the fi rst Sabbath aft er the fi rst day of
Passover). Th e omer is then brought on the Sunday following the fi ft eenth
of Nisan, and Shavuot is celebrated seven weeks later, always on Sunday.
At the level of peshat, the dispute is clearly defi ned. Does the word shab-
bat, in this passage, have its ordinary meaning of the weekly Sabbath (the
Sadducean position), or can it mean any day on which work is forbidden,
in this instance the festival of Passover, which is the rabbinic tradition?
Th e Talmud (Menahot 65b) records arguments attempting to establish the
rabbinic view; such debates continued through the Middle Ages, with the
Karaites replacing the Sadducees as adversaries, and continue to occupy
modern commentators.8
If one adopts the rabbinic view as authoritative for the community’s
religious observance, is the deviant view nonetheless a plausible alterna-
tive that could be accepted as peshat, just as Rashbam considered his read-
ing of l ’olam as peshat? If so, then the Sadducee position, like that of the
Bible critics with whom Breuer is engaged, presents legitimate philology.
Were it not for authoritative tradition, it might well be accepted, and on
local philological grounds, it might well be superior, on Breuer’s view, to
the interpretation that is in fact accepted. Presumably this view ought to
be taken seriously not simply because it was asserted by a deviant group
but because it is independently plausible or even persuasive. In fact, Breuer
does adopt the Sadducee view as peshat, arguing that if the Torah meant by
mohorat ha-shabbat the day aft er Passover, then the Torah could have said
it more unambiguously.
In the Second Temple period, there was a third reconstruction of the
date of Shavuot. Th e book of Jubilees schedules all holidays for the time
of the full moon. Hence, Shavuot, for Jubilees, occurs on the fi ft eenth of
Sivan, not the fi ft h, sixth, or seventh of the month of Sivan, as would be the
case if one were counting seven weeks from the fi rst day of Passover or the
Sunday following those dates, according to the Sadducees. Offh and, this
view has no philological basis in the text of Leviticus; it only makes sense
on the premise of the Jubilees calendar. So the second question is whether
even the Jubilees option may or should play a role in peshat interpretation?
Breuer’s theory of Shavuot is one of his most complicated eff orts. He
attempts to integrate the many sections in the Torah dealing with the holi-
day and to do justice to the diff erent appellations the holiday receives. In
addition, he gives credence to the rabbinic commemoration of Shavuot as
the day of the giving of the Torah, despite the fact that this identifi cation is