Yarchei Kallah (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: "''months of the bride''") is the name of a teachers' convention that was held twice a year in Babylonian Academies, by the Jews then in captivity in Babylon, after the beginning of the

amoraic ''Amoraim'' (Aramaic: plural or , singular ''Amora'' or ''Amoray''; "those who say" or "those who speak over the people", or "spokesmen") refers to Jewish scholars of the period from about 200 to 500 CE, who "said" or "told over" the teachi ...

period, in the two months Adar and

Elul Elul ( he, אֱלוּל, Standard ''ʾElūl'', Tiberian ''ʾĔlūl'') is the twelfth month of the Jewish civil year and the sixth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. It is a month of 29 days. Elul usually occurs in August� ...

. The name refers to the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

as bride to be studied in the months of farming inactivity after oil and wine harvest.

Description

For each year's convention of the Kallah, a treatise of the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Tor ...

was written forming the subject of explanation and discussion at the convention, according to Ta'anit 10b. cites opinions attributing authorship to either Jehudai Gaon (8th century) or to Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (c.100 CE) with later additions and redaction. The regular Kallah conventions concerned issues related to marriage, chastity, and moral purity. The subject matter was largely taken from the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cent ...

. The importance of the Kallah Convention (referred to under another name) is extolled in the Midrash Tanḥuma: "God has appointed the two academies ("

yeshibot A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish education, Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish p ...

") for the good of Israel. In them day and night are devoted to the study of the

; and to there come the scholars from all places twice a year, in Adar and

, and associate with one another in discussions on the Torah." The greater the attendance at the convention, the greater was the renown of the academy. Hence

Abaye Abaye ( he, אַבַּיֵי) was a rabbi of the Jewish Talmud who lived in Babylonia, known as an amora of the fourth generation. He was born about the close of the third century, and died 337 CE. Biography His father, Kaylil, was the brother ...

says: "The most important part of the Kallah is a crowd." There was a saying in Babylonia that whoever dreamed of going into a forest would become president of the Kallah (the Kallah being likened to a forest). In the land of Israel there was no Kallah. A. Schwarz claims that this cannot be asserted with certainty, but available historical records show that the Kallah was purely an institution practiced in Babylonia.

Etymology

The Mishnaic Hebrew word Yarchei (sing. Yareiach) means "months." The word literally is translated as "moons." The source for this common Mishnaic term is the fact that Jewish months are based on the lunar cycle. (Note that there is a similar relationship between the English words ''moon'' and ''month''.) The word Kallah is always written with ה as in כלה. It's the Hebrew word for "bride".Levy, ''Neuhebr. Wörterbuch,'' ii. 321

References

* {{JewishEncyclopedia, url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=60&letter=K&search=kallah, title=Kallah, authors=

Richard Gottheil Richard James Horatio Gottheil (13 October 1862 – 22 May 1936) was an English American Semitic scholar, Zionist, and founding father of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. Biography He was born in Manchester, England, but moved to the United States a ...

and Wilhelm Bacher Minor tractates Jewish marital law