בבא בתרא דף קסד ע"ב

But is not the dating of this one unlike the dating of that one?^[1]

והלא אין זמנו של פשוט כזמנו של מקושר - For the date of a pashut: if it was written in the first year in which the king came to power, they count only one year for him; two, they count two. But a mekushar: if he has reigned one year, they write two in the document; two, they count three. That is, they advance the count by a year, for the custom of the nation, as below, is to add a year for the king; perhaps they did so in the king's honor, as if to say he has already held his kingship two years. And the Sages instituted that the mekushar be written according to the nation's custom, so as to make many distinctions and stringencies in the mekushar for the sake of the hot-tempered kohanim, as we said above, so that it should not be easy for them to divorce their wives.

A pashut: if the king has reigned one year, they count one year for him; two, they count two. A mekushar: if he has reigned one year, they count two for him; two, they count three.

But sometimes he lends him money with a mekushar, and money happens to come to the borrower in the meantime and he repays him, and says to him, “Give me my document,” and the lender says, “It is lost,” and writes him a receipt;^[2] and when the date arrives he treats it as a pashut and says to him, “These are what you borrowed from me just now!”

ומקשינן דלמא יזיף ליה במקושר - And we challenge: perhaps he lent to him with a mekushar, which adds a year for him, and the borrower repaid him within his year and said to him, “The document is lost to me,” and he wrote him a receipt; and afterwards he treats it as a pashut and says to him, “After I wrote you this receipt you borrowed from me again, and my document proves that its date is after the date of the receipt.” And we answer: one does not write a receipt, and he never repays him until he tears up the document. And it is a dispute later in our perek, concerning the writing of a receipt.

He holds: one does not write a receipt.

And is Rebbi expert in the mekushar?

ומי בקי רבי במקושר - Who said that the date of this one is not like the date of that one.

But a certain mekushar came before Rebbi, and Rebbi said, “This document is post-dated,”^[3]

והא ההוא דאתא לקמיה דרבי - In the first year of a king, with “two” written in it, and Rebbi said, “This is post-dated.”

and Zonin said to Rebbi: “Such is the custom of this nation: if the king has reigned one year, they count two for him; two, they count three!”

זונין - The name of a sage.

כך מנהגה כו' - For the Rabbis instituted the mekushar according to that custom, to separate rules and laws between the pashut and the mekushar, as we said at the beginning of our perek.

After he heard it from Zonin, he knew it.

ומשני בתר דשמעה מזונין - He raised an objection to Rabbi Chanina.

There was a certain document in which was written: “In the year of so-and-so the Arkon.”^[4]

ההוא שטר - A pashut.

דהוה כתב ביה בשנת פלוני ארכן - “So-and-so borrowed from so-and-so,” and it was not written in it which year of that king's reign it was, whether the first, the second or the third. Arkon is a king, and in the first year they call him Arkon, as below, because he is now established; like “arikh or not arikh” (Sukkah 44b), and like “it is not arikh for us to see the king's dishonor” (Ezra 4): it is not becoming and fitting for us to see the king's nakedness and his disgrace.

Rabbi Chanina said: Let it be checked when the Arkon took up his office.^[5]

יבדוק אימתי עמד ארכן במלכותו - For this document was written in the first year of his reign, and from that year the creditors seize from the buyers.

But perhaps he had already reigned for a long time?

דאריך במלכותו - That is, after he had extended his reign and ruled several years this so-and-so borrowed from so-and-so, and the buyers should be seized from only from then on.

Rav Hoshaya said: Such is the custom of this nation: in the first year they call him Arkon, in the second they call him Digon.

שנה ראשונה קורין לו ארכן - Newly established in the kingship.

דיגון - A word meaning two, close to the language of our la'az.

But perhaps they removed him and then reinstated him?

ודלמא עבורי עברוהו - From his kingship, and then they made him king again at the end of two or three years, and he too is called Arkon; and perhaps the document was written when he reigned the second time, so why should it collect from the first date?

Rabbi Yirmiyah said: Such an Arkon they would call Digon.

ארכן דיגון קרו ליה - Because they returned him to his kingship after they had removed him.

The Rabbis taught: “I am a nazir hina” — Summachus says: hina is one, digon two, trigon three, tetragon four, pentagon five.^[6]

ת"ר הריני נזיר הינא סומכוס אומר הינא אחת - That is, if he did not specify how many terms of nezirus he vowed, and said, “I am a nazir hina,” that is one nezirus of thirty days; and all of them, hina, digon, trigon, are words of our la'az.

דיגון שתים - And it would be round on one side, and its side… a nazir for sixty days (Look in the source and you will find much satisfaction!).

The Rabbis taught: A round house, a digon, a trigon or a pentagon does not become impure with tzaraas; a tetragon becomes impure with tzaraas.^[7]

בית עגול - Made like a kiln, which has no corner or angle at all.

דיגון - Two corners: one has two corners.

טריגון - Made like a jug, with three corners.

פינטיגון - It has five corners [like this].

טטריגון - Square.

From where are these words derived?

מנא ה"מ - That it becomes impure with tzaraas only when it is square.

As the Rabbis taught: Above it says (Vayikra 14:37) “wall,” “walls” — two; below it says “wall,” “walls” — two; here there are four.^[8]

למעלה - It could have said, “And behold, the plague is in the wall of the house,” yet it wrote “walls.”

הרי כאן ארבע - And that is a square; but a round house is all one wall. And “its appearance is lower than the wall” comes for its own teaching. And in the commentary of Rabbeinu Chananel, similarly, it is said: … the Holy One, blessed be He, has nothing in His world but the fear of Heaven, as it says (Iyov 28), “Behold, the fear of Hashem,” for in the Greek language they call one hen; and perhaps it is written in their books.

A certain mekushar came before Rebbi, and Rebbi said: “There is no date on this.”

Rabbi Shimon the son of Rebbi said to Rebbi:^[9] “Perhaps it is hidden between its ties.”

He unstitched it and saw it.

Afterwards Rebbi looked at him with displeasure.

חזא ביה בבישות - He thought that he had written it; and they would not willingly make a mekushar but only a pashut, because people err in it. Alternatively, because it was hidden between its ties too much, so that Rebbi himself erred in it.

He said to him: “I did not write it; Rabbi Yehudah the tailor wrote it.”

יהודה חייטא - That was his name.

He said to him: “Keep away from this lashon hara!”^[10]

כלך מלשון הרע הזה - That is, you should not have cast the blame on him; you should have said, “I did not write it.”

Another time he was sitting before him and reciting a section of the book of Tehillim.

Rebbi said: “How straight this writing is!”

He said to him: “I did not write it; Yehudah the tailor wrote it.”

He said to him: “Keep away from this lashon hara!”

Granted there, there is lashon hara; but here, what lashon hara is there?

מאי לשון הרע איכא - But surely he spoke in praise of Rabbi Yehudah the tailor when he said, “Yehudah the tailor wrote it.”

Because of Rav Dimi, as Rav Dimi the brother of Rav Safra taught: A person should never speak of the good of his fellow, for out of his good he comes to his bad.

בא לידי רעתו - To his disgrace: because they add to his praise, they mention there the disgrace in him.

Rav Amram said in the name of Rav: Three sins a person is not saved from every day: thoughts of sin, iyun tefillah,^[11] and lashon hara.

עיון תפלה - Some explain: after he has prayed, he reckons in his heart that the Holy One, blessed be He, will pay him his reward, fulfil his needs and hear his prayer, because he prayed with concentration.

Lashon hara — can you imagine?

Tosfos

השתא הוא דאוזפת מינאי - Meaning: and the buyers lose unjustly. But the borrower's loss does not concern us, for he caused his own loss when he borrowed with this document, as I explained above concerning witnesses: we need not invalidate the document because he could forge against the witnesses themselves, producing their own handwriting against them, for they caused their own loss. Alternatively, one can say that the buyers have no loss, e.g. where this document was written without a lien, and even so we are concerned for the borrower's loss; for it is not to be expected that the borrower would know to be so careful, and he would not think that it could come to forgery.

בשנת פלוני - The Ri holds that this Arkon is not a king but an appointed official, who is removed from his office after a year and is not appointed for life; and that is why the Gemara asks, “perhaps they removed him and reinstated him.” And though it calls him a king, it is usual to call an office by the term of kingship, as it says “Rabbi Yochanan reigned” (Taanis 21a), “Rabbah reigned” (Berachos 64a). But if Arkon were a king, it is not usual that they would remove him from his kingship.

הינא אחת - It is a Greek word, as it says (Shabbos 31b), “In Greek they call one hen.” And it is difficult: what does this teach us? If he said, “I am a nazir two terms of nezirus,” he is obligated in two terms; that is obvious! What difference is it to me whether Hebrew, Greek or a foreign tongue? One can answer: where he does not know what the words digon, trigon mean, and said, “I am a nazir digon, trigon,” and in the holy tongue it does not mean digon “two” and so on, for this is a foreign tongue; and it teaches us that it is like the language of the Sages, and he is obligated if he said digon, two terms. And similarly we say [in Nedarim] (10a), “I am nazik, naziach, paziach”: some say it is the language of the nations so, and some say it is a language the Sages [devised] for becoming a nazir by it.

עיון תפלה - It is bad when he reflects on his prayer, as we say in Berachos (55a), “One who reflects on his prayer comes to heartache,” as we say there, “These things recall a person's sins: a leaning wall, and iyun tefillah.” And then it is like thoughts of sin and lashon hara, which are not a mitzvah. But this does not seem right, for why would one not be saved from it every day? Many people do not wait to see when their prayer will be answered, since they do not concentrate so much as to await their prayer. And it seems to Rabbi that the iyun tefillah that is bad is that they do not concentrate in their prayer, as we say (Shabbos 127a), “These are the things whose fruits a person eats… and iyun tefillah”; and from this no person is saved every day, for no person can concentrate properly in his prayer. And so it says in the Yerushalmi^[12] (Berachos, perek Hayah Korei, halachah…): Rabbi Masnaya said, “I am grateful to my head, for when it reaches Modim it bows by itself.”

Notes

1. 1. A shtar pashut is an ordinary flat document, signed by the witnesses below the text. A shtar mekushar (“tied” document) is folded, each fold stitched, and the witnesses sign on the back between the folds; the Sages instituted it for hot-tempered kohanim, to make divorce slower. Rebbi holds that the two are also dated differently.
2. 2. A receipt (shover) is written by a lender who has been paid but does not hand back the loan document, declaring the debt settled. The danger here is that he later presents the unreturned mekushar as a pashut, whose date would then appear later than the receipt.
3. 3. A post-dated document (shtar me'uchar) bears a date later than the actual loan. It is valid, since it only shortens the creditor's lien; an antedated document (shtar mukdam) is invalid, because it lets him seize property sold before the true loan.
4. 4. Arkon: Rashi takes it as the title of a king in his first year of reign; Tosfos (the Ri) holds it is an appointed official removed after a year. The document names only the Arkon, not which year of his term it was.
5. 5. A loan document gives the creditor a lien (shibud) on the borrower's land from its date: if the borrower defaults, he may seize land the borrower sold after that date. So fixing when the document was written decides from which buyers he may collect.
6. 6. A nazir vows to abstain from wine and grape products, from cutting his hair and from impurity of the dead. An unspecified term of nezirus lasts thirty days, so each number adds another thirty-day term. Summachus explains the Greek number-words hina, digon, trigon and so on.
7. 7. Tzaraas of houses (Vayikra 14:33–53) is a greenish or reddish patch in a house's walls. The kohen quarantines the house and, if the plague spreads, the stones are removed or the house is torn down. The beraisa limits this to a house with four walls.
8. 8. In the passage on house-tzaraas the Torah twice writes “wall” (kir, singular: one) and “walls” (kiros, plural: at least two). Two and two make four walls, so only a four-sided house can become impure.
9. 9. Rabbi Shimon was the son and student of Rebbi, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah.
10. 10. Lashon hara is speech that disparages another person, forbidden even when true. By naming Rabbi Yehudah as the writer, he put the blame on him.
11. 11. Iyun tefillah, literally “looking into one's prayer.” Rashi explains it as expecting reward and fulfilment because one prayed with concentration; Tosfos explains it as praying without proper concentration, which no one fully avoids.
12. 12. The Talmud Yerushalmi, the Jerusalem Talmud, compiled in the academies of Eretz Yisrael, parallel to our Talmud Bavli.