005b - הכל שוחטין, פרק ראשון, חולין דף ה ע"ב

From the people of the land — to exclude the mumar.^[1]

מעם - and not all the people. And it is written with regard to a chatas, which comes on account of an inadvertent transgression.^[2]

Rabbi Shimon ben Yosi says in the name of Rabbi Shimon:^[3]

ר"ש בן יוסי אומר - from here you learn it.

Which may not be done — in error, and he becomes guilty.^[4]

אשר לא תעשינה בשגגה ואשם - and adjacent to it: or his sin which he committed became known to him, and he shall bring his guilt-offering — which implies: which may not be done, if he had known that it was forbidden; and it was in error that he sinned and became guilty — he is the one who brings.

One who would desist upon knowing — brings an offering for his inadvertent transgression.^[5]

השב מידיעתו - that had he known it was cheilev he would have sat back and refrained from this transgression. And some read hashav, which likewise means one who withdraws and separates himself from the outset and does not transgress if he knows it is forbidden. And in Toras Kohanim the reading is hayoshev.

One who would not desist upon knowing — does not bring an offering for his inadvertent transgression.

And we said: what is the difference between them?^[6]

מאי בינייהו - in any case we do not accept from a mumar, neither according to the one master nor according to the other, and even where he acted inadvertently — for had he known from the outset he would have eaten it too, and he is not one who would desist upon knowing.

And Rav Hamnuna said: a mumar with regard to eating cheilev who brought an offering for blood — that is the difference between them.^[7]

והביא קרבן על הדם - for he erred in it, and had he known it was blood he would not have eaten it. According to the first Tanna, mumar is his name and we do not accept from him. And according to Rabbi Shimon, with regard to blood he is one who would desist upon knowing, and we do accept from him.

One is with regard to a chatas and one with regard to an olah.^[8]

מכם ולא כולכם - of above: the verse speaks of a voluntary olah, for it is written after it: if his offering is an olah, and so forth.^[9]

And both are necessary.

For had it taught us only the chatas — because it comes for atonement,^[10]

דלכפרה הוא - and since his intent is to act deliberately and to return to his transgression, and in this instance it merely happened that he erred and did not act deliberately — if so, why should we accept from him? He is not fit for atonement.

but an olah, which is a gift, say that we should accept from him.

And had it taught us only the olah — because it is not an obligation,^[11]

דלאו חיובא - and it is not fitting to accept a gift from him, as it is written: the offering of the wicked is an abomination (Mishlei 21).

but a chatas, which is an obligation,

אבל חטאת דחובה - it rests upon him.

say that we should accept from him.

אימא נקבל מיניה - so that a sinner should not be rewarded.

Both are therefore necessary.

And is it so that wherever beheimah is written it is a term of disparagement?^[12]

גריעותא הוא - for you established above that the wayward are called beheimah.

But it is written: man and beast You save, Hashem.^[13]

And Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: these are people who are shrewd in understanding,

and who make themselves as a beast?^[14]

שהן ערומים בדעת - like Adam HaRishon, and who make themselves as a beast, lowly of spirit.

There it is written man and beast; here beast alone is written.^[15]

And is it so that wherever man and beast is written it is a term of praise?

But it is written: and I shall sow the house of Israel, the seed of man and the seed of beast?^[16]

וזרע בהמה - and we establish it in maseches Sotah (22a): one who has not read Scripture, nor learned Mishnah, nor served talmidei chachamim — of him Scripture says: and I shall sow the house of Israel, the seed of man and the seed of beast. That is to say: the wise and the boorish — all of them I shall sow, to make them fruitful and multiply them.

There the verse itself divided them: the seed of man on its own, and the seed of beast on its own.^[17]

Rabbi Chanan said in the name of Rabbi Yaakov bar Idi in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi in the name of Bar Kappara:

Rabban Gamliel and his beis din took a vote on the shechitah of a Kusi, and forbade it.^[18]

ר"ג - the son of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, who was of the later ones; and his beis din took a vote on the shechitah of a Kusi, after our Mishnah had been taught — that all may slaughter, even a Kusi — and forbade it.

Rabbi Zeira said to Rabbi Yaakov bar Idi: perhaps the master heard it only^[19]

לא שמע רבי כו' - and this too accords with our Mishnah.

where a Jew is not standing over him.

He said to him: this one of the Rabbis looks like a man who has never learned a teaching.^[20]

Where a Jew is not standing over him — does that need saying?!

למימרא בעי - is it not obvious to us that they do not hold by you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind (Vayikra 19, 14)?

Did he accept it from him, or did he not accept it from him?^[21]

קבלה מיניה - did Rabbi Zeira accept from Rabbi Yaakov that even where a Jew is standing over him it is forbidden, or did he not accept it.

Come and hear: for Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak said in the name of Rabbi Assi: I myself saw Rabbi Yochanan eat of the shechitah of a Kusi,^[22]

אכל משחיטת כותי - with a Jew standing over him, or by his having cut off an olive's bulk of meat and given it to him and he ate.

and Rabbi Assi too ate of the shechitah of a Kusi.

ואף ר' אסי אכל - our reading is and Rabbi Zeira wondered at it — he was astonished at them that they ate it, and he raised this question in his own mind.

And Rabbi Zeira wondered at it: did they not hear of it,^[23]

לא שמיע להו - this ruling that Rabban Gamliel took a vote. For had they heard of it they would have accepted it; or perhaps they heard it and did not accept it.

for had they heard of it they would have accepted it;

or perhaps they heard of it and did not accept it?

He then resolved it for himself:

והדר פשיט - Rabbi Zeira, for himself.

it stands to reason that they heard of it and did not accept it.^[24]

מסתברא שמיע להו ולא קבלוה - for if it should enter your mind that they did not hear of it, and that had they heard of it they would have accepted it —

For if it should enter your mind that they did not hear of it, and that had they heard of it they would have accepted it —

how could it have been brought about that they eat what is forbidden?!^[25]

היכי מסתייע מילתא למיכל כו' - how should any accuser bring about before tzaddikim, by way of inadvertence, any matter of sin?

Now if the animals of tzaddikim^[26]

השתא בהמתן של צדיקים - the donkey of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair, further on.

the Holy One, blessed be He, does not bring a mishap about through them,

אין הקב"ה מביא תקלה על ידן - that the animal should eat something forbidden to it.

the tzaddikim themselves — how much more so!^[27]

Tosafos

מעם הארץ פרט למומר - It is astonishing: what is the Gemara saying — is this derived from here, it is derived from there? On the contrary, this beraisa disagrees, for the first Tanna says that even from a mumar with regard to one matter we do not accept, since we established that they differ over one who eats cheilev and set aside an offering for blood. And it is forced to say that the objection is from Rabbi Shimon. And Rabbeinu Tam explains that a mumar with regard to eating cheilev means a mumar with respect to the whole Torah apart from blood — as we find that all chataos are included under the heading of the chatas of cheilev, in the first perek of Menachos (6a) and in perek Hayah Meivi (Sotah 15a), where it says that by right the chatas of cheilev should require libations. And now it says that according to the first Tanna, when he is a mumar with respect to the whole Torah apart from blood he does not bring an offering for blood, and according to Rabbi Shimon he does bring, since with regard to blood he is one who would desist upon knowing; but a mumar with regard to one matter — all agree that he brings. And one may further answer that they differ specifically over cheilev and blood, because these are alike in that both carry kareis and both go up to the Most High, and they are stated in a single prohibition: any cheilev and any blood you shall not eat. For the first Tanna considers a mumar with regard to that very thing as though he were a mumar with regard to blood itself, and he refrains not on account of the prohibition but because his soul recoils from eating blood; but a mumar with regard to one of the other prohibitions — it is obvious that he brings an offering for blood. And according to Rabbi Shimon, even a mumar with regard to eating cheilev brings an offering for blood.^[28]

אינו שב מידיעתו אינו מביא קרבן על שגגתו - It is astonishing: why is a verse needed to exclude one who would not desist upon knowing and who stands in his wickedness? He is covered by the offering of the wicked is an abomination, so how could it enter our minds to say that he brings? And one may answer that it is needed for a case where he afterwards returned in teshuvah, and at the time he ate he was not one who would desist upon knowing.^[29]

ר"ג ובית דינו נמנו על שחיטת כותי ואסרוה - Rashi explained: Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, who was the last one. And so it is somewhat implied from what is said shortly, that Rabban Gamliel and his beis din held like Rabbi Meir, who is concerned for a minority — which implies that he is the later Rabban Gamliel, who came after Rabbi Meir. Yet there is a difficulty: if so, it should have specified explicitly Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, as is taught in maseches Avos (2:2). And there is a further difficulty: Rabbi Meir decreed on their wine but did not decree on shechitah, which is from the Torah. But if it is Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh it is well, and what is said — that they held like Rabbi Meir — is because Rabbi Meir held so explicitly. But there is a difficulty with that too, for then Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh would hold that the Kusim are true converts, since their shechitah was permitted before the decree; and at the beginning of HaDar (Eruvin 61a) we learned that one who dwells with an idolater, or with one who does not acknowledge an eruv, is forbidden — and one who does not acknowledge an eruv means a Kusi, as is said in perek BeChol Me'arvin (Eruvin 31b), where Rabbi Eliezer ben Rabbi Yaakov says that there must be two Jews forbidding one another, and Rabban Gamliel says a Tzeduki is not like an idolater. Rashi explained: but a Kusi is like an idolater, for he holds that the Kusim are converts out of fear of the lions. However, Rashi's explanation cannot stand, for Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh holds explicitly in the first perek of Gittin (10a) that they are true converts, since he validated a get whose witnesses were Kusim. And we could have explained that a Kusi is like an idolater because he does not acknowledge an eruv — which is also the reason of the first Tanna who forbids, who is Rabbi Meir, as is proved there in the Gemara, and Rabbi Meir holds there that the Kusim are true converts. But there is a difficulty: since according to all a Kusi imposes a restriction even though they are true converts, what did Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi come to introduce when they made them full idolaters with regard to annulling a domain and granting a domain — this was already so according to all. Rather one may say that according to Rabban Gamliel a Kusi too is not like an idolater, and we learned that a Tzeduki is not like an idolater, and the same applies to Kusim, since they are true converts; and they held them to be true converts like Rabban Gamliel until Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi made them full idolaters. And although Rabbi Yochanan ruled like Rabbi Eliezer ben Rabbi Yaakov, and Rabbi Eliezer ben Rabbi Yaakov does not disagree with the first Tanna who forbids a Kusi — Rabbi Yochanan did not come to rule like him except in what requires that there be two Jews forbidding one another.^[30]

צדיקים עצמן לא כ"ש - It is astonishing, for we find Yehudah ben Tabbai, who put to death a conspiring witness, in the first perek of Makos (5b), and Rabbi Yishmael, who read and tilted the lamp, in the first perek of Shabbos (12b). And Rabbeinu Yitzchak said that it is specifically in a matter of eating that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not bring a mishap about through them, since it is a disgrace for a tzaddik to eat something forbidden. And according to the texts that read, in Kesubos (28b), regarding one who raised a slave to the priesthood on his word, now if the animals of tzaddikim and so forth — that is because it comes to eating what is forbidden, for he feeds a Jewish woman who married him with terumah, and he is a slave and has no kiddushin with her. However, in most texts we do not read it, and that is because the objection applies only where the tzaddik himself eats what is forbidden. And in Rosh Hashanah (21a), where it says how pleasant is the dish of the Babylonians on the great fast of the West, and in Arvei Pesachim (106b), where Rabbi Yirmiyah bar Abba came to the house of Rav Assi and forgot and tasted before havdalah — although his death was by croup — there it is permitted food, only that he ate at a forbidden time. And in Bereishis Rabbah the reading is that Rabbi Yirmiyah sent Rabbi Zeira a basket of fruit, and between the one and the other the fruit was eaten in its untithed state. However, that incident appears in maseches Shekalim (8a), and Rabbi Zeira says on it: if the earlier ones were as angels we are as men, and if the earlier ones were as men we are as donkeys — and not like the donkey of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair. [See further Tosafos Shabbos 12b s.v. Rabbi Nasan, Tosafos Pesachim 106b s.v. Ishtali, Tosafos Yevamos 99b s.v. S.D. and Tosafos Gittin 7a s.v. Hashta.]^[31]

Notes

1. 1. The daf opens mid-question. At the end of 5a the Gemara asked why the exclusion of the mumar's offering needs to be derived from mikem when it is derived elsewhere; this beraisa is that elsewhere. It expounds the verse of the chatas of an individual, where the apparently superfluous me'am ha'aretz is read as a limitation [ויקרא ד, כז].
2. 2. Rashi marks what makes this a second source rather than a repetition of 5a's. That verse was about a voluntary olah; this one is about a chatas, which comes only for an inadvertent transgression. Two different kinds of offering need two different exclusions, which is the point the Gemara will make below.
3. 3. A second opinion in the beraisa, which will derive the same exclusion from different words of the same verse and end up with a narrower rule. Everything that follows down to Rav Hamnuna is about how far apart the two positions actually stand.
4. 4. Rabbi Shimon reads not the words naming who brings but the words describing how the sin happened. Rashi supplies what makes the drasha work: the following pasuk speaks of the sin becoming known to him afterwards, so the verse is describing a man whose transgression was genuinely a mistake — one who would not have done it had he known.
5. 5. The criterion in a phrase: would knowledge have stopped him. Rashi's example is cheilev, the forbidden fat that carries kareis — had the man known the piece was cheilev he would have put it down. Rashi also records two other readings of the word, one giving hashav, one giving hayoshev in Toras Kohanim; the sense is the same in each.
6. 6. Rashi frames why the question is pressing: on the face of it both opinions exclude the same man. An ordinary mumar is not one who would desist upon knowing, since he would have eaten it either way — so what case is left for them to disagree about?
7. 7. Rav Hamnuna finds the case: a man who is a mumar with regard to cheilev but not with regard to blood, who then eats blood by mistake. For the first Tanna he is simply a mumar and nothing is accepted from him. For Rabbi Shimon the test is applied to this transgression, and with regard to blood he would indeed have desisted — so his offering is accepted. This is the case Tosfos takes up at the foot of the page.
8. 8. The answer to 5a's closing question. The two derivations are not redundant because they cover different offerings: mikem excludes him from a voluntary olah, me'am ha'aretz from an obligatory chatas.
9. 9. This Rashi explains mikem, which is back on 5a — he says so with the word dil'eil, above. His point is that the verse there continues by speaking of an olah, which fixes it as the source for the voluntary offering and leaves the chatas to the verse here.
10. 10. The first half of the tzricha. Rashi sharpens it: a chatas exists to atone, and this man intends to go on transgressing deliberately — this particular lapse happened to be inadvertent. Atonement is not what he is seeking, so there would have been reason to reject the offering here and not elsewhere.
11. 11. The second half runs the other way. An olah is a gift rather than a debt, and a gift from such a man might have been thought unfitting on its own — Rashi cites the offering of the wicked is an abomination (Mishlei 21, 27) — whereas an obligation resting on a man might have been accepted so that he should not profit from his sin. Each verse is therefore needed.
12. 12. A fresh line of attack, aimed back at 5a. There the beraisa read from the animal as including men who resemble an animal, meaning those who do not keep the mitzvos — so the word was taken as disparaging. The Gemara now asks whether the word carries that sense wherever it appears.
13. 13. A verse where the same word plainly carries praise rather than disparagement [תהלים לו, ז].
14. 14. Rav's reading turns the verse into praise of a particular kind: men of real understanding who nevertheless carry themselves without self-importance. Rashi's gloss sets both halves — shrewd as Adam HaRishon was shrewd, and lowly of spirit as an animal is.
15. 15. The answer draws the line at the pairing. Where the verse sets man and beast together it is describing a man who has both qualities, and that is praise; where it says beast alone, the disparaging sense stands. The drasha on 5a is therefore untouched.
16. 16. The counter-question tests the new rule: here is a verse pairing the two words where the second half is not praise at all [ירמיהו לא, כו]. Rashi supplies the reading assumed, from Sotah: the seed of beast is the man who has neither read nor learned nor served talmidei chachamim, and the promise is that both the learned and the unlearned will be made to multiply [סוטה כב, א].
17. 17. The answer, and it closes the whole exchange: in that verse the two are not paired but listed apart — seed of man and seed of beast, each with its own word seed. So it is not a case of the two together, and the rule stands.
18. 18. A new sugya, on the first of the three cases in the Mishnah at the head of the masechta. The Kusim were settled in Shomron by the king of Ashur after the exile of the ten tribes and accepted parts of the Torah; whether they converted sincerely or out of fear of the lions that afflicted them is disputed through Shas, and their standing shifted over time. That is what makes this report striking: the Mishnah had already ruled that a Kusi's shechitah is valid, and a later beis din voted to forbid it. Rashi identifies this Rabban Gamliel as the son of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, one of the last of the Tannaim — which is what allows him to overrule a Mishnah already taught. Tosfos disputes the identification at length at the foot of the page.
19. 19. Rabbi Zeira tries to soften the report so that it no longer contradicts the Mishnah: perhaps the ban covers only the case where no Jew is watching, which the Mishnah never permitted anyway. Rashi notes the effect — read that way the ruling says nothing new.
20. 20. A sharp retort, and unusually blunt for the Gemara: a man who suggests that is talking like someone who has never studied. The reason follows — a ban on unsupervised shechitah would be too obvious to need a vote, since the Kusim were not trusted to avoid putting a stumbling block before others in the first place [ויקרא יט, יד]. The ban must therefore reach further, to shechitah done under a Jew's eye.
21. 21. With the reading settled, the open question becomes whether Rabbi Zeira accepted the correction. What follows is the Gemara trying to work that out from how the Amoraim of Eretz Yisrael actually behaved.
22. 22. Eyewitness testimony rather than a ruling: Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Assi ate it. Rashi allows that this may have been under supervision, or where the Kusi himself cut a piece and handed it over — but either way they ate, which is hard to square with a standing ban.
23. 23. Rashi settles the reading of the line and its tone: Rabbi Zeira was not objecting aloud but puzzling over it to himself. Two possibilities face him — they never heard the ban, or they heard it and rejected it.
24. 24. He answers his own question, and the answer is reached from an unexpected direction — not from evidence about what they knew, but from what may be assumed about what happens to men of their stature.
25. 25. The reasoning: had the ban been binding and they simply not known of it, they would have eaten something forbidden without realising. Rashi puts it as a question about Providence — how could a tzaddik be allowed to stumble into sin unawares. Since that is not to be supposed, they must have known of the ban and rejected it.
26. 26. The kal vachomer that carries the argument. Rashi points forward to the account, further on in this perek, of the donkey of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair, which refused to eat grain from which the tithes had not been separated.
27. 27. The conclusion, and the daf ends on it. The principle it states — that the Holy One does not let a tzaddik stumble into forbidden food unawares — is the one Tosfos spends its last piece testing against cases where tzaddikim plainly did err.
28. 28. Tosfos presses the Gemara's own framing. If this beraisa disagrees with the position on 5a, calling it a second source for the same law is odd. Rabbeinu Tam answers by reading a mumar with regard to cheilev as a mumar with respect to the whole Torah except blood — cheilev standing for the chatas generally, as it does in Menachos [מנחות ו, א] and Sotah [סוטה טו, א]. A second answer keeps the case narrow: cheilev and blood are paired in one prohibition and both carry kareis, so abandoning the one is treated as abandoning the other.
29. 29. A neat point: if the man is still in his wickedness, no verse is needed to reject his offering — the offering of the wicked is an abomination covers it. The verse is needed for the man who has since returned in teshuvah and now wants to bring for a transgression committed while he was still a mumar.
30. 30. The longest piece on the daf, and worth reading slowly: Tosfos is arguing that the Rabban Gamliel here may be the earlier one, of Yavneh, against Rashi. Two difficulties with Rashi's identification — that the later Rabban Gamliel would have been named in full, as he is in Avos, and that Rabbi Meir decreed on gentile wine but not on shechitah, which is a Torah matter. The obstacle to the earlier identification is that Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh held the Kusim to be true converts, having validated a get signed by Kusi witnesses [גיטין י, א], while the Mishnah in Eruvin appears to treat a Kusi as an idolater. Tosfos works through that and concludes that the Kusim were held to be true converts until Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi made them full idolaters.
31. 31. Tosfos tests the closing principle against cases where tzaddikim did stumble: Yehudah ben Tabbai, who put a conspiring witness to death against the halachah [מכות ה, ב], and Rabbi Yishmael, who tilted the lamp while reading on Shabbos [שבת יב, ב]. Rabbeinu Yitzchak answers that the principle is limited to food, since it is a disgrace for a tzaddik to eat what is forbidden. The remaining cases are then sorted by that rule: Rosh Hashanah [ראש השנה כא, א] and Pesachim [פסחים קו, ב] are permitted food eaten at a forbidden time, not forbidden food.