019b – השג יד – פרק רביעי – ערכין, דף יט ע”ב

What is its width? What is its sitting? What is its thickness?

רחבי עלי מהו - Whether it means a rod of width like my span, or a rod as long as the measure of my width.

What is its circumference? It stands unresolved (teiku).

היקיפי מהו - Whether it means a rod bent and long as the measure of its circumference, or a rod as thick as its circumference; it stands unresolved (teiku).

"The weight of my hand is upon me," etc.:

Taught: "The weight of my hand and the weight of my foot are upon me." R. Yehuda says: he brings a barrel, fills it with water, and puts in his hand up to the elbow^[1] and his leg up to the knee^[2]; he weighs donkey flesh, sinews and bones, and puts it into it until it is full. And even though there is no proof for this, it is a memorial to the matter, as it is stated: "whose flesh is the flesh of donkeys" (Ezekiel 23:20).

אציל - Elbow.

עד הארכובה - Up to the knee: from here upward it is not called foot but thigh.

R. Yosei said to him: How can one match flesh against flesh, sinews against sinews, bones against bones?

R. Yehuda said to him: We estimate.

R. Yosei said to him: Until they estimate, let them measure the hand itself.

And R. Yehuda: as far as possible we act on the hand up to the elbow.

And there is a contradiction: the sanctifying of hands and feet in the Temple, up to the wrist, is Torah law, up to the wrist. "Sanctifying of hands and feet in the Temple"

עד הפרק - Up to the wrist: the place where the palm joins the forearm. So the "hand" reaches only up to the wrist, since the verse says "hand."

Answer: in vows^[3] one follows the way people speak; and the Torah law reaches up to the wrist.

לשון בני אדם - Ordinary speech: "hand" is called so up to the elbow.

But regarding tefillin^[4] it is written, "your hand" (Exodus 13:9).

And a teaching of the house of Menashe: "your hand" - this is the kevorit.^[5]

קיבורא - Kevora: in Old French "bardon," at the height of the upper arm, a little further from the elbow.

The whole kevorit is Torah law. In vows one follows ordinary speech. And the sanctifying of hands and feet in the Temple is a received law: for the foot, up to the knee.

And there is a contradiction: "feet" except those with a kav^[6]. In vows one follows ordinary speech, and in Torah law, too, those with a kav are excluded.

רגלים - Regalim: the three festivals in the year.

פרט לבעלי קבין - Except those with a kav: one whose leg was cut off at the first joint near the shin, who hollows out a kav and fits his shin into it; they call it an ashkenza. He is exempt from the pilgrimage because he has no foot, so "foot" applies only up to the first joint, called the kavil.

But regarding halitzah it is written, "his foot" (Deuteronomy 25:9).

And it is taught: "If halitzah was performed from the knee downward, the halitzah is valid."^[7]

חלצה - Halitzah: for one whose leg was cut off with some of it remaining from the knee downward, her halitzah is valid. So up to the knee counts as a foot, and she is liable for the pilgrimage.

There it is different, because the verse says "from upon his foot."^[8]

מעל רגלו - That is: what is upon his foot, namely the shin up to the knee.

If so, above the knee too would be "from upon"; but it is not "from upon" (me'al de-me'al) - the doubled phrase is not used.

Rav Pappa said: Conclude from this that the istvira goes down to the ground. For if you think it is cut off below, it would be an istvira, "from upon," and the shaka "from upon" twice.

ש"מ - Conclude from this: since the shin up to the knee is not counted as "from upon," the doubled "me'al" does not apply.

האי איסתוירא - This istvira reaches down to the ground: it has only the upper joint that connects with the shin; below that there is no joint, only the bone of the sole of the foot. For if you think it is cut off below as well, it would be called an istvira.

Rav Ashi said: Even if you say it is cut off, everything beside the heel is like the heel.

Mishnah: "The weight of my hand is upon me^[9]" - one assesses him: how much is he worth with a hand and without a hand. This is stricter in vows than in valuations^[10].

מתני' זה חומר בנדרים מבערכין - Mishnah: "This is stricter in vows than in valuations." For if one said in valuation "my valuation is upon my hand" or "upon my foot," he has said nothing, unless he said it about something on which life depends.

How do we assess him?

Rava said: One assesses him by the assessment of damages^[11].

גמ' אומד של נזקין - Gemara: a damages assessment: as one assesses a man whose fellow cut off his hand, one values him as a slave sold in the market: how fine was he before, and how fine is he now.

Abaye objected: Are they comparable? There, the man is diminished^[12]; here, the man is whole^[13].

התם גברא זילא הוא - There, the man is diminished: his hand was already cut off, and even at the start of the valuation, when they assess how fine he was before, they assess only at a low price, since he is seen as despised.

הכא גברא שביחא הוא - Here, the man is whole: both his hands are intact, and one must assess how fine he is now, so that his worth is consecrated, and how fine he would be if his hands were cut off.

Abaye said: One assesses how much a person would pay for a slave who works with one hand, compared with one who works with both hands.

What is "one hand"? The other point is obvious.

ידו אחת מאי ניהו ואידך פסיקא - That is: why does he work with one hand while the other is cut off? That is a damages assessment.

This is the same thing.

But his hand is registered^[14] to his first master.

ידו מוכתבת לרבו ראשון - That he may not work with it for a second master, since now we assess him as a whole man.

Rava raised a question: If they assessed him by the assessment of damages and he said, "my worth is upon me" - what is the law?

אמדוהו אומד של נזקין - That someone struck him and they assessed how fine he was and how fine he is.

ואמר דמי עלי - And he said "my worth is upon me"; he did not say "my valuation is upon me." One must still ask whether he is assessed or not.

Did they assess him once, or is the assessment of ten^[15] different from the assessment of three?

אומדנא דבי עשרה - Assessment of ten: one who says "my worth is upon me" is assessed by ten, as we learned in the first chapter of Sanhedrin (2b): land is assessed by nine, and a kohen and a man similarly; and a damages assessment by three, as we learned: robbery and injuries are by three.

If you can say that the assessment of ten is different from the assessment of three,

He said "my worth is upon me" and they assessed him; he returned and said "my worth is upon me" - what is the law?

Here, surely, they assessed him with ten, or perhaps the value changed in between?

He said "my worth is upon me" and they did not assess him; he returned and said "my worth is upon me" - what is the law? Here, surely -

Tosafot

ושוקל בשר חמור גידים ועצמות ונותן לתוכה עד שתתמלא - It is difficult for R. Elchanan: since he has already weighed donkey flesh against the weight of his hand, why does he put more donkey flesh into the barrel? It seemed to him that the meaning is: he weighs donkey flesh with sinews, and puts the flesh into the water until the barrel is full, and only afterwards weighs it against his hand. But I found in the name of R. Y. that it specifically says he weighs first and then inserts; inserting first is not meant, because the water is absorbed into the flesh and makes it heavier than a living man's hand can bear, since a living man carries his own limb and a living thing is lighter than a dead one. And it is forced to say that one weighs donkey flesh against the hand when it is cut off, that it then weighs more than when it was attached to the body entirely.

רגלים פרט לבעלי קבין - Rabbenu Elchanan asked: how do we learn from here that "foot" reaches up to the istvira? Perhaps the reason is that he cannot lean on it. And even if you read "foot" as up to the knee, why in Chagigah (3a) is the lame and the blind also excluded, since they cannot walk and lean without a staff? The answer: there in Chagigah there are two derivations from "regalim": one derives that the lame and the blind are excluded because they cannot walk and lean without any aid even though they have feet; and the other derives "regalim, except those with a kav," because such a person has no foot.

חלצה - "Halitzah": if the leg was cut off and some of it remained from the knee downward, her halitzah is valid - this is Rashi's view. But this is not clear, for in Yevamot (103a) it is said that even if she performed halitzah to a man whose leg was reversed, her halitzah is invalid. Therefore one must explain that here it is about the straps of the shoe: if she tied them from the knee downward, it is valid, and she removes the shoe "from upon his foot"; but if she tied them above, her halitzah is invalid, because that is not "from upon his foot."

התם גברא זילא הוא - Rashi explained that his hand was already cut off, and even at the start of his value, when they assess how fine he was before, they assess only at a low price, since he is seen as despised. R. Y. finds this difficult: what is different from a vow? For the Torah said regarding a vow (Exodus 21:30) "and he shall give the ransom of his life," that he must give all his value; so too regarding damages the verse says "to assess all his value." Further, what is the later statement "and the other is obvious"? It means that we value the slave as if he had only one hand and the other was cut off; this is the same as the damages assessment. Rather, R. Y. explains: Abaye said to him: are they comparable? There, the man is diminished, for when his hand is cut off he becomes more repulsive than when he had a hand; therefore one assesses him at the diminished price. But here, regarding a vow, the man is whole, since both hands are intact; so we assess him at less than his worth, as if his hand were registered to another master.

או דילמא שאני אומד דבי עשרה - as taught in the first chapter of Sanhedrin (15a): land, and a kohen and a man like them, because ten kohanim are written in the portion, as Rashi explained. Rabbenu Elchanan asked: why is no more than ten needed? Surely a tied court is a court, and every matter that depends on reasoning requires a decision; and it is also called a court; and a tied court does not add one more; and there is the view that in all courts of money and capital cases a tied court does not add one more (Sanhedrin 2b; see Tosafot Megillah 23b s.v. "asara").

Notes

1. 1. Atzil: the elbow (Rashi).
2. 2. Arkuva: the knee joint.
3. 3. Nedarim: the tractate of vows, where the rule is that one follows ordinary human speech.
4. 4. Tefillin: the verse "your hand" (Exodus 13) is applied to the tefillin worn on the arm.
5. 5. Kevorit: the upper part of the arm, a little above the elbow (Rashi calls it bardon in Old French).
6. 6. Those with a kav: people whose leg was cut off and who wear a wooden shin-piece; they are exempt from the pilgrimage.
7. 7. Halitzah: the rite in which the brother-in-law's shoe is removed (Deuteronomy 25).
8. 8. "From upon his foot": the verse on halitzah; the Gemara takes it to mean what lies on the foot, the shin up to the knee (Rashi).
9. 9. "My worth is upon me": a vow to pay the value of the thing vowed, here a hand, as it is assessed.
10. 10. The Mishnah: a vow of this kind is stricter than a valuation, which obligates only concerning something on which life depends (Rashi).
11. 11. Assessment of damages: the injured man is valued like a slave sold in the market, how much he was worth before and how much he is worth now (Rashi).
12. 12. Diminished man: a person whose hand is already cut off is assessed low, since he appears despised (Rashi).
13. 13. Whole man: a person with both hands intact is assessed at full value (Rashi).
14. 14. Registered: his hand is booked to his first master, so he may not work with it for a second master (Rashi).
15. 15. Assessment of ten (amdnai de-vei asara): an appraisal by ten, as in Sanhedrin for land, a kohen and a man; the assessment of three is the usual one for damages.