2,711 pages of Talmud. A gem a day.

Today’s gem just has me thinking about how much we learn about our parents’ finances after they die.

Rava said: If their father died and left them a borrowed cow, they may use it for the entire duration of the period for which it was borrowed. The right to use a borrowed article continues even after the borrower himself dies. However, if the cow died, they are not liable to pay for its unavoidable accident, as they did not borrow the animal themselves. Similarly, if they thought the cow was their father’s and they slaughtered it and ate it, they pay only a reduced assessment of the price of the meat. They are required to pay only for the benefit they received, not the damage they caused the owner. However, if their father left them property as a guarantee for return of the borrowed item, i.e., there was a lien on the father’s property during his lifetime, they are obligated to pay the entire sum of the damage.

On the daf, we see the orphaned children can use their father’s borrowed cow after their father dies. If it dies, they are not responsible, as they didn’t borrow it themselves. If they slaughter it, not knowing it was borrowed, they are only responsible for paying back the value of the meat, not the 4-5x usually required. Rava teaches that if the father had a lien on the land for the borrowed cow, the orphans must pay back the full value of the cow.

My mom died this year, and it’s amazing how much you learn when someone dies about their finances. We were finding accounts from the 80s that were opened and forgotten about… We learned of benefits in her name that no one would inherit…

I see this a lot with my congregants. A woman finds out her father has been secretly supporting her brother financially. A house, thought to be owned, is late on mortgage payments.

But mostly it’s all about the stuff. So much stuff. We all have so much stuff. Who gets it? Who wants it? And we fight over things. And so much is considered junk.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the orphans on the daf slaughtered the cow to split the meat – how else do you split a cow? Only to now be stuck with the bills. And oh do bills come in.

So, the daf reminds us about what we still need to learn, about financial transparency and telling our children what we owe, what we want them to have, to give, to share, to get rid of – before we die and they have to figure it out on their own.

Today’s daf asks the age-old question: If I hire a hitman to kill someone, who is guilty for the murder? . . . Only it really asks: if I hire someone to slaughter an animal on Shabbat that I stole, what is my punishment? Do I pay the fine for the theft? Or am I killed for desecrating Shabbat?

Rava said that the Merciful One states: “If a man steal an ox or a sheep and slaughter it or sell it” (Exodus 21:37). Based on the juxtaposition of slaughter and sale, Rava continues: Just as sale is performed by means of another, as there is no sale without a buyer, so too, one is liable to be punished for slaughter by means of another. Although there is no agent for transgression, here there is a Torah decree that one is liable by means of another.

So, Rava seems to be saying that he would get punished for violating Shabbat (death, a bigger punishment than paying the fine for the theft). But if he is not ruled responsible for violating Shabbat, then he would still need to pay the fine. Which becomes an issue.

The Sages of the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught a different source for the halakha that one is liable for slaughter by means of an agent. It is written: “And slaughter it or sell it”; the term “or” comes to include an agent. The Sages of the school of Rabbi Ḥizkiyya taught a different proof from the same verse: “He shall pay…for an ox…for a sheep”; the term “for” comes to include an agent.

Mar Zutra strongly objects to this halakha. Is there any matter with regard to which if one performs it himself, he is not liable, and yet if his agent performs it he is liable? Had he slaughtered the animal himself on Shabbat he would have been exempt from payment. How, then, is he liable if he does so by means of an agent? The Gemara answers: He is exempt not due to the fact that he is not liable for the slaughter; rather, he is exempt due to the fact that he receives the greater of the two punishments, the death penalty, for his desecration of Shabbat. He is liable for both the slaughter and the desecration of Shabbat. In practice, he receives the more severe punishment. However, when he appoints an agent, there is no liability for the desecration of Shabbat, and therefore he must pay for the slaughter.

The Gemara returns to Rabbi Yoḥanan’s explanation of the baraita. If the baraita is referring to the case of one who slaughtered by means of another, what is the rationale for the opinion of the Rabbis, who exempt him from payment? As the thief did not perform a transgression for which he is liable to receive the death penalty, why is he exempt from payment for slaughtering the animal?

Okay, let’s pull back so we can get a picture of what’s happening. In the baraita at the end of last week’s daf the rabbis ruled that the thief who steals an animal and then slaughters it on Shabbat is exempt from the fine that he would normally pay because he receives the bigger punishment of death. Today, the daf says that the case actually referred to a situation where someone else had slaughtered the animal on Shabbat for him. This helps explain why Rabbi Meir says that the thief is liable for the financial penalty as the thief did not transgress Shabbat. The problem is that we now do not understand why the sages ruled him to be exempt from the fine (when he is no longer going to receive the death penalty/harsher punishment).
The answer is on the top of tomorrow’s daf which teaches that this baraita follows Rabibi Shimon who riles that a slaughtering that does not render the animal fit to be eaten does not count as slaughtering. So, since he killed the animal on Shabbat and rendered the meat forbidden, it doesn’t count as slaughtering it on Shabbat. So, he has to pay the financial penalty instead of getting the death penalty.

I don’t think that the point is that we should definitely hire hitmen as we shouldn’t murder and there are rules against causing others to sin . . . but I guess if you hired a guy to kill an animal and they went ahead and did it on Shabbat instead of Friday morning, it might be more just for you to pay the fine for the loss of the animal instead of being killed.

Today’s daf asks an age-old question: How do we determine a punishment that is suitable to the crime? We all know the passage from Deuteronomy 19:21, “a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot . . .” Commentators have pointed out how revolutionary this would have been for the time as punishments often far outstripped the crime. (ex. Does a hungry child who steals some fruit at the market really deserve to have a hand cut off?) This Torah law, also found in the code of Hammurabi, made sure that the punishment did not go farther than the crime. But the rabbis of the Mishna and then Talmud did not believe this meant a literal eye for an eye – they believed it to be an appropriate monetary compensation.

Today’s gem is both seeing for they turn this passage into one about financial compensation, and how, when it comes to money – we can be precise in making sure hte punishment is equivalent to the crime:

If witnesses said: We testify that so-and-so owes another two hundred dinar, and these witnesses were discovered to be conspiring witnesses; they are flogged and pay, as the source [shem] that brings them to liability to receive lashes does not brings them to liability for payment. Each liability has an independent source; the source for lashes is: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” while the source for payment is: “You shall do unto him as he conspired” (Deuteronomy 19:19). This is the statement of Rabbi Meir. And the Rabbis say: Anyone who pays is not flogged.

While the rabbis are debating whether these liars are flogged or not, they all agree that they have to pay the money they were trying to extort with their false testimony.

Now to the physical injury being compensated by money . . .

And with regard to that mishna, the Gemara asks: Let us say, on the contrary, that anyone who is flogged does not pay. Rabbi Ile’a said: The Torah explicitly amplified the case of conspiring witnesses for payment, not lashes. The Gemara asks: Where did the Torah amplify the case of conspiring witnesses? The Gemara explains: Now, since it states with regard to conspiring witnesses: “And you shall do unto him as he conspired to do unto his brother” (Deuteronomy 19:19); why do I require the Torah to state in his punishment: “A hand for a hand” (Deuteronomy 19:21)? This indicates that the punishment that takes precedence is one in which there is an item that is given from hand to hand, and what is that item? It is money.

Love this! Hand for hand certainly conjures the image of money changing hands. Here, we see that the Torah explicitly states that plotting witnesses are punished with the punishment they tried to dole out. It then says “hand for a hand.” The rabbis interpret this to mean that he pays the value of a hand, not that his hand is cut off. Therefore, we know that plotting witnesses have to pay. And we get the second play of the image of money going from hand to hand. The same logic is now applied to one who injures another.

The same can be said with regard to one who injures another. Now, since it states: “And a man who places a blemish upon his counterpart, as he has done so shall be done to him” (Leviticus 24:19), why do I require the Torah to state: “As one who places a blemish upon a man, so shall be placed [yinnaten] upon him” (Leviticus 24:20)? This teaches that this is referring to an item that involves giving [netina], and what is that item? It is money.

This passage made me smile. First, I love the image of someone trying to give false testimony to make someone else lose money, having to pay that amount as penance. I love the way the rabbis interpret personal injury to be one that is compensated with money instead of retributive injury. But more that anything, I love the question that the passage begs – what is the appropriate punishment for the crime? Does the punishment outstrip the crime? How can we make society a better place? How will people learn their lesson and become more productive members of society? How can we reinterpret the law to create more justice and more compassion?

Today’s daf takes us on a tangent that questions what we do when someone breaks two laws in the same crime? Do they get punished for both or just the worse of the two (or more) violations? Fro example, if I am speeding and I hit someone with my car – do i get charged with vehicular manslaughter and get a speeding ticket?

Our rabbis discuss dragging a purse one is steeling across the ground on shabbat (which is theft and a shabbat violation), shooting an arrow across the marketplace on shabbat and it tearing a silk item.

The rabbis conclude that the perpetrator is only charged for the worst of the crimes (so, no speeding ticket). This all makes sense until we pull back and remember that this is a tangent that the rabbis are on while discussing a Mishna about rape. When it comes to rape, it’s very important to list each and every violation and hold the rapist accountable for every crime committed. Perhaps if rapists were consistently found guilty and punished for their crimes it wouldn’t be so important for prosecutors to try and get them on anything and everything.

For some depressing and important work, check out RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.

Today, the daf seems to tell us that man is responsible for climate change, that the death penalty should no longer be executed by mankind and that, even if we think we can “get away with it” that we will get what’s coming to us one way or another. (I love it.)

The Gemara asks: And are cold and heat at the hand of Heaven? Isn’t it taught in a baraita: All matters are at the hand of Heaven except for cold and heat, as it is stated: “Cold and heat are on the path of the crooked, he who guards his soul shall keep far from them” (Proverbs 22:5)? This indicates that cold and heat are forms of harm caused by man, from which one can protect himself.

Okay, I know reading this as a climate change text where we are guilty for the extreme heat and cold is bit of a stretch, but I am doing it anyway! So often things we call “acts of God” are acts of weather that have become extreme in intensity and frequency because of the damage we have done to this planet.

And furthermore, are a lion and thieves forms of harm at the hands of man? But didn’t Rav Yosef say, and similarly, didn’t Rabbi Ḥiyya teach a baraita: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, although the Sanhedrin was abolished the four death penalties were not abolished? The Gemara asks: Were they not abolished? It is clear that they were abolished, as today there is neither Sanhedrin nor capital punishment.

No capital punishment! There is no capital punishment in Israel today with an exception for those who have been convicted of mass genocide.

Rather, it means that although there are no court-imposed executions, the punishment of the four death penalties was not abolished. How so? One who was liable to be executed by stoning either falls from the roof or a beast tramples him. And one who was liable to be executed by burning either falls into a conflagration or a snake bites him, which creates a burning sensation. And one who was liable to be executed by decapitation is either handed over to the ruling monarchy for execution by sword, or bandits attack and kill him. And one who was liable to be executed by strangulation either drowns in a river, or dies of diphtheria [serunki]. Rather, reverse the order of the previous statement: A lion and thieves are cases of harm at the hand of Heaven, while cold and heat are cases of harm at the hands of man.

So, just because there is no death penalty, doesn’t mean that a person won’t get the punishment they deserve (just by means of heaven instead of it being inflicted purposefully by the court).

So, climate change is man-made, abolish the death penalty, and karma – all in a few lines on today’s daf! Gotta make you smile (and watch your actions).

So . . . today’s daf introduces another chapter of Ketubot and – it’s all about rape. Reading Talmud is not always easy. The rabbis really discuss cases in a detached manor that feels so heartless at times. That’s why my gem is one rabbi screaming at another one to stop being so harsh with his rulings and making offspring into mamzerim. (I too would love to scream at some of these guys.)

The Gemara asks: And according to Rabbi Yeshevav, who said: Come, let us scream at Akiva ben Yosef, who is proliferating mamzerim, as he would say: With regard to anyone who does not have the possibility of permitted relations in the Jewish people, including a widow with a High Priest, the offspring is a mamzer. . .

The creation of mamzerim is a tremendous halakhic problem, dooming children to restrictions when they have done nothing wrong. Why legislate halakhah such that even more are created? Rabbi Yeshevav wants to scream at Rabbi Akiba to knock it off. Their lives are hard enough already!

Me too brother.

My grandfather did not go to my uncles wedding as he married a non-Jewish woman. I always thought that was terrible. Well, today‘a gem combines judgy parenting with street protest. What do you get your child when you don’t approve of the marriage? Apparently a barrel full of fruit. 

What is the meaning of ketzatza? It is as the Sages taught: How is ketzatza performed? If a situation where one of the brothers who married a woman who is unsuited for him, due to flawed lineage, occurs, the family members come and bring with them a barrel full of fruits, and break it in the middle of a public square to publicize the matter, and they say: Our brothers, the house of Israel, listen. Our brother so-and-so married a woman who is unsuited for him, and we fear lest his descendants become intermingled with our descendants. In order to further underscore the matter, they continue: Come and take for yourselves a sample as an indicator for future generations, so that his descendants will not intermingle with our descendants. The gathering of the large crowd to take the fruit generates publicity.

Talk about airing out your laundry in public! While I laughed at this, I can only imagine how shattering it must have felt for the family members. Both the giver and the receiver of the fruit barrel. I guess my grandpa could have been more cruel than he was … 

Today’s daf gives us a romantic moment amidst a very disturbing discussion. Yesterday, the Talmud discussed the common occurrence of prison rapes and when we must just assume a woman has been raped by her captor. Today, that discussion extends to soldiers who invade in a time of war and when to, again, assume the worst. While we have been learning about how the priest has an elevated status in the community, the rule that a woman cannot return to her husband after being rapes only applies to the priest. One has to wonder about these (presumed) victims and their priestly husbands; how does the re-victimization affect them?

Today, we get a glimpse in what I find to be a highly loving scene:

MISHNA: Rabbi Zekharya ben HaKatzav said: I swear by this abode of the Divine Presence that my wife’s hand did not move from my hand from the time that the gentiles entered Jerusalem until they left, and I know for a fact that she was not defiled. The Sages said to him: A person cannot testify about himself. The legal status of one’s wife is like his own status in this regard. Therefore, your testimony is not accepted, and your wife is forbidden to you.

GEMARA: The tanna taught in the Tosefta: And even so, despite the fact that the Sages ruled his wife forbidden to him because he was a priest, he did not divorce her. He designated a house in his courtyard for her, but did not enter into seclusion with her, and when she would go out of the courtyard she would go out before her sons so that she would not be alone in the courtyard with her husband, and when she would enter the house, she would enter after her sons, for the same reason.

It’s bitter and sweet. They did not want to part, despite the law, and figured out a way to be together that never violated the law.

Rabbi Zekharya ben HaKatzav swore that his wife never left his sight. The rabbis cannot accept his testimony because he loved his wife and would lie in order to stay married to her. So, what does he do? He builds her her own house on his property and they make sure to always have others present when they are together.

Rabbi Zekharya ben HaKatzav only appears in this spot in the Talmud. That’s it. This is his legacy. It’s one of love, or compassion, of prioritizing relationship.

While, elsewhere, we read or rabbis staying away from home so long their own family members don’t recognize them, their wives throw themselves from the rooftops, and we read of those who do not marry as they are so bound up in Torah study – here we finally get an example of balance. Rabbi Zekharya ben HaKatzav loves his wife. He is unwilling to separate from her. Nor is he willing to leave his faith.

Rabbi Zekharya ben HaKatzav, may your name be remembered as a blessing.

The Talmud really does touch on so many of today’s troubling issues. Today it’s the epidemic of prison rape.

MISHNA: In the case of a woman who was imprisoned by gentiles due to a monetary offense committed by her husband, once she is released after he pays his debt, she is permitted to her husband. However, if a woman was imprisoned due to a capital offense and sentenced to death, once she is released or escapes she is forbidden to her husband due to the concern that perhaps her captors violated her, and/or she acquiesced to one of them.

The Mishnah is expressing the fear that, a woman who is imprisoned by non-Jewish authorities may have been raped or had sexual relations with one of them. The mishnah argues that, if she was taken in order to collect money from her husband, then we can assume the captors did not violate her because they would fear that if they rape her they would not get the money they are asking for. So, the Mishnah rules that she is not forbidden to her husband, even if he is a priest.
However, if they took her and intended to execute her, and then she somehow escapes or is let free, she is prohibited to her husband. Rashi comments that we might worry that, in order to endear herself to her captors, she willingly had sex with one of them. Tis would prohibit a woman from returning to her husband no matter his status (Priest, Levite, Israelite). Others explain the entire Mishnah to only referring to a wife of a priest and so the concern is only that of rape and not that she tried to seduce her captors.

Twenty-eight female detainees at Clark County jail in Jeffersonville, Indiana have alleged in two separate federal lawsuits that they were raped or assaulted last year by male detainees who paid a jail officer for access to keys to their cells. According to the New York Times, “The lawsuit filed this week alleges that Mr. Lowe gave two male detainees access to keys to restricted parts of the jail, including a section called Pod 4 that housed women, in exchange for $1,000. The two men and other male detainees used the keys to enter Pod 4 and “raped, assaulted, harassed, threatened and intimidated” the plaintiffs and other women “for several hours, resulting in significant physical and emotional injuries,” the lawsuit says.”

However, in the United States, the overwhelming majority of prison rape cases involve men who are raped by other men. It is so well known that jokes are often made about “dropping the soap,” but it’s no joking matter.

A 2021 BBC news report showed eyewitness accounts of rape of Uyghur women in Chineses internment camps. Women have publicly made accusations of systemic sexual abuse, including rape, after being at the Xinjiang internment camps. United Nations allege that rape has been used by interrogators in Iran for decades. Human Rights Watch says that in Turkey this kind of abuse has been going on for decades. Kurdish prisoners have also been specifically targeted for rape and other forms of sexual violence. There are many cases throughout the middle east and beyond.

This is clearly a worldwide problem and the laws need to change to protect the incarcerated from sexual victimization.

Our Gemara worries about a wife being able to return to her husband – but it calls to our attention the problem of rape being so prevalent that it can be assumed. The daf reminds us that we need to work towards a world where prison rape never happens. A world where people can be rehabilitated instead of further abused.

Today’s daf continues the conversation of how we can recognize if someone is a priest. The Gemara brings a baraita:

Come and hear: The presumptive status for priesthood is established by Lifting of the Hands for the Priestly Benediction, and by distribution of teruma at the threshing floors, and by testimony. The Gemara asks: Does testimony merely establish presumptive status?

The issue here is that testimony PROVES the status of a person as a priest, so, the question is – why is it only presumptive status?

We read below that the person is not testifying that they are a priest, but that they saw them get the first alliyah! (An honor the rabbis gave to the priests to show them kavod. Levites will get the second alliyah if both a priest and levite are present.)

As in the incident involving a certain man who came before Rabbi Ami and said to him: That man established presumptive status before me that he is a priest. Rabbi Ami said to him: What did you see that led you to that conclusion? He said to Rabbi Ami: I saw that he was called to the Torah and read first in the synagogue. Rabbi Ami asked him: Did he read first based on the presumptive status that he is a priest, or was it based on the presumptive status that he is a great man? The custom was that a priest would be called to the Torah first, unless there was a prominent Torah scholar among the worshippers. He said to Rabbi Ami: He read the Torah as a priest, as after him a Levite read the Torah. A Levite is called to the Torah second only when a priest is called first. And Rabbi Ami elevated him to the priesthood, on the basis of his statement.

The Gemara relates an incident involving a certain man who came before Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi and said to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi: That man established the presumptive status before me that he is a Levite. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to him: What did you see that led you to that conclusion? He said to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi: I saw that he was called to the Torah and that he read second in the synagogue. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi asked him: Did he read second based on the presumptive status that he is a Levite, or was it based on the presumptive status that he is a great man? When there is no priest in the synagogue, people in the synagogue are called to the Torah in order of their prominence. Perhaps he was the second most prominent man in the synagogue. He said to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi: I am certain that he is a Levite, as a priest read the Torah before him. And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi elevated him to Levite status, based on his statement.

So, we see that one can testify to someone’s status if they saw them be honored with the first or second alliyah in synagogue. Now, enter the drama! (A little Reish Lakish v. Yohanan tet-a-tet.)

The Gemara relates another incident involving a certain man who came before Reish Lakish and said to Reish Lakish: That man established the presumptive status before me that he is a priest. Reish Lakish said to him: What did you see that led you to that conclusion? He said to Reish Lakish: I saw that he was called to the Torah and read first in the synagogue. Reish Lakish, based on his opinion that one’s presumptive status as a priest can be established only on the basis of his receiving teruma, said to him: Did you see that he received a share of teruma at the threshing floor? Rabbi Elazar said to Reish Lakish: And if there is no threshing floor there, does the priesthood cease to exist? T

Reish Lakish wants more evidence than the alliyah. Eliezer argues that the testimony that he read from the Torah first is sufficient.

On another occasion Rabbi Elazar and Reish Lakish sat before Rabbi Yoḥanan. A matter similar to that incident, where one testified that another is a priest based on his reading the Torah first, came before Rabbi Yoḥanan. Reish Lakish said to the person who testified: Did you see that he received a share of teruma at the threshing floor? Rabbi Yoḥanan said to Reish Lakish: And if there is no threshing floor there, does the priesthood cease to exist? The Gemara relates that Reish Lakish turned and looked at Rabbi Elazar harshly, as he understood that on the previous occasion, Rabbi Elazar was citing verbatim a ruling that he heard from Rabbi Yoḥanan. Reish Lakish said to Rabbi Elazar: You heard a statement of bar Nappaḥa, the son of a blacksmith, an epithet for Rabbi Yoḥanan, and you did not say it to us in his name? Had you done so, I would have accepted it from you then.

LOVE!!! Eliezer got called out for not quoting his teacher! He made an argument not quoting his source and then later got caught.

So, today we have two gems to draw from the page – that when the Temple fell, the honors that used to be accorded to the priest and levite are now seen in a traditional service by who gets the first and second alliyah. And, my favorite, quote your sources and give credit where credit is due.