We’ve primarily studied the halakhic requirements for naziriteship, both under typical circumstances and in cases when things go awry. But while it hasn’t been the main focus of the rabbinic conversation, along the way we’ve been able to intuit reasons that one might choose the elevated sanctity of naziriteship despite its burdens: A nazirite vow might be an expression of gratitude or remorse, or come from a desire for personal growth. It might be a rash decision made in anger or a desperate attempt to move God to grant a blessing, like a much-wanted child.

These days, few of us are or meet nazirites. It is a Jewish practice that has largely fallen out of use (though not entirely) and can therefore be difficult to relate to. But for many, the appeal of adopting a spiritual discipline is not.

As we close the tractate, the Talmud turns away from halakhic concerns to a final mishnah that answers a very basic question about the Bible: Was Samuel a nazirite? The Tanakh tells us that his mother vowed no razor would touch his head, but it doesn’t actually use the word “nazir” in connection with the great prophet who appointed the first kings of Israel. In the mishnah, Rabbi Nehorai concludes decisively that he was.

Since this mishnah requires no halakhic discussion, the Gemara that follows is free-wheeling. Likely picking up on the final statement of Rabbi Nehorai in the mishnah, the Gemara brings another discussion in which he features strongly, though on the surface it has nothing to do with naziriteship:

Seize and recite a blessing (i.e. the Grace After Meals). And similarly, Rav Huna said to his son, Rabba: Seize and recite a blessing.

Is this to say that one who recites a blessing is preferable? But isn’t it taught that Rabbi Yosei says: The one who answers amen is greater than the one who recites the blessing? And Rabbi Nehorai said to him: By Heavens, it is so. Know that this is true, as the military assistants initiate the war and the mighty follow them and prevail. 

In ancient times, much as they did for Kiddush and Havdalah, the rabbis recited Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals) over a cup of wine. (Some Jews still do this.) Here we learn that Rav Huna taught his son Rabba that when a meal was reaching its conclusion, he should grab the cup on the table and begin offering the Grace After Meals. Why? Because being the one who makes the blessing is preferable to the one who recites amen.

But an earlier teaching of Rabbi Yosei argues against this, stating that it is preferable to be the one who recites amen. And Rabbi Nehorai supports this view by pointing out that the first troops to enter a field of battle merely start the war; it is the more talented troops that follow who ultimately rout the enemy. It’s a jarringly militaristic image, but it does certainly portray the amen as not just ancillary but necessary to the success of the blessing.

In the first pages of this tractate, there was a brief debate about whether a nazir could drink wine in order to fulfill the mitzvot of making Kiddush and Havdalah. The conclusion of the rabbis was that the nazir may not (because making Kiddush is a rabbinic mitzvah and abstaining from wine is a mitzvah from the Torah, and therefore takes precedence). A nazir, therefore, would not be permitted to recite Birkat Hamazon over wine for a group of fellow diners. The nazir must instead be part of the chorus that responds with amen. In some ways elevated, the nazir is also in some ways marginalized.

The Gemara does not offer us a definitive conclusion as to whether it is better to make the blessing or recite amen — the next few lines bring a beraita that argues against Rabbis Yosei and Nehorai, showing preference for the one who hurries to recite the blessing over the one who says amen. 

Similarly, this tractate never gives us a definitive evaluation of the nazir, the one who rushes to make a battery of special commitments to God. Are they preferred to the rest of the community, who simply follow the usual set of commandments? Or are they viewed suspiciously?

Perhaps this question is unanswerable because the community benefits from both: We need those who seize the cup of wine to make the blessing, and those who cannot because they’ve made another vow. And we also need that chorus of amens.

Read all of Nazir 66 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 30th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 66 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

But what happens when a random body is discovered? How do we determine if it is a random grave or part of a larger burial site? A mishnah that concludes on today’s daf provides some guidance:

When one finds a corpse for the first time lying in the usual manner (of Jewish burial), one removes it and its surrounding earth. Two corpses, one removes them and their surrounding earth. Three corpses, if there is a space between this corpse and that corpse of four to eight cubits, this is a graveyard. 

In other words, if one discovers one or two previously unknown corpses, one removes them and their surrounding earth — i.e. that which is contaminated with impurity — and relocates them to an established burial site. But if one finds three or more bodies buried in close proximity, the area is probably a graveyard and is so designated to prevent individuals from contracting impurity from them in the future.

In the latter case, an additional step is required to determine that additional graves are not in the area:

Examine from that spot outward for twenty cubits. If one finds (another corpse) at the end of twenty cubits, one examines from that spot outward twenty cubits.

Hold on a minute: Initially, the mishnah stated that the discovery of bodies within four to eight cubits of each other constituted a cemetery, but now it requires that one check the area up to twenty cubits. If a fourth corpse had been found on its own, it would not not be considered in range of the others. So why change the distance? 

The mishnah explains that the extended range is put in place…

… as there is a basis for anticipating the matter, despite the fact that if one had found the single corpse by itself at first he could have removed it and its surrounding earth.

Meaning, in cases where a cemetery is discovered, we expand our search area because it is possible that others are nearby but further than eight cubits away. Better safe than sorry.

The Hebrew phrase that is translated as “anticipating the matter” is regilim ladavar, implying that it is a common (ragil) thing (davar) for this to happen. If three bodies are buried together, it is not a stretch to assume a fourth is in the area. And in this case, specific rabbinic legislation is created based upon the expected practice — not on a biblical verse or inherited tradition.

We find this phrase not only in our mishnah, but in the one that came before it, which deals with potential impurity from corpses in caves, and the one that comes after, which deals with impurity cases by skin affliction and seminal emissions. (Careful readers might notice that in the Talmud, this mishnah is actually two beyond the mishnah on today’s daf. But in the mishnah itself, these two mishnahs are combined into one.) This is a common practice in the Mishnah, in which individuals mishnahs are grouped together when they share common phrases. While the first two mishnahs in this series both deal with corpse impurity, the third one changes topic — to skin afflictions and seminal emissions, topics that really belong in a different tractate. But it is placed here because it uses the phrase regilim ladavar.

As we approach the completion of the third order of the Talmud — roughly the halfway point in our journey through Daf Yomi — it might be appropriate to say that this phenomenon is among the things that has become regillim ladavar in our Talmud study. In addition to noticing the thematic ties between mishnahs, we’re now accustomed to recognizing literary ones as well. 

Read all of Nazir 65 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 29th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 65 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Today, our daf introduces us to a measurement unit that’s neither imperial nor metric, but can be equally perplexing: the olive-bulk. The rabbis are in the midst of discussing when and whether impure objects pass along that impurity if we’re not sure whether they came sufficiently close to a person or object. Relying on the Tosefta, the rabbis conclude that, as a rule, impure items being dragged or carried impart impurity if there’s uncertainty on proximity, while objects that are thrown don’t. But there are a few exceptions, including this: 

Except for an olive-bulk from a corpse. 

That is to say, if a thrown olive-bulk of corpse (now there’s a phrase I never thought I’d write) sails overhead, its impurity is transferred to anyone standing underneath. In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides breaks this down even further, ruling that an olive-bulk of corpse in the mouth of a raven flying over a group of people renders them impure, but it doesn’t impart impurity to the vessels it flies over. Why the difference? Because the people can answer questions about what exactly happened and where they were standing to help suss the situation out, but vessels can’t. 

This isn’t the only place Jewish law hinges on an olive-bulk. Eating an olive-bulk’s worth of bread imposes a duty to recite the Hamotzi blessing and Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals). At Passover, a person is obligated to eat an olive-bulk of matzah and an olive-bulk of maror (bitter herbs). Not surprisingly, there’s some controversy about this. Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews differ over whether an olive-bulk is a unit of volume or mass. There are differing definitions of how much constitutes an olive-bulk, and there’s an argument to be made that the unit’s size has changed over time. So if you’re trying to answer the most obvious question of all — How much is an olive-bulk? — the answer is going to be rather unsatisfying: It depends who you ask. 

To make matters worse, the olive-bulk isn’t the only food-related unit of measurement in Jewish law. Maimonides repeatedly references eggs and dried figs, while hulled fava beans, lentils, dates, and barley appear in other contexts. Whether we’re talking about corpse bits, bread or bitter herbs, Jewish tradition is a delightful smorgasbord of quantification.

So if you’re American (or Myanmarese or Liberian), using imperial units definitely comes with challenges, and I pity anyone who has to convert teaspoons to tablespoons to gills to pints to quarts to gallons. But surely it pales in comparison to figuring out if an olive-bulk of corpse flew overhead in the mouth of a bird. But if you’re feeling bold and want to be a trailblazer, perhaps you should make a switch: Start invoking the olive-bulk in your daily life (but please, not with corpse bits) and see how that goes!

Read all of Nazir 64 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 28th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 64 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

According to the mishnah, it depends on the nature of the impurity:

If it was a known impurity, he negates it (i.e. he has to start all over again). And if it was ritual impurity from the deep, he does not negate it (and can count his vow as completed).

Corpse impurity can either be impurity from the deep (meaning it is hidden for some time and only later discovered) or known, with serious implications for this poor nazirite. We discussed ritual impurity from the deep back in Tractate Pesachim.. Today, we’re going to find out exactly what it means for an impurity to be known. 

The Gemara cites a beraita, an earlier tradition, which distinguishes between impurity from the deep and known impurity. 

Any corpse of which no one is aware, even at the end of the earth. But if one individual is aware of it, even if that person is at the end of the earth, this is not impurity in the depths.

For an impurity to be considered known, all it takes is a single person who passed through at some point in time and observed it. Even if that person isn’t in town anymore. Even if they did not tell anyone what they saw. This definition leads to an obvious question: How on earth is a nazirite supposed to know — retroactively no less! — whether a recently discovered corpse is a known impurity or an impurity from the deep? 

The beraita gives us context clues: 

Concealed in hay or in pebbles — this is impurity from the deep. In water or in a dark place or in the clefts of the rocks — this is not impurity in the depths.

The beraita says that if a corpse has been buried under loose natural materials, it is considered unknown. But if it was possible that it could be seen by passersby (carrying a torch, maybe, or while hiking), then it is considered known. To be honest, I find this counterintuitive. One might think that if a corpse was buried under natural materials like hay or pebbles, then someone saw that they had died and tried to cover the body, while a corpse just floating in the water has not yet been discovered by anyone — after all, wouldn’t anyone who saw them try to bury them? The beraita just gives these two categories, but doesn’t explain the underlying logic — leaving that task to later readers and commentators. 

The medieval commentator Rashi reasons that anyone properly burying a corpse wouldn’t do it with pebbles and straw, which wouldn’t protect it from the elements and animals. He suggests that hay or pebbles heaped on a body are more likely the result of  a sharp wind or rockfall, which might bury a corpse without anyone seeing or knowing. Maybe this is even how the person died. If a body is completely covered in a way that isn’t obviously done intentionally by humans, perhaps it was a tragic accident. But a body that is even partially visible — like one stranded in the cleft of a rock or floating in water — must be assumed to be known. 

I can’t help but reflect on the implications of this discussion: The rabbis and Rashi lived in a world where dead bodies were not infrequently lurking in unexpected places. And sometimes they were seen but nonetheless left in the water, or in the dark, or between rocks. 

There are certainly times when, for safety’s sake, a body cannot be recovered, but we live in a time when agencies and resources are largely in place to respectfully remove human remains. This was also an ideal for the rabbis, even if they didn’t have the same resources. One might remember that, according to Megillah 3b, the burial of the dead is so great a mitzvah that even the high priest — who is not allowed to contract corpse impurity, even to bury a close relative — is obligated to do it if no one else is around. And more recently, we saw that the mitzvah of met mitzvah, burying an unclaimed corpse, supersedes even the nazirite’s vow not to contract corpse impurity.

Now we see a practical implication of this commitment to honoring the dead — and a reminder: The best way to avoid known impurity being retroactively discovered is to commit to burying the dead and marking their graves whenever possible. 

Read all of Nazir 63 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 27th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 63 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

One can nullify the nazirite vows of his wife but he cannot nullify the nazirite vows of his slave. If he nullified his wife’s vow it is permanently nullified. If he nullified his slave’s vow, when he is emancipated he completes his naziriteship.

A free man cannot actually nullify an enslaved person’s nazirite vow. The enslaved person can be forced to violate their vow, but even if they could not fulfill the vow while enslaved, once they were achieved freedom, the enslaved person’s vow would kick right back in and they would be required, at that point, to complete it.

Today, the Gemara asks: Is this true of all the vows of an enslaved person? Can they be compelled to violate any of them? And do they all become active again once the person is freed?

To test the theory, the rabbis consider two vows that, practically speaking, have a similar consequence: a vow to become a nazirite and a vow not to eat grapes. Both would require the enslaved person to abstain from grapes, but in only one case can an enslaver force them to eat grapes. (And why would an enslaver force someone to eat grapes? Because, in this hypothetical example, not eating grapes would weaken the enslaved person and thereby reduce their ability to work.) The Gemara wants to know: Why can the enslaver force him to eat grapes in only one of these two situations (the nazirite vow)?

Rather, Abaye said: With regard to what is a master required to force (his slave to violate their vow)? Naziriteship. But he is not required to force him in vows and he is not required to force him in oaths.

What is the reason for this? As the verse states (about oaths) “Or if anyone swear clearly with his lips to do evil, or to do good” (Leviticus 5:4). Just as the “good” is a voluntary action, so too the “evil” is voluntary. This excludes a slave, whose oath or vow would cause evil to others, as it is not in his power. 

By “required to force,” Abaye means that if an enslaver needs his enslaved nazirite to eat grapes so that he will not waste away (yes, it is a stretch, but the Gemara frequently concocts such scenarios to test the boundaries of the law); he has to force him. But if an enslaved person has taken some other kind of vow, including a regular vow not to eat grapes, he doesn’t need to force him to violate it because that vow because, by virtue of bringing financial harm to the enslaver by weakening the subject of the vow, it doesn’t actually take effect. So the enslaver just has to tell him to eat the grapes.

And why can’t a slave make a regular vow? Because, as the prooftext here explains, those who are enslaved do not have the full legal capacity to choose what to do and deal with the consequences on their own. And so this teaching insists that they are unable to effectively take vows or oaths. But they can effectively take a nazirite vow, even if they can be coerced into violating it. 

Today we know that slavery is abhorrent. And to be honest, even in the ancient world, many people knew that slavery was immoral. Ancient authors who described the institution of slavery benevolently were largely slave owners, but I am confident that if we were able to ask the people who were enslaved,  they would paint a very different picture. After all, even just in the Roman empire, we have extensive evidence that enslaved people in the Roman Empire who liberated themselves and were forcibly returned to their enslavers could be branded or compelled to wear a slave collar with a tag. The number of enslaved people who tried to liberate themselves nonetheless testifies to the horrors of slavery and what people were often willing to risk to achieve freedom. 

The rabbis are not exceptional in the ancient world when it comes to slavery. And since the rabbis organized their whole world according to halakhah, it makes sense that they would also think halakhically about enslavement. But I wonder if discussions like today’s might also give us a little unexpected insight into the lives of enslaved people. Today’s daf suggests that some enslaved people may have sought to experience the heightened state of purity and connection with God embodied in being a nazirite. And whether or not those vows could be fulfilled during their period of enslavement, they were real, and would take effect when they could. 

Read all of Nazir 62 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 26th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 62 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Non-Jews do not have nazariteship.

The Gemara will inquire about the source of this rule, citing the fact that the chapter of the Book of Numbers outlining the laws of naziriteship opens with the phrase: “Speak to the children of Israel.” (Numbers 6:2). From this, the Gemara concludes that the laws that follow apply to Jews alone.  

The Gemara spends some time evaluating this answer, exploring other biblical passages that are also introduced by this phrase that don’t seem to rule out the inclusion of non-Jews. But the commentators are largely satisfied with this explanation and agree this is reason enough for the laws of naziriteship to apply only to Jews. 

We might now have a source, but we still don’t have a reason. After all, a nazirite vow is voluntary. So there’s nothing to stop a non-Jew from taking on its obligations — stop cutting their hair, refraining from grape products and keeping their distance from the dead. So why not let them make it official?

The Tosafot teach that the laws of naziriteship do not apply to a non-Jew because they would be unable to bring the sacrifices that conclude a period of naziriteship. But non-Jews in fact can bring sacrifices in the Temple — they are specifically allowed to bring free-will and other offerings that result from vows. So if they can’t bring concluding nazirite offerings, that’s a consequence of the rule barring them from naziriteship — not a reason for it. 

Maybe the rationale is similar to that employed by Shammai and Hillel (see Shabbat 31a) when approached by a non-Jew who wanted to be converted so they could serve as the high priest. Although Shammai shoos them away and Hillel invites them in, both deny the request since the high priest is a hereditary role and unavailable to all but members of a particular family. Is naziriteship comparable? Is it an exclusive form of service that only members of a particular family — i.e. the Jewish family — can perform? 

At times, Tractate Nazir does draw parallels between priests and nazirites. So it’s not far-fetched to see naziriteship as a way for Israelites to step closer to God, just as the priests enjoy a special relationship with God on account of their service. But does that mean non-Jews should be prevented from doing the same? Is the naziriteship as exclusive a ritual as eating from the Passover sacrifice (see Exodus 12:43) that no foreigner can take it on?

Or maybe becoming a nazirite is like the spice we learned about back on Shabbat 119a that makes Shabbat food taste so good — but only for those who observe Shabbat. Maybe it’s not that non-Jews are forbidden from becoming nazirites, it’s just that it won’t work for them. The purpose of the nazirite ritual (see Numbers 6:2) is to set oneself apart for God. And maybe non-Jews just don’t have access to the spiritual sauce that makes this possible.

Given that naziriteship ended as a practice with the destruction of the Temple, these questions are moot. Perhaps that is why we don’t have talmudic stories about non-Jews who wanted to be nazirites, or why the later legal literature mostly skips over the opening line of this chapter and focuses more on women, slaves and children, which is what the mishnah deals with next.

On the one hand, the Torah is a Jewish book. And like the Gemara says on today’s daf, it records the Jewish people’s memory of words that were spoken to and for Jews. But the Torah is not exclusive. On many occasions, it explicitly includes “the outsider who lives among you,” making space for non-Jews inside the Jewish community as participants in holiday celebrations (see Deuteronomy 16:14) and citizens protected by civil laws (Leviticus 19:34).

Jews are not in perfect agreement about what Jewish practices are exclusively for Jews and which ones are open to non-Jewish neighbors. But after reading today’s daf, I wondered: If a non-Jew knocked on my door and asked me to help them to become a nazirite, how would I respond?

Read all of Nazir 61 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 25th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 61 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

A pure nazir and a leper, what is the halakhah? May he shave one shaving and it will count for him for this and for that?

Both a nazir at the end of his naziriteship, and a leper at the end of his period of impurity, must shave their heads. But what if the nazir and the leper are the same person? Can such a person shave one time to fulfill both obligations?

He said to them: He may not shave once.

They said to him: Why?

He said: If (the aim of both shavings were the same), this one to grow and that one to grow, or this one to remove and that one to remove, you have spoken well. Now, a nazirite shaves to remove and a leper shaves to grow. 

The leper is in the process of ridding himself of an affliction. He shaves in order to regrow hair that will have to be shaved again after a period of days without leprosy. On the other hand, the nazir shaves only once at the end of his naziriteship to mark having left behind the restrictions he had assumed as a nazir. He is not purging himself of anything, but rejoining society. (Though there is some debate about what it means for a nazir to cut their hair at the end of their naziriteship, for our purposes it suffices to say that the nazir’s purpose in shaving is different from the leper’s.)

Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai’s response implies that if this were not the case, if the shavings were in fact for the same purpose, one could count one act of shaving for both. But because they are for different purposes, one cannot count one shaving for both. 

Rabbi Dov Berish Weidenfield, a Polish rabbi in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, cited the discussion on today’s daf in his book of responsa, Dovev Meisharim, when asked about the permissibility of reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish for more than one person. Must each deceased person have a dedicated person reciting Kaddish on his or her behalf, or can one person say Kaddish for two people? His answer is that one may say Kaddish for more than one person provided the intention is to remember both people. The situation mentioned on our daf, Rabbi Weidenfield argues, serves two different purposes. But reciting Kaddish serves just one purpose: To give credit to the departed souls. 

Rabbi Weidenfield goes on to say that he understands why one may think a person should not recite Kaddish for more than one person at a time, giving each deceased individual his or her due. While the memories of each individual are certainly different and unique, he nevertheless concludes that the purpose of Kaddish itself is the same in each case. 

We know from our own lives that a particular action can have different meanings in different contexts. The question raised here is where we draw the line. Can one action count for different purposes or must we have full intentionality for each action we perform? The answer presented in our Gemara and in the responsa of Rabbi Weidenfield offer us one approach: If the intent is similar enough, one action is sufficient. But where the goals diverge, even if the same action is required to achieve those goals, we must focus on one at a time.

Read all of Nazir 60 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 24th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 60 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

On today’s daf, we find a mishnah that not only adds a new twist to the case that makes it exponentially more improbable, but also a solution that is even more improbable still: What happens if before the two nazirites can act in response to the news that one of them is impure, one of them dies? The solution offered in the previous mishnah is no longer viable because it required that they act in unison on the assumption that one of them was pure and the other impure. But now they can’t do that because only one of them is left. So what does the survivor do? 

Luckily Rabbi Yehoshua has a fix: Find a non-nazirite who will agree to take a nazirite vow parallel to that which the survivor has taken. Then follow these procedures:

The survivor says as follows: If I was impure, you are hereby a nazirite immediately; and if I was pure, you are hereby a nazirite after thirty days. And they both count thirty days and bring an offering of impurity and an offering of purity.

And then the surviving nazir says: If I am the impure one, the offering of impurity is mine and the offering of purity is yours; and if I am the pure one, the offering of purity is mine and the offering of impurity is of uncertain status.

And they count another thirty days and bring an offering of purity, and (the first nazirite) says: If I was impure, the offering of impurity was mine, and the offering of purity yours; and this (offering I am bringing now) is my offering of purity.

And if I was the pure one, the offering of purity (we brought thirty days ago) was mine, and the offering of impurity was of uncertain status, and this is your offering of purity.

If you had trouble following all that, not to worry. Rabbi Yehoshua’s solution is a complex one, taking into account the laws of vows, impurity, sacrifices and naziriteship. The important point is that this complicated maneuver enables the surviving nazir to escape their predicament by offering a series of steps that account for both possibilities: That he might have been the impure nazirite and that he might have been the pure one. However, it has a serious drawback, that Ben Zoma is quick to point out:

And who will listen to him to vow to be a nazirite corresponding to him?

Brilliant thinking, Rabbi Yehoshua, but is there really a person willing to enter into a 60-day nazirite vow under these terms just to help his friend out of a jam? The chances are slim that there is, which makes Rabbi Yehoshua’s convoluted solution not much of a solution at all. 

In the end, Ben Zoma proposes an alternate solution, one in which the nazir in question can bring a series of sacrifices and make a series of statements to get themselves unstuck without requiring anyone else to join in on the fun. But what is most significant here is Ben Zoma’s awareness that no matter how improbable the scenario under discussion, the resolution ought not to be. If it can’t be readily put into practice, it’s just not going to suffice. 

Read all of Nazir 59 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 23rd, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 59 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Rav said: A person may lighten all his body with a razor.

Apparently, the answer is yes. Or is it? The Gemara quotes a beraita, an earlier tradition, which seems to contradict Rav’s opinion: 

One who removes his armpit or pubic (hair) is flogged.

The rabbis impose flogging only on violations of Torah law — so if a man is flogged for manscaping, wouldn’t that mean that it is forbidden? 

If you’re reading the Steinsaltz translation, you may notice that Steinsaltz adds an explanation for the flogging: “A man shall not put on a woman’s garment” (Deuteronomy 22:5), which is traditionally understood to prohibit one sex from cross-dressing and, in some interpretations, doing things that are traditionally associated with the other sex. We’re going to explore that prohibition in some depth tomorrow. But it’s worth noting now that those words are not in the Talmud, so let us work to understand the Talmud’s discussion as it is presented. 

So far in our discussion all we know is that manscaping is punished by flogging. Or is it?

In this situation (flogging) he removed it with a razor, in that situation (Rav’s view) he removed it with scissors.

According to the anonymous voice of the Talmud, the Torah prohibits manscaping with a razor, but Rav permits manscaping only with scissors. But isn’t this a strange reading of Rav’s original statement? Didn’t Rav explicitly say it was OK to lighten the body with a razor? The anonymous voice insists that no, Rav permitted the cutting of body hair not with a razor (God forbid!) but only with something “similar to a razor.”

The ancient world was filled with tools for removing unwanted body hair that were not razors: scissors, waxing, tweezers, pumice stones, threading and various kinds of chemical depilatories. So if a man wanted to remove his body hair with anything but a razor, he would have had a lot of options.

What I take from today’s discussion is that, though the word is new, manscaping is not a new phenomenon. Whether the discomfort is physical (i.e. chafing) or aesthetic, some men have always been uncomfortable with their body hair and sought to modify it. Doing so was not considered necessarily feminine. And as we will learn on tomorrow’s daf, socially, it seems that not manscaping was the exception, not the rule.

Read all of Nazir 58 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 22nd, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 58 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Regarding two nazirites, where one said to them: “I saw one of you become impure, but I do not know which of you it was,” (they must each complete their naziriteship terms), shave their hair, and bring an offering of ritual impurity and an offering of purity. 

In this case, two nazirites are together, and a third person sees one of them become impure (perhaps from walking near a dead body) but can’t tell which of the two it was. This is a problem, because as we have learned previously, if a nazir becomes impure in the midst of their term of naziriteship, they have to shave, undergo purification rituals, bring sacrifices and then start all over. If it’s doubtful which of them it was, then according to the mishnah, both nazirites have to do this. 

Not only does this confusion mean that both must bring sacrifices of ritual impurity (in case they were near a corpse) and purity (in case the other person was), but shaving, too, has consequences. The Gemara asks:

But why are they permitted to shave? Perhaps both of them are not impure, and therefore one of them violates the prohibition against rounding the head.

In Leviticus 19:27, we learn the prohibition against shaving the corners of one’s hair and beard. (This is why some Jewish men wear peyot, the long locks of hair that grow when sideburns are never shaved). Here, we have a significant dilemma: If the person who shaves all their hair off is a nazir who has become impure, doing so is a mitzvah. If the person has not been rendered impure, then shaving is a serious transgression of that same mitzvah. What to do? 

One solution comes from the sage Shmuel, who suggests: 

The mishnah is referring to a woman or a minor boy.  

Neither of these folks would be implicated in a transgression if they shaved mistakenly, since neither grow beards.

The Gemara disagrees, and offers another possibility:

And let Shmuel establish the mishnah as referring to a male who reached majority, and the reason it is permitted is because rounding the entire head, not merely its corners, is not called rounding (as prohibited by the Torah). From the fact that he does not establish the mishnah in this manner, conclude from it that Shmuel maintains that rounding the entire head is called rounding.

The Gemara offers a creative solution to this dilemma that lets the unaffected nazir off the hook for having shaved “just in case.” Since the mishnah refers only to “rounding” and not shaving, this is not the type of hair removal that the Torah is talking about in Leviticus and therefore is not a transgression. 

The Gemara then goes on to talk about a situation in which a minor boy’s peyot are, in fact, shaved — with dire consequences: 

Rav Huna said: An adult who rounds the head of a minor boy is liable to punishment.

Rav Adda bar Ahava said to Rav Huna: And with regard to your sons, who shaves them?

Rav Huna said to him: Hova my wife does it.

Rav Adda bar Ahava exclaimed: Hova will bury her sons!

During the years that Rav Adda bar Ahava was alive, Rav Huna’s children did not survive. 

Here the Gemara brings a story that underscores the importance of following the mitzvah not to round the corners of one’s own hair — or that of their minor sons. Rav Huna disagrees that minors aren’t implicated, and expresses the opinion that although boys are not liable to punishment for transgressing mitzvot until the age of 13, a parent who commits a transgression on their behalf is liable instead. Rav Adda bar Ahava presumably notices that Rav Huna’s sons have the corners of their heads rounded and asks who cuts their hair. When Rav Huna reports that his wife Hova does it, Rav Adda bar Ahava exclaims worriedly that doing so will cause their death. Sure enough, the Gemara tells us, their children did not survive. 

Whether or not this morality tale is true, it’s certainly meant to emphasize the importance of this mitzvah, which brings us right back around to the dilemma brought in the mishnah: What are we to do when a nazir is suspected — but not proven — to have been exposed to impurity? Although we aren’t told here, Maimonides rules (Mishneh Torah, Naziriteship 9:15) that both nazirs bring sacrifices, and neither of them shave.

Read all of Nazir 57 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 21st, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 57 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

On today’s daf, we encounter a mishnah that describes an important consequence of these distinctions. 

Rabbi Eliezer said in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua: Any ritual impurity from a corpse for which a nazirite must shave, one is liable due to (the prohibition of) entering the Temple. And any impurity from a corpse for which a nazirite does not shave, one is not liable due to (the prohibition of) entering the Temple.

According to this mishnah, if a person contracts the kind of ritual impurity for which a nazirite must shave and then enter the Temple, they are liable for having violated the prohibition on entering the Temple in a state of impurity. But if a person contracts the kind of impurity that does not require a nazirite to shave and enters the Temple, they are not liable. OK, good to know. 

One might at this point expect the Gemara to inquire into the biblical source for this rule or challenge the mishnah by bringing examples that suggest that this is not the case. Instead, the Gemara has a question about transmission:

Did Rabbi Eliezer learn this halakhah in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua? But didn’t he learn it in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua bar Memel? 

When the Talmud mentions a Rabbi Yehoshua with no further identifiers, it is talking about Yehoshua ben Hananya, a third-generation tanna who, along with Rabbi Eliezer, was a student of Yochanan ben Zakkai and lived in the generation after the destruction of the Temple. But the Gemara is suggesting that Rabbi Eliezer’s source was not his peer, but a much lesser-known sage, Yehoshua bar Memel, whose only appearance in the Talmud happens to be on today’s daf).

And what makes the Gemara think this? Well, it has a beraita that says so. The beraita recounts a time when Rabbi Eliezer bumps into Rabbi Meir who is discussing our mishnah with (just for fun) a third Rabbi Yehoshua, Yehoshua ben Petter Rosh, who also appears exclusively on today’s daf. 

Rabbi Eliezer said to Rabbi Meir: Are you at all familiar with Rabbi Yehoshua bar Memel?

He said to me: Yes.

I continued: Rabbi Yehoshua bar Memel said this to me in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananya.

According to the beraita, the teaching Rabbi Eliezer states in the mishnah did originate with Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananya, but Rabbi Eliezer did not learn it directly from him. Rather, he learned it from Rabbi Yehoshua bar Memel who learned it from Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananya. 

But now we really have a problem. Although the mishnah cites the original source for the teaching, it does not cite Rabbi Eliezer’s personal source. As a result, the mishnah (or perhaps Rabbi Eliezer himself) appears to be running afoul of an important and oft-quoted rabbinic dictum that one who repeats a teaching in the name of the teacher from whom he didn’t learn it causes God’s presence to depart from Israel. But someone who repeats a teaching in the name of the rabbi who taught it brings redemption to the world. (Tractate Kallah 5:4)

Is it possible that the mishnah has caused God’s presence to depart from Israel? No need to worry. The Gemara has a ready solution:

Learn from this that any halakhah that was stated of three, we say the first and the last. We do not say the middle. 

Early rabbinic teachings were passed down orally from teacher to student, sometimes for many generations. And while the rabbis believed that it was important to give credit to those from whom a tradition was received, they were also aware that as time went on, the record of transmission could become quite lengthy. So when this is the case, it’s fine to mention the original source and the person citing it, leaving out the steps in between. Which is precisely what the mishnah has done — citing Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananya but leaving out Rabbi Yehoshua ben Memel.

Too bad for Rabbi Yehoshua ben Memel. He may have been responsible for the transmission of a large corpus of teachings, just none of his own. As a result, his name was left out of the Talmud. That is, except on today’s daf.

Read all of Nazir 56 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 20th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 56 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

On yesterday’s daf, we encountered a mishnah that taught us that the entire world outside the land of Israel is impure, yet even so a nazir who travels there is considered only temporarily impure and is not required to shave as a consequence. This in turn raised a question: Is it the earth itself that is impure, or is even the air above it impure? The rabbis try to suss this out with reference to a specific situation:

Let us say this is parallel to a dispute between tanna’im, as it is taught: One who enters the land of the nations in a chest, a box, or a cabinet, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi deems him impure. And Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda, deems him pure. 

What, is it (not correct to say that they disagree in this regard): Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi with regard to the air, and Rabbi Yosei holds with regard to the earth? 

This passage lays out two possible positions. On the one hand, we have Rabbi Yosei, who says that a person traveling outside of Israel in some kind of container is pure, indicating that the ground can pass along impurity but not the air above it. On the other hand, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi finds the person ritually impure, implying that air is, in fact, a contaminant.

But the Gemara disagrees with this framing. The question isn’t whether the air carried impurity, but rather whether the container qualifies as a tent. As we know, a person can contract impurity from being in proximity to something impure, which the rabbis refer to as tent impurity. The question therefore is whether the container in which the person travels is considered a tent that would protect them from contracting impurity from the ground. We encountered a version of this very dispute back on Eruvin 30b, with Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Yehuda staking out similar positions. 

This critique leads to a reframing of the question. The rabbis apparently agree that a normal mode of transport like a wagon would result in the nazir becoming impure, and they disagree only on whether an unusual mode of transport, like a box or a cabinet, is effective in protecting against impurity. But in case you don’t like this framing, the Gemara offers a third — and frankly more persuasive — way to understand the disagreement. 

Here they disagree about if he removed his head and the majority of his body into there, (i.e., the foreign land). And it is taught that Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda, says: One who enters the land of the nations in a chest, a box, or a cabinet is pure, unless he actually removes his head or the majority of his body. 

So here we have it: Rabbi Yosei says that sticking your head or most of your body outside the container would render you impure. If you stay entirely inside, you’re good. Rabbi Yehuda apparently assumes that a rider will, at some point, stick their head or the majority of their body out of the container, so he concludes that impurity is inevitable and attaches from the start.  

It took us a little time, but we eventually get to the crux of the issue and understand exactly what was in dispute. And it’s a great reminder that sometimes the issue you’re presented with at first isn’t actually where you need to be putting your attention.

Read all of Nazir 55 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 19th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 55 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Partway through today’s daf, we encounter a new mishnah that lists doubtful or secondary circumstances of contact impurity for which the nazir does not shave their head, even though they are considered temporarily impure for the purposes of naziriteship.

However, the nazirite does not shave for these: Hanging branches (over a corpse) and projecting stones (from fences in a place of uncertain purity) and a place that contained a grave and was plowed (therefore the exact location of the bones is now uncertain, though they are in the vicinity) and the land of the nations (i.e. outside the land of Israel) and the grave cover and the grave walls and a quarter-log of blood (from a corpse) and a tent and a quarter-kav of bones (of a corpse) and vessels that are touching a corpse … and he does not negate the earlier days of his naziriteship and he starts counting immediately (after his purification) and he has no offering.

These are all incidents in which the contact with the corpse was either doubtful or more removed. Under these circumstances, the nazir does need to pause the clock on their vow and purify by sprinkling ashes of the red heifer on days 3 and 7, but they do not need to shave their head or offer the sacrifices that a nazir who had more certain or direct contact with a corpse does. They also do not need to start their vow over again; they can pick up with whatever day they left off.

Of these examples, I find most interesting the case of the eretz amim (literally, the land of the nations), meaning lands outside of Israel, all of which are presumed to be inherently impure with respect to corpse contact because we never know where there might be an unmarked grave.

The Gemara asks an interesting question about how contracting secondary corpse impurity in the eretz amim works:

A dilemma was raised before the sages: Did the sages decree the land of the nations impure with regard to the air? Or perhaps they decreed it impure with regard to the earth?

When a nazir sets foot outside of Israel, do they contract impurity by stepping on the ground (impure with regard to the earth)? Or even by passing through in a carriage which means they never set food on the ground (impure with regard to the air)? On tomorrow’s daf we learn that according to one sage, the nazir contracts ritual impurity even by riding in a carriage and keeping their feet off the ground, though if they enclose themselves completely in a box for the entire journey then they can avoid this impurity. However, this opinion is disputed.  

Tosafot, the medieval scholars descended from Rashi, explain that the talmudic sages made this ruling in an effort to prevent a nazir from leaving the land of Israel to go abroad. From a reading of other talmudic commentators, it appears that the sages presumed lands outside of Israel to be corpse-impure by default; though corpse impurity by mere travel through the open air of eretz amim is a marginal case that doesn’t entail a nazir’s full interruption of nazir status, the Talmud still wants to prevent the nazir from such interruption.

We leave this daf and the nazir’s travels abroad in the diaspora with some intriguing questions: Does the Talmud forbid the nazir to travel out of protectiveness for the nazir’s holiness, a fierce love for the holy land, or both? And what backstory could we imagine lies behind a person so self-secluding out of dedication to God who nonetheless ends up “flying through the air” of another country?

Read all of Nazir 54 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 18th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 54 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Rabbi Eliezer said that some of the early elders would say: A half-kav of bones and a half-log of blood impart ritual impurity in all forms. But a quarter-kav of bones and a quarter-log of blood, they do not impart impurity in all forms. And some (of the early elders) would say that even a quarter-kav of bones and a quarter-log of blood impart impurity in all forms. 

There are two ways of contracting impurity from a corpse: direct contact and so-called “tent” impurity. The latter means occupying the same space as the body without having direct contact. As the name implies, it can mean being in the same tent as the body; it can also mean hovering over the body or being located directly under the body. At issue in this debate is whether a quarter-kav of bones or a quarter-log of blood imparts corpse impurity in all forms — through both direct contact and in a tent — or only through direct contact. Unfortunately, there was no clear majority ruling since the elders were split and the debate was not settled in their generation. So how would later courts rule?

The court that followed them said: A half-kav of bones and a half-log of blood impart ritual impurity in all forms. A quarter-kav of bones and a quarter-log of blood impart impurity only with regard to terumah and offerings, but not with regard to a nazirite. And similarly, one who performs the ritual of the paschal offering.

Left without an answer as to whether a quarter-kav of bones and a quarter-log of blood imparts impurity in a tent, a later court split the difference, declaring that these volumes of corpse material impart impurity in a tent to a designated offering (invalidating it for the altar) but not to a nazir or a person poised to perform the paschal offering (which must be done in a state of purity). This means that the nazir who finds themselves accidentally in a tent with a quarter-log of blood or a quarter-kav of bones does not need to shave, purify and restart their vow.

Is this a reasonable compromise? Perhaps, but the Gemara is opposed to later generations imposing such a ruling on earlier generations:

Now consider, the decision of the third opinion is not considered a decision. 

This is a principle repeated a few times in the Talmud (see also Pesachim 21a, Bava Kamma 116a, and Chullin 137b). What it means is not entirely clear. One interpretation is that the rabbis do not like later courts inventing a compromise between two unresolved opinions based on factors not raised by those earlier sources. Neither Rabbi Eliezer nor any of the sages of an earlier generation hinted that the nazir might be special when it comes to contracting corpse impurity from a quarter-kav of bones or a quarter-log of blood. Therefore, it is inappropriate for a later court to invent this compromise on their behalf. Another understanding is that it refers to the opinion of sages in the third generation down from the original dispute. But either way, the Gemara would rather a court of a later generation decide to follow someone’s opinion than invent a compromise position that is not grounded in the original sources and that aligns with neither. 

So where does that leave the later court? With two opinions and no clear guidance about the quarter-kav of bones or the quarter-log of blood. Luckily, the Gemara manages to rescue the compromise position:

Rabbi Ya’akov bar Idi said: This ruling was not stated as a compromise. Rather, they said it from tradition, from Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. 

Rabbi Ya’akov bar Idi positions this ruling not as a novel compromise, but an ancient decision, tendered by none other than the last of the prophets. It may not be halakhah from Moses at Sinai, but this gives it more than enough authority in its own right.

Read all of Nazir 53 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 17th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 53 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Rabbi Yehuda says Rabbi Akiva deems six items impure that the rabbis deem pure, and Rabbi Akiva retracted his opinion. 

And an incident occurred in which they brought a box full of bones to the synagogue of blacksmiths, and they placed it in an open airspace. And Todos the doctor entered and all the other doctors with him, and they said: There is not a full spine from one corpse here.

The juxtaposition of Rabbi Yehuda’s teaching about Rabbi Akiva changing his mind and the story of the box of bones implies that this story illustrates one of the six things that Rabbi Aviva initially deemed pure. At issue here is whether a spine’s worth of bones from two or more corpses are impure or not. This is apparent from the text itself, but we learn from from a more complete version of this story that appears in the Tosefta (Ohalot 4:2), which continues as follows:

They said: There are those who declare these to be impure and there are those who declare these to be pure. Whose opinion should we uphold? They began with Rabbi Akiva, who declared them to be pure. They said: Since you were the one who declared these to be impure and you just purified them, they must be pure. 

Having heard from Todos and his team of forensic experts that the box contains material from more than one corpse, and aware that there are two opinions about the status of such a collection of bones, the blacksmiths are uncertain about how to handle them. So they go and ask Rabbi Akiva who, as the beraita indicates, reverses his original opinion. Given that he was the one who first declared the contents of the box to be impure, the blacksmiths are happy to follow his updated ruling. With the bones now declared pure, the blacksmiths no longer need to be concerned that they would cause them to become impure and they can dispose of them accordingly.

Or can they? 

Rabbi Shimon says: Until the day he died, Rabbi Akiba declared a spine that comes from more than one corpse to be impure. And if he changed his opinion after he died, I can’t comment on that.

Unlike the beraita on our daf, Rabbi Shimon does not include this incident on the list of things Rabbi Akiva changed his opinion about. So which is it?

The Tosefta records two versions of how this dispute is resolved, an anonymous one and one in the name of Rabbi Shimon, which suggests that early on there were already multiple traditions about what occurred. The Gemara today cites a text that is similar, but not identical, to the Tosefta and is truncated. Is that because it assumes we know the full story or that it was working from a variant tradition that did not contain all of the details in the Tosefta?

Answering these questions can be difficult. Much is lost in the fog of time. Just as the blacksmiths needed an expert to help identify if the bones in the box came from one source or two, we would need our own scholars to help us sort out how many versions of the story we are dealing with. Given the limited number of appearances of this anecdote in the talmudic record, there is probably not enough evidence to rule one way or the other in this case. But one benefit of the digital age in which we live, it has never been easier to find parallel sources that shed light on one another. 

Read all of Nazir 52 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 16th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 52 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

On today’ daf, that context is corpse impurity. We have already learned that to transmit corpse impurity, there must be a minimum of a ladleful of dead human matter from a single corpse. If the ladleful of dead matter is a mixture of material from different corpses, it does not transmit corpse impurity, which prompts the following question:

Rabbi Yirmeya raised a dilemma: Does a fetus in its mother’s womb (combine) into a mixture or not? 

If a pregnant woman dies, does her fetus count as part of her body (and therefore help make up the minimum measure of dead matter that causes corpse impurity)? Or does the fetus count as a separate body (and therefore the dead matter is a mixture)? What are the two sides of the argument?

Since the Master said a fetus is the thigh of its mother, it is therefore her body and it does not form a mixture with it. Or perhaps since it will ultimately emerge, it is separated from her. 

One could reason that since the fetus is currently inside the woman’s body, perhaps it is considered a part of it for the purposes of calculating dead matter. On the other hand, in a normal situation the fetus is meant to leave the woman’s body. Perhaps then it is already considered separate from her and thus can combine into a mixture.

The rabbis next explore whether other things found inside a dead woman — like semen, spit or food — count as separate for the purposes of calculating a mixture. Ultimately, the discussion concludes that all of these count as separate from the dead woman’s body. That means that it is actually pretty hard to find a ladleful of corpse dust that is from a single corpse, halakhically-defined. 

Here’s where it can be helpful to remember that the rabbis didn’t live in the modern world. Sometimes that is obvious to us as we read, but at other times, we can forget in our very real search for answers and inspiration. 

Many of us may be reading this text (and others like it) trying to understand what the rabbis think about abortion. But the rabbis of Sasanian Babylonia aren’t talking about abortion. They are very specifically trying to determine the likelihood that a ladleful of dead matter can transmit corpse impurity. If the fetus is a separate being that would form a mixture with the body of its mother, that would preclude a ladleful of this mixture from transmitting impurity — which, for those who are trying to avoid corpse impurity, would make it a lot easier to move through the world. But if the fetus is a part of its mother’s body, then this ladleful would not be a mixture and would transmit corpse impurity — meaning the living would have to be especially careful around it. 

What does this mean for rabbinic attitudes towards abortion? Apparently, absolutely nothing. And interestingly, even the most popular medieval commentators, who often drew analogies to tangentially related talmudic texts to answer the questions of their day, did not connect the discussion on today’s daf to abortion. Sometimes a discussion about corpse impurity is just a discussion about corpse impurity.  

Read all of Nazir 51 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 15th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 51 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

A nazir shaves for the following items that impart impurity: a dead body, an olive’s bulk of a dead body, an olive’s bulk of fluid from a dead body, a full ladle of dust from a dead body, the spine of a dead body, the skull of a dead body, the limb of a dead body, a limb severed from a living person (provided there is a fitting quantity of flesh on it), a half-kav of bones from a dead body, and a half-log of blood from a dead body.

This mishnah, and even more so the discussion of it on today’s daf, is graphic and reflects an intimate awareness of the ways in which a dead body decomposes. The rabbis’ intimate knowledge of what happens to a body after death reminds us of the reality of their era. Whereas today most people die privately in a care facility, in their day death was a more public phenomenon (and there was no refrigeration).

Because the mishnah talks about “an olive’s bulk of fluid from a dead body,” the Gemara’s discussion today centers on congealed fluids and liquified fats that come from a corpse — tissues that began in a liquid state and solidified, or the reverse — in an attempt to determine when these items transmit impurity and when they do not. The graphic conversation leads (thankfully) to a more general one about the unique nature of liquids and how they transmit impurity. We’ll jump now to that discussion.

One of the ways that impurity can be transmitted is by direct contact, under the right conditions, between a pure object and an impure object. In other words, impurity can be contagious between objects. But when liquid is involved, the notion of “coming into contact with” is not completely straightforward. For example, if you are pouring a liquid from a pure vessel into an impure vessel, the liquid that is transferred becomes impure because its new container is impure. But does the stream of liquid transfer the impurity backward, to the pure vessel above?

One could argue that the impure vessel transmits impurity to all the liquid and the liquid transmits the impurity to the vessel from which it was being poured, making the whole system impure as a result. Or, one could argue that the liquid is not impure until it comes into contact with the lower vessel, and therefore there is no transfer to the pure vessel. This is actually the correct answer, according to a mishnah (Makhshirin 5:9) quoted on today’s daf:

Anything that is poured remains ritually pure.

In other words, impurity does not travel backward so if you stop pouring mid-stream, both the liquid that is left in the vessel and the vessel itself remain pure. But of course there are exceptions:

This is the case for all liquids except for zifim honey (a very thick type of honey) and batter. Beit Shammai say: Even the stream of a stew made of crushed and broken beans or of whole beans also connects two items because it returns backward.

Thick liquids — zifim honey, pancake batter, thick bean stews — unlike “regular” liquids, do make a connection that allows impurity to transfer backwards. Perhaps this is because, in the rabbis’ understanding of the world, their viscosity makes them more like a solid than a liquid. Or, as Beit Shammai suggest, because as the pouring comes to an end, some of what has already been poured returns back to its points of origin (and brings the impurity back with it).

It’s quite a journey, on today’s daf, to go from flux to food. What stands out from the page is the sheer earthiness and physicality of these discussions, as well as the commitment of the rabbis to explore details of halakhah by venturing into a close examination of the physicality of their world, whether nauseating or nourishing. I’m grateful, at least, that this discussion landed not on congealed fluids from a corpse, but on honey and bean stew.

Read all of Nazir 50 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 13th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 50 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

When the fifth-generation tanna Rabbi Meir died, 

Rabbi Yehuda said to his students: Do not let the students of Rabbi Meir enter here because they are vexatious and they do not come to study Torah, but they come to overwhelm me with their halakhot. 

Rabbi Yehuda tries to exclude Rabbi Meir’s students from joining his own students. His reasoning? They are difficult; they don’t actually want to learn from and with Rabbi Yehuda but instead want to overwhelm him with their own knowledge. Is he right? 

Sumakhos forced his way in and entered. He said to them: Rabbi Meir taught me like this: A nazirite shaves for these sources of ritual impurity: For a corpse and for an olive-bulk from a corpse. Rabbi Yehuda grew angry. 

Why does Rabbi Yehuda get mad at Sumakhos? Is it because he’s forcing himself into the room against Rabbi Yehuda’s wishes? Is it because Sumakhos’s comment is a non-sequitur (the text of the Talmud doesn’t tell us what Rabbi Yehuda had been teaching when Sumakhos made his comment)? Or is it because he is contradicting a position held by Rabbi Yehuda? 

Rabbi Yehuda explains that it is none of those things. Instead, it’s that Sumakhos’ teaching is redundant. 

He said: Didn’t I say to you like this: Do not let the students of Rabbi Meir enter here because they are vexatious? He must shave for impurity imparted by an olive-bulk from a corpse, is it not all the more so for a corpse? 

According to Rabbi Yehuda’s reading, if an olive’s volume of corpse material makes one impure, then obviously a whole corpse will make someone impure. Rabbi Yehuda assumes, or knows based on prior experience, that Rabbi Meir’s student is being vexatious for the sake of it. He thus dismisses Sumakhos’ comment as nonsensical. 

But it turns out that Rabbi Yosei was also in the room. Where Sumakhos is a generation younger than Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Yosei was their peer, and so could function as a teacher too. 

Rabbi Yosei said: Now they will say: Meir is dead, Yehuda is angry, and Yosei remained silent. If so, what will become of the Torah? Rabbi Yosei therefore said: It is not necessary, but for a corpse upon which there is not an olive-bulk of flesh. 

Rabbi Yosei explains that the position Sumakhos transmits from Rabbi Meir is actually not redundant. Instead, Rabbi Meir is teaching two separate things: that an olive’s volume of human flesh causes corpse impurity and that a skeleton with no flesh on it transmits corpse impurity too. 

I go back and forth about who to sympathize with here. Sumakhos, who so desperately wants to study Torah that he forces himself into Rabbi Yehuda’s circle? Yet, he did impose himself where he was not welcome. Or perhaps I should sympathize with Rabbi Yehuda, faced with a new student who was trained in a very different culture of learning? Yet if Rabbi Yehuda had not been so on edge about Sumakhos from the start, he might have understood the nuance in his position.

Ultimately, I sympathize most with Rabbi Yosei, who sees this conflict and understands that he needs to get off the sidelines and contribute; he chooses a path that not only makes sense of the teaching. The intervention is necessary because otherwise, in Rabbi Yosei’s own words, what will become of Torah? Those who like to sit back and listen must learn to speak in order to perpetuate the study of Torah — in all its complexity — to the next generation.

Read all of Nazir 49 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 13th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 49 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

A high priest and a nazirite may not become ritually impure for their relatives. However, they become impure for a met mitzvah.

As we now know, the high priest and the nazir are both forbidden to contract corpse impurity. The rabbis make an exception for both in the case of an exposed corpse that has not been claimed by someone else for burial. In that case, the mitzvah of respectfully burying the body overrides the prohibition against contracting impurity from the corpse.

On today’s daf, the rabbis explain how this law is derived, starting with the case of the high priest, about whom the Torah states:

He shall not go in where there is any dead body; he shall not defile himself for his father or mother. (Leviticus 21:11)

For the rabbis, the redundancy in this phrasing is instructive. Though the first clause has already stated the general prohibition of corpse contact, the second clause’s mention of dead kin is not superfluous — it comes to teach us that the prohibition for the high priest excludes the met mitzvah, whom they are not only permitted but indeed commanded to bury.

Having demonstrated that the met mitzvah exemption for the high priest is rooted in the Torah’s words, the Talmud now sets out to derive the exemption for the nazir from scripture as well. Here is the verse about the nazir:

Throughout the term that he has set himself apart for God, he shall not go in where there is a dead person. If his father or mother or his brother or sister should die, he must not become defiled for any of them… (Numbers 6:6–7)

The Gemara now cites a beraita that makes a similar argument to the one we saw for the high priest:

Rabbi Yishmael says: It states, “He shall not come near,” indicating that the verse is speaking only of bodies that render people and items ritually impure through going in (i.e. corpses); “his father or mother” teaches that a nazirite may not become impure (for family), but he may become impure for a met mitzvah.

Like the high priest, Rabbi Yishmael teaches, the nazir’s corpse prohibition extends to his family, but not to contact with a met mitzvah.

This might have been the end of the discussion. But today’s daf then devotes a great deal of attention to presenting and disproving that the met mitzvah impurity exemption for the nazir can be derived from the logic of kal va-homer, inferential reasoning from a lesser to a greater case. No less than four times, the argument from logic is rejected in favor of a series of interpretations of Numbers 6:6–7 that finely parse each seemingly superfluous phrase in the verses. Each reading makes clear that the nazir may become ritually impure for the sake of burying the met mitzvah.

Along the way, we also learn that everyone, the nazir and high priest included, must even forego the obligations of brit milah for their sons and offering the paschal lamb in order to attend to the met mitzvah. This is true despite the fact that failure to fulfill either of these commandments would, under any other circumstance, incur the penalty of karet, spiritual excision.

Why is burying the met mitzvah such an extraordinary exception to the very serious prohibition against contracting corpse impurity placed on the nazir and the high priest? Care of a met mitzvah is a hesed shel emet, the truest act of kindness and one which can never be repaid. The obligation to care for a met mitzvah is so important it is derived from God’s words in the Torah, not from mere human reasoning. Even, and especially, the high priest and the nazir must remove themselves from their highest states of elite ritual holiness to fulfill it. They too must do the work of gritty, pedestrian holiness involved in caring for those who have no one else to care for them.

Read all of Nazir 48 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 11th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 48 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Rabbi Eliezer says: It negates them all. 

And the rabbis say: Let him bring the rest of his offerings and be purified. 

According to Rabbi Eliezer, the impurity annuls whatever sacrifices have already been offered. The nazirite must therefore start over and bring all the sacrifices to complete their vow. The rabbis, however, hold that the first sacrifice officially ended the nazirite period, so rather than offer it again, the nazirite just has to bring the ones remaining. The rabbis then offer a legal precedent for their position: 

An incident occurred involving Miriam of Tarmod, that the blood of one of her offerings was sprinkled on her behalf, and they came and told her that her daughter was mortally ill. And she went and found that she was dead. And the rabbis said: Let her bring the rest of her offerings and be purified.

This is a heartbreaking story about a woman completing her nazirite vow only to hear that her child is dying. Rushing to her bedside, the woman is too late to say goodbye. In the face of this tragedy, the rabbis permit her to bring only those offerings that she had not yet offered without starting the sacrificial process all over again. 

The Gemara insists that the dispute in this mishnah is only about whether this nazirite has to restart their sacrifices, not about whether they need to count their nazirite days anew. But in this one instance, we see both a legal ruling on exactly when the nazirite period ends (with the sprinkling of the blood of the first concluding sacrifice) and an implicit empathy for the plight of someone who becomes ritually impure halfway through offering their sacrifices.

I think this story also tells us something else. Miriam of Tarmod was a nazirite. Tarmod is another name for the city the rabbis usually call Tadmor, known in English as Palmyra. Today, Palmyra is a UNESCO World Heritage site in Syria, but thousands of years ago, it was a culturally diverse oasis city which was home to Aramaeans, Arabs and Jews, among other groups. And at least one of those Jews, Miriam, took a nazirite vow that she saw through to the end. 

It is striking to me that we’ve now read two talmudic stories about women nazirites who lived outside the land of Israel. Back on Nazir 19, we learned about Queen Helene, a convert who took her vow in Adiabene. Here, we’re introduced to Miriam, not a convert, who takes hers in Palmyra. Was there something about living in the diaspora that made people crave a deeper connection to God? Was there something about living far from the Jewish center that made people crave a connection to Jerusalem? And was there something about being a woman that compounded these spiritual needs? The text doesn’t tell us. 

But in taking these vows, these women remind us that you don’t have to live in Jerusalem or in the land of Israel, be born to Jewish parents, or be a man, to seek a heightened relationship with God and a deeper relationship to Judaism.

Read all of Nazir 47 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 11th, 2023. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Nazir 47 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.