Arakhin 19b (יט:) — the Talmud in English

One who says

“My width”

is upon me—

what is the law?

Does this mean that the rod’s length should correspond to his width, or that it should be as thick as his width?

One who says

“My sitting”

is upon me—

what is the law?

Does it mean a rod whose measure is his height when seated, or does it mean one whose length corresponds to the width of his seat? [Shita Mekubetzet.]

One who says

“My circumference”

is upon me—

what is the law?

Does he give a thin rod that bends and whose length corresponds to his circumference, or must he give a thick rod whose circumference corresponds to his circumference and whose length corresponds to his height?

All these dilemmas

remain unresolved.

We learned in the Mishna:

“The weight of my hand is upon me, etc.”

The Sages taught:

One who says

“The weight of my hand and the weight of my foot are upon me, Rabbi Yehuda says: He brings a barrel, fills it with water, and inserts

his hand and foot.

For the hand,

he inserts it

up to the elbow

[the elbow], since the part up to there is called the hand.

And for the foot,

up to the knee,

because from there upward it is not called a foot, but a thigh.

And he weighs

donkey meat, sinews, and bones, and places them into it until it is filled. And although there is no proof for the matter

that human flesh and donkey flesh are equal in weight,

there is an indication

of it.

As it is stated: “Their flesh is the flesh of donkeys.”

Rabbi Yosei said to him: How is it possible to determine precisely

the exact measure of

the flesh

of the donkey

corresponding to

the measure of

the flesh

in the hand,

sinews corresponding to sinews, bones corresponding to bones?

Rabbi Yehuda said to him: We estimate

what their measures are.

Rabbi Yosei said to him:

Since in any event we rely on an estimation,

rather than measure the flesh, sinews, and bones, let them measure the hand

to determine how much it weighs. Why did you require weighing it?

And Rabbi Yehuda

holds

that to the extent possible, we do

the measurement precisely, and rely on estimation only with regard to the measure of flesh and bones, where precise measurement is impossible.

We learned:

For the hand, up to the elbow,

the elbow, since the part up to there is called the hand.

And he contrasts it:

The washing of the hands and feet of the priests

in the Temple is up to the joint

where the palm joins the forearm. This indicates that only the palm is called a hand, since the verse states, “And they shall wash their hands and their feet.”

And we answer: In the terminology

of the Torah, “up to the joint”

is the definition, but

with regard to vows,

which depend on the intention of the one who vowed,

we follow ordinary usage,

and people call the part up to the elbow a hand.

And we challenge this:

But

a hand, in the terminology

of the Torah, is it “up to the joint”

?

But concerning phylacteries, it is written, “And you shall bind them as a sign upon”

“your

hand,” and the school of Menashe taught: “‘Your hand’—this is the upper arm,”

which is the place where phylacteries are put.

And we answer:

In the Torah,

up to

the upper arm,

the

entire

arm is called a hand, even above the elbow.

With regard to vows,

we follow ordinary usage,

according to which the part up to the elbow is called a hand.

And the washing of the hands and feet in the Temple,

which reaches only to the joint, is not derived from the meaning of the word “hand”; rather,

it is a halakha transmitted by tradition

that only the palm is subject to this requirement.

We learned:

For the foot, up to the knee

[the knee], for from there onward it is not called a foot, but a thigh.

And he contrasts it:

It is stated in the Mishna with regard to the obligation to appear at the Temple:

“Feet”—

to exclude those with wooden legs,

who are exempt. One whose foot has been amputated and whose lower leg is placed into a wooden prosthesis is considered to have no foot. This indicates that a foot is called a foot only up to the first joint, the ankle.

And we answer: With regard to the language of

Torah law:

until the first joint, it is called a foot, and therefore they exclude

“except for those with prosthetic feet”; with regard to vows, one follows ordinary human language,

and the entire lower leg is called a foot.

And we challenge this:

And according to Torah law, “except for those with prosthetic feet,”

and only the sole is considered a foot?

But with regard to ḥalitza, it is written, “

and she shall remove his shoe from

his foot,” and it was taught in a beraita: If she performed ḥalitza for one whose foot was amputated, leaving a portion

from the knee downward,

the ḥalitza is valid.

Thus, it is considered a foot even above the first joint.

And we answer:

There it is different, as the verse says, “

and she shall remove

it from above his foot,”

and not literally from his foot; and up to the knee, this is considered “above the foot.”

And we challenge this:

If so,

it should not have said “his foot”;

even above the knee

it should be valid, since that too is above the foot.

And we answer:

“Above”

is written, and this refers to the lower leg, which is one joint above the foot,

and not

above the knee, which is already

above “above”

the foot.

Rav Pappa said: Learn from this

from the beraita, which says that if a portion remains from the knee downward, the ḥalitza is valid,

that this ankle joint

(the ankle),

extends down to the ground,

so that below it there is no further joint, and it is all one section.

For if it enters your mind that it is severed

below it, with another joint,

then the ankle joint would be “above”

his foot, since it would already be the second joint from below,

and the lower leg would be “above above,”

since it would be from the second joint upward.

Rav Ashi said: Even if you say

that below the ankle joint

it is severed

at another joint, there is still no difficulty.

Anything that is alongside the leg is considered part of the leg.

The area up to the ankle is considered a foot, since it is level with and directly opposite the sole of the foot. Therefore, the lower leg is called “above his foot.”

Mishna:

One who says,

“The value of my hand is incumbent upon me,”

thereby obligating himself to give to the Temple the value of his hand,

they assess how much he is worth

to be sold as a slave

with the hand, and how much he is worth without the hand.

The difference is the value of his hand, which he undertook to give.

And

this

is

a stringency with regard to vows,

namely, one who obligates himself by saying, “The value of my hand,”

as opposed to valuations,

where he says the term “valuation.” In the case of a valuation of his hand, he is exempt, since a valuation is not dependent on monetary worth, but on the fixed valuation prescribed by the Torah; and we find a prescribed valuation only for a person in his entirety.

Gemara:

And we inquire:

How do we assess him?

Rava said: We assess him with the assessment used for damages.

That is, we assess a person whose fellow amputated his hand. We assess him as a slave sold in the marketplace: how much he was worth before the amputation and how much he is worth now, and the difference is paid. Here too, this is the measure of the vow.

Abaye said to him: Are damages comparable

to a vow?

There,

with regard to damages, since his hand was ultimately amputated, even the assessment of his value before the amputation is lower, since now

he is a degraded person.

But

here

(with regard to the assessment for vows),

he is an unimpaired person.

For he has not actually suffered a loss. And there is a great difference between what he is worth now, when he is whole, and what he would be worth if he were an amputee.

Thus Rashi explained it. But Tosafot were astonished by his explanation and interpreted it in the opposite manner: The assessment for damages is greater, because in addition to the loss of the hand, there is the depreciation caused by the fact that he has been disfigured through the amputation. Here, however, one assesses only the loss of the hand and nothing more.

Rather, Abaye said: We assess how much a person would want to pay for a slave who performs labor with one hand,

and how much

for one who performs labor with both hands.

He shall give the difference between them.

And we explain: The one who performs labor

with one hand,

as Abaye said—

what does this mean?

That is, why is he fit for labor with only one hand? If it is because

the other

hand is

severed

(amputated),

that is the same

as Rava’s assessment for damages, since he is a degraded person.

Rather,

it is because

his

other hand

is assigned to his first master,

and he did not sell it to the second master. Thus he is an unimpaired person. The difference between this person and one sold with both hands is the full value of the hand.

Rava raised a dilemma:

If one’s fellow injured him, and for that purpose

they assessed him with the assessment used for damages,

how much he was worth before the injury and how much he is worth now,

and he

afterward

said, “My value is incumbent upon me”—what is the law? Who knows? Perhaps, since they already assessed him once,

how much he is worth now, we may rely on this assessment also with regard to his obligation through the vow.

Or perhaps: The assessment

for a vow

of

ten

is [the word “koen” appears ten times in the passage, and from this it is learned at the beginning of Sanhedrin that nine judges and a koen are required]

different from the assessment

for damages, for which

three

are sufficient; therefore, the first assessment is ineffective, and they must assess him again before ten.

And he raised another dilemma:

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

there is still a question: If he

said, “My value is incumbent upon me,” and they assessed him, and he then said again, “My value is incumbent upon me”—what is the law?

Do we say:

Here, certainly, since they assessed him

already

by ten,

that same assessment is also sufficient for the second vow?

Or perhaps

a new assessment is required, since perhaps he

increased in value

in the interim

between one assessment and the other.