Avodah Zarah 52b (נב:) — the Talmud in English

And the Gemara answers:

the substance of the idolatry itself—

another version:

also

was not his question;

Rabbi Yohanan had no doubt concerning this, as its law was clear to him!

Once its prohibition is nullified

when the gentile nullifies it,

the impurity

that is in them

is also nullified, since the primary source of their impurity is their prohibition from benefit—

What was his question,

what was Rabbi Yohanan uncertain about—

consecrated offerings to idolatry consisting of food.

What

is their law? Were they purified from their impurity through the gentile’s nullification? The aspects of the uncertainty are:

Once its prohibition is not nullified,

even when a gentile nullifies them,

as

in

that

which

Rav Giddel

said in the preceding sugya: A consecrated offering to idolatry cannot be nullified, just as the prohibition against benefiting from a corpse cannot be nullified. Therefore, one may argue that

its impurity is also not nullified,

and since these are foods that cannot be purified in a mikveh, their impurity is not easily removed from them—

Or perhaps

it can be said that

the prohibition against benefit that is

of Torah origin—

is not nullified,

but

the

impurity

that is

rabbinic—

is nullified and departs from them through the gentile’s nullification.

and departs from them through the gentile's renunciation.

Teiku;

the uncertainty remains unresolved.

The Gemara presents another question concerning the law of vessels.

We learned a beraita at the end of tractate Menachot [109b]: At the time of the death of Shimon the Just, who was the High Priest at the beginning of the Second Temple period, he said: “My son Honyo shall serve in my place.” His brother Shimi, who was two and a half years older than he, became jealous of him and did what he did to him, until Honyo fled to Alexandria in Egypt. There he built an altar and offered burnt-offerings upon it.

There, Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda disagreed. Rabbi Meir holds that he built the altar for the sake of idolatry, while Rabbi Yehuda holds that he built it for the sake of Heaven.

Now, according to Rabbi Yehuda, although it was not idolatry, he violated the prohibition against offering sacrifices on private altars.

Rabbi Yosei ben Shaul asked Rabbi: What is the status of vessels that were used in the Temple of Honyo—

what

is the law? Are they permitted

to be used in the Temple?

And the Gemara explains: According to Rabbi Meir, who holds that it was a house of idolatry, it is obvious that its vessels are forbidden for use in the Temple, since they are forbidden even to an ordinary person, by virtue of the law concerning the accessories of idolatry, as we learned above [51b] in the beraita in the statement of Rabbi Yishmael. And if they belong to a Jew, they cannot be nullified.

And

what

was his question? According to whom—

Rabbi Yehuda,

who said: The Temple of Honyo is not a house of idolatry—

as we learned

in an anonymous Mishna, in accordance with Rabbi Yehuda:

Priests who served in the Temple of Honyo—

shall not serve in the

Temple,

the Temple in Jerusalem, because of the penalty imposed upon them by the Sages, since they served there.

And the Mishna continues:

The Mishna states:

And it is not necessary to say

that priests who served

another entity,

i.e., idolatry, are disqualified from serving in the Temple. This is derived from what is written in the book of Ezekiel [44]: “Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and became a stumbling block of iniquity unto the house of Israel; therefore have I lifted up My hand against them, says the Lord God, and they shall bear their iniquity. And they shall not come near unto Me, to serve Me as priests.”

It follows that our Mishna holds that the Temple of Honyo was not a place of idolatry, since it concludes: “And it is not necessary to say, for another entity.”

Now, the priests who served in the Temple of Honyo are forbidden. However, Rabbi Yosei ben Shaul was uncertain concerning the vessels. The reason for the uncertainty is that there is room to distinguish between priests and vessels—

And one may say:

The priests

specifically—

it is they whom the Sages penalized,

they indeed penalized them,

because they are rational beings,

and they knew that it was forbidden to offer sacrifices on private altars, yet they nevertheless served in the Temple of Honyo. Therefore they penalized them—

But the vessels,

with regard to which this reasoning does not apply—

they did not

penalize, and it is permitted to use them in the Temple—

Or perhaps

it can be said:

There is no difference—

there is no distinction between priests and vessels. Just as they forbade the priests, so too they forbade the vessels.

He said to him,

Rabbi said to Rabbi Yosei ben Shaul:

They are forbidden. And we had a verse

that served as proof for us from Scripture,

but we forgot it, as will be explained.

and forgot it, as will be explained.

He challenged him—

Rabbi Yosei ben Shaul responded to Rabbi’s ruling that they were forbidden, from an explicit verse:

It is written in the book of Chronicles II [29]: In the first year of King Hezekiah’s reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the Temple, after it had been neglected during the days of his father Ahaz, who had done evil in the eyes of the Lord, closed the doors of the Entrance Hall, and extinguished the lamps; during his days sacrifices had not been offered.

King Hezekiah appointed priests, and they purified the House of the Lord and removed all the impurity from there. When they had completed purifying the Temple, it is stated there: “They came … to King Hezekiah and said: We have purified the entire House of the Lord … and

all the vessels that King Ahaz discarded during his reign in his treachery—

we have prepared

[we have prepared them]

and consecrated them

[and we have consecrated them], and behold, they are before the altar of the Lord.”

What does “we have prepared them” mean, and how did they consecrate them?

Rabbi Yosei ben Shaul explained:

Is it not

the meaning:

“We have prepared”—

that we immersed them,

we immersed them to remove their impurity from idolatry;

“and consecrated”—

that we consecrated them,

we again anointed them with the anointing oil [new vessels require anointing with the anointing oil].

Now, these vessels certainly were not forbidden with the prohibition of idolatry. For if they had been, no immersion or consecration would help them, as stated above: If they are forbidden even to an ordinary person, all the more so they are forbidden to an ordinary person.

And why indeed were they not forbidden?

Because even if these vessels had been used in the days of Ahaz for idolatry, in the treachery that he had committed—

they are not forbidden, since they belong to the domain of the “consecrated,” and a person cannot render something that is not his own forbidden. By Torah law, they are not forbidden to benefit from, even for an ordinary person.

Nevertheless, it would have been appropriate not to use them for consecrated purposes because of the penalty imposed by the Sages. Even so, the Sages did not penalize them, and they used them [according to Rabbi Yosei ben Shaul], since they are not rational beings—

From here one can prove regarding the vessels of the Temple of Honyo that they too, since they are not forbidden by Torah law [as the Temple of Honyo was not a place of idolatry], were not penalized by the Sages, since they are not rational beings.

But this is difficult for Rabbi’s statement that they are forbidden.

When Rabbi heard this verse, he remembered that it was the verse from which he had derived that they were forbidden, and

he said to him,

to Rabbi Yosei ben Shaul: “

Blessed are you before Heaven, for you have returned my lost object”—

for we had interpreted it: “

‘We have prepared’”—

we hid them,

those vessels;

“and consecrated”—

we consecrated

vessels

in their place. That is, the Sages of that generation indeed forbade them and hid them, and brought other vessels in their place.

And the Gemara discusses the matter: Is it possible to

say that the following Mishna

that the following Mishna

supports him,

Rabbi?

The Mishna in tractate Middot lists all the chambers that were in the Temple courtyard in the Second Temple. In one of the chambers—the Chamber of the Hearth—there were small chambers at its four corners, and there we learned what they were used for:

the northeastern chamber—

there the Hasmoneans hid the stones of the altar that the Greeks had defiled—

And what is the meaning of “they defiled”?

what is the meaning of “that they had defiled”?

Rav Sheshet said: They defiled

them and offered upon it

to idolatry.

Although they were not thereby forbidden to an ordinary person, for the reason stated above—that a person cannot render something that is not his own forbidden—the Sages of the Hasmonean court nevertheless decreed that they not be used for consecrated purposes, despite the fact that the stones are not rational beings.

This Mishna supports Rabbi’s statement that the stones of the Temple of Honyo are forbidden by rabbinic law, even though they are not rational beings.

And we reject this: There is no proof from there, because those stones were forbidden by Torah law even to an ordinary person. And why?

Rav Pappa said: There they found a verse

that they

expounded

to render the altar forbidden—

As it is written

in the book of Ezekiel [20], in his prophecy concerning the destruction of the Temple: The Holy One, blessed be He, said: “And I will turn My face away from them, and they shall profane My hidden place [the place where I had been hidden among them—Rashi],

and violent men shall enter it and profane it.”

And we expound “they profaned it” in the sense of making it profane: When the gentiles entered the Sanctuary, its vessels—including the altar—became profane. Consequently, they became ownerless, and the gentiles acquired them, so they belonged to them. When they used them for idolatry, they became forbidden.

And why did they hide them?

The

Sages of the Hasmonean court

said: What shall we do

now?

Shall we break them,

breaking them through a gentile in order to nullify them? Then we would not be able to use them for the altar of the Lord, because

“whole stones”—

the Torah said

[Deuteronomy 27]—the stones of the altar must be whole, without breakage or even the slightest chip—

And if we break them and afterward

saw them—

smooth out their chips with an iron tool? This too is forbidden, because

“you shall not raise iron upon them,” the Torah said

[there].

And since they are unfit for the altar, they hid them.

The Gemara asks:

But why

did they hide them?

Let them break them

through gentiles, in order to nullify them,

and let them take them for themselves—

then they could take them for their own ordinary use, as stated: They were ownerless and profane, based on the exposition of the verse, “And violent men shall enter it and profane it.”

The Gemara brings proof that this verse is expounded to mean that they became profane and were permitted for ordinary use:

Did Rav Oshaya not say: The Sages of the generation after the destruction of the Second Temple sought to hide all the silver and gold in the world, because of the possibility that they were the silver and gold of Jerusalem, which the Romans had plundered from them when they conquered the city and the Temple courtyards, and that they were consecrated and therefore forbidden to benefit from—

And we raised this difficulty

before the Gemara had completed Rav Oshaya’s statement: Could it be that

Jerusalem constitutes the majority of the world?

Did all the silver and gold in the world come from Jerusalem?!

Rather, Abaye said:

This is what Rav Oshaya said:

They sought to hide Hadrianic and Trajanic dinars,

coins bearing the images of Hadrian and Trajan, Roman kings, as well as

worn

coins, whose images had worn away because of their age and were no longer recognizable,

because of the coinage of Jerusalem—

these coins had been used in Jerusalem during the days of the Temple, and most of the coins in Jerusalem were consecrated, while most of the coins of this type in the world had come from Jerusalem; therefore it was forbidden to use them—

And Rav Oshaya continues:

Until they found for it

[for them]

a verse from the Torah indicating that it was permitted

[that they were permitted]—

as it is stated: “

And violent men shall enter it and profane it”—and we expound: Once they forcibly entered it, they became profane, and their sanctity, the sanctity of Temple maintenance, was removed from them.

It is evident from Rav Oshaya’s statement that this verse is expounded to permit ordinary use, and it is therefore difficult: Why did they hide the stones of the altar?

It is evident from Rav Oshaya's statement that this verse is expounded as permitting ordinary use. Why, then, did they hide the altar stones?

The Gemara answers:

There,

in the case of these coins,

they had not been used for consecrated purposes;

therefore they permitted them for ordinary use. But

here,

in the case of the altar stones,

since they had been used for consecrated purposes,

from time immemorial until the Greeks entered the Sanctuary, therefore

it is not proper conduct—

it is not the proper way

for ordinary people to use them,

for ordinary people to use them.

Therefore they hid them rather than take them for ordinary use.

Mishna:

The Mishna explains the matter of nullifying idolatry.

The nullification of idolatry occurs when a gentile performs an act indicating that he has ceased to worship it and no longer treats it as a deity.

In the preceding sugya [52a], the Gemara derived the law of nullification from expositions of verses.

An idolater

a gentile

nullifies his own idolatry and that of another

gentile, whether he worships that particular idol or worships another idol.

But a Jew cannot nullify the idolatry of an idolater,

since the exposition from which the law of nullification is derived was stated only with regard to gentiles. All the more so, one Jew cannot nullify the idolatry of another Jew, because the idolatry of a Jew can never be nullified and requires eradication, as explained above [there].

A gentile

who nullifies idolatry—

nullifies its accessories.

That is, its accessories are thereby nullified automatically, because they are subordinate to the idolatry. But if he only

nullified

its accessories—

only

the accessories are permitted, while it

itself

remains forbidden.

Gemara:

We learned in our Mishna: A gentile can nullify his own idolatry and that of his fellow.

This implies that only the idolatry of his fellow gentile can a gentile nullify, but he cannot nullify the idolatry of a Jew.

This wording of the Mishna is an amended version that Rabbi established in his old age, whereas the earlier version read: “his own and that of a Jew,” as will be explained.

And the Gemara relates:

He taught him

—he taught

Rabbi L

, his son,

Rabbi Shimon bar Rabbi [

another version:

his son

, his son]:

“A gentile can nullify his own idolatry and that of his fellow.”

He said to him

Rabbi Shimon:

Rabbi!

Behold,

“You taught us in your youth: A gentile can nullify his own idolatry and that of a Jew!”

And now you teach that he cannot nullify that of a Jew.

Before the Gemara clarifies why Rabbi retracted his earlier ruling, it wonders:

“That of a Jew?!”

Did Rabbi really teach in his youth that a gentile can nullify a Jew’s idolatry?

“Who can nullify it?!”

Does it have any possibility of nullification at all?

“And it shall be hidden” is written

[Deuteronomy 27], and we derived from this verse that it has no permission whatsoever; rather, it requires concealment and eradication!

Rabbi Hillel, son of Rabbi Voles, said: It was necessary

for the Mishna to teach this only in a case

where he has

the gentile

a partnership

in the Jew’s idolatry.

In his youth, Rabbi held that the gentile could nullify it since he was a partner in it, but in his old age he retracted this ruling.

And the Gemara discusses:

“What did he hold in his youth,”

what was Rabbi’s reasoning in his youth that he could nullify it,

“and what did he hold in his old age?”

In his youth he held that a Jew

who was a partner with a gentile in idolatry

worships it with the gentile’s intention in mind,

worshipping it on the basis of his gentile partner’s intent. Therefore,

since the gentile nullifies his own portion,

his own portion, therefore

the Jew’s portion is also nullified,

his portion is also nullified, since he worshipped it on the basis of the gentile’s intent.

And in his old age

he retracted and

held that a Jew worships it for his own sake,

worshipping it according to his own intent; therefore

when

the

gentile nullifies

only the portion

of his own,

he can nullify only his own portion, but his portion

belonging to the Jew is not nullified.

Therefore, in his old age Rabbi changed the wording of the Mishna.

There are

some Sages who

teach it

the statement of Rabbi Hillel, son of Rabbi Voles,

with regard to the final clause,

the final clause of our Mishna, in which we learned:

“A Jew cannot nullify the idolatry of a gentile.”

And we raise the question:

“Isn’t it obvious?!”

Could it have occurred to anyone that a Jew can nullify it?! After all, the entire law of nullification was stated only with regard to gentiles?!