Bava Batra 91a (צא.) — the Talmud in English

And Rabbi permits

taking produce from Eretz Yisrael to Syria

from the hyperchia

the last region of Eretz Yisrael, adjacent to Syria,

to the hyperchia

the first region in Syria, closest to Eretz Yisrael, because of their proximity.

The Sages taught: One may not engage in commerce in Eretz Yisrael

one may not trade for profit

in items upon which life depends, such as wine, oil, and fine flour.

Rather, the owners of the wheat, or the owners of the wine and oil, themselves should sell them to the buyers, without the intermediary expenses of the shopkeeper, so that these products should not become more expensive in Eretz Yisrael.

And the beraita continues:

It was said concerning Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya that he would engage in commerce

he would trade and earn a profit

in wine and oil.

And the Gemara explains how he did so:

With regard to wine, he held

Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya

in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda

ben Beteira, who indeed held that it is desirable for the price of wine to be high, so that people would not purchase much of it [as stated above, at the end of the previous page], because this reduces promiscuity. Therefore, Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya permitted himself to profit from the sale of wine.

With regard to oil,

he permitted himself to profit from it because

in the place of Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya, oil was abundant.

Oil was plentiful in his place of residence, and therefore there was no concern that the price of oil would rise.

The Sages taught: One may not profit twice from eggs.

And below the Gemara will explain the meaning of “twice.”

However, one may profit from them once, since eggs are not included among the items upon which life depends, like flour, wine, and oil.

And the Gemara explains:

Rami bar Mari said: They disagree about it,

about the meaning of “twice”;

Rav and Shmuel.

One said

that the prohibition against profiting “twice” from eggs means that the seller may not profit

two for one.

He may not charge twice the price at which he purchased them.

And one said

that the eggs may not be sold twice; that is, two sellers may not profit from them one after the other, so that one may not sell

to a merchant by another merchant,

as this would cause the price of the eggs to rise considerably.

The Sages taught: One sounds an alarm

in prayer

over merchandise

of fine clothing

that has fallen in price.

One prays over it that its price should rise, so that the merchants should not suffer a loss from it.

Even on Shabbat

one sounds an alarm over this loss. There is no concern for the loss of the poor should this merchandise become more expensive, since poor people do not generally purchase it.

Rabbi Yohanan said:

With regard to which merchandise does one sound an alarm?

For example, linen utensils in Babylonia, and wine and oil in Eretz Yisrael.

And he added to this and

Rav Yosef said: And this is so when its price fell and ten stood at the price of six.

The price of the clothing had fallen substantially, until ten garments were priced at what six garments could have been purchased for before the price fell; that is, at almost half the former price.

The Sages taught: One may not leave the Land

of Israel

for outside the Land,

even if the cost of living in Eretz Yisrael is soaring, since by leaving Eretz Yisrael a person removes himself from the fulfillment of the mitzvot dependent on the Land,

unless two se'a

of wheat stood at

the

price of

a sela,

which is an extremely high price, twice the ordinary price.

Rabbi Shimon said: When

is it permitted to leave for outside the Land?

When one cannot find

wheat in the market

to purchase. But when one can find it to purchase,

then

even if a se'a stood at a sela,

which is an even higher price than two se'a at a sela, nevertheless

he may not leave

for outside the Land.

And Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai would likewise say: Elimelech,

Naomi’s husband, and

Mahlon and Chilion,

his sons,

were the great men of the generation, and they were the providers of the generation. And for what reason were they punished,

so that they all died in the land of Moab, and Mahlon and Chilion had no children?

Because they left the Land

of Israel

for outside the Land.

This was despite the fact that they left because of the famine.

As it is stated

in the Book of Ruth, chapter 1, in describing Naomi’s return from the fields of Moab to Bethlehem:

“And the entire city was astir concerning them, and they said: Is this Naomi?”

And the Gemara explains:

What is the meaning of “Is this Naomi?”

Rabbi Yitzhak said: They said, “Have you seen what happened to Naomi, who left the Land for outside the Land? What has become of her?”

She had nothing in her possession.

And Rabbi Yitzhak said: On the very day that Ruth the Moabite came to Eretz Yisrael, Boaz’s wife died,

and he became a widower, so that he could marry Ruth. The verse comes to teach you that the Holy One, blessed be He, brings the remedy before the blow, and that a person should trust in Him for everything that occurs, even something that appears evil to him, is in fact for the good.

And this is the meaning of the popular saying: Before the dead man has died, the manager of the house is already standing.

Before the deceased departs from the world, the one appointed over his household is already standing ready to take his place. Here too, Ruth was standing ready for Boaz even before his wife died.

Rabba bar Rav Huna said that Rav said: Ibzan,

one of the judges described in the Book of Judges, who rose to judge Israel after the death of Jephthah the Gileadite and lived in Bethlehem,

is Boaz!

And the Gemara discusses this:

What does this come to teach us?

What mitzva-related lesson do we derive from the knowledge that Ibzan was Boaz? If there is no lesson to be derived from it, what is the purpose of stating this?

And the Gemara explains: It comes to teach us

another matter,

something else,

that

was

said by Rabba bar Rav Huna,

from which proper conduct may be learned: Even if a man married a woman in his youth and had many sons from her, he should marry another woman, even in his old age [if his first wife died], lest his sons from his first wife not survive.

As Rabba bar Rav Huna said that Rav said: Boaz made one hundred and twenty banquets for his sons

when he married them off.

As it is stated

in the Book of Judges, chapter 12, concerning Ibzan, who was Boaz: “

And he had thirty sons and thirty daughters

of his own;

he sent outside

from his household, meaning that he married them to men.

And he brought thirty daughters from outside for his sons,

whom he took as wives for his sons.

And he judged Israel for seven years.”

And for each one

of the weddings of his thirty sons and thirty daughters

he made two banquets.

One banquet,

one,

for the betrothal, he held

in his father’s house

of the groom,

and

one banquet,

one,

for the marriage,

in his father-in-law’s house

of the groom. Since he made two banquets for each wedding, he made a total of one hundred and twenty banquets for the sixty weddings, as Ibzan, who was Boaz.

Had Rabba bar Huna not said that this Ibzan was Boaz, we would have assumed that they were two different people, and we would not have learned from here that a person should marry a woman after the death of his wife and have sons from her, even if he already has sons from his first wife.

And at all of them,

at all one hundred and twenty banquets,

he did not invite

to them

Manoah

before the birth of his son Samson, because

he said

about Manoah: Since Manoah’s wife is barren and he has no children, he is comparable to

a barren mule

a female mule

that is barren,

and therefore,

“How could he repay me?”

Manoah has no children to marry off and invite me to their wedding feast, and I will be unable to repay him in kind for having attended my son’s wedding. Rabba bar Rav Huna added and said:

And all of them,

all sixty of Boaz’s sons and daughters from his first wife,

died during his lifetime

of Boaz, after his wife died and he married Ruth.

And this is the meaning of the popular saying: In your lifetime,

what benefit did you gain in your lifetime

by giving birth

by having given birth

to sixty and sixty,

sixty sons!? Since in the end they died,

what did you gain?

What benefit did you gain from their birth?

Rather,

take another wife,

return and marry another woman,

and give birth to one,

and have one son from her,

for one who comes from sixty is vigorous,

he will be more successful than your sixty sons from your first wife, who died!

And this is an analogy to Boaz [Ibzan], who had one son, Oved, from Ruth, his second wife, while his sixty sons and daughters from his first wife died. From Oved, the one son, came Jesse, and from him David, king of Israel, who was superior to the sixty sons he had previously.

And these are the

mnemonic signs

for the five statements that Rav Hanan bar Rava said in the name of Rav, as follows:

a. Eli

melech, b. Abraham, c. ten years, d.

who died, e. he was raised alone]

a.

Rav Hanan bar Rava said that Rav said: Elimelech, and Salmon,

the father of Boaz,

and So-and-so,

the redeemer, Elimelech’s brother, who was closer to Elimelech than Boaz was, as Boaz was only his nephew, but he refused to marry Ruth the Moabite and redeem Elimelech’s inheritance ,

and Naomi’s father, all of them

were brothers,

and they were the sons of Nahshon ben Aminadav.

And the Gemara discusses this:

What does this come to teach us?

What mitzva-related lesson do we derive from knowing this?

It teaches us:

Even one who possesses ancestral merit,

such as the ancestral merit of Nahshon [ben Aminadav], who was a prince and a pious man,

it does not stand by him

this merit

when he leaves the Land for outside the Land.

Since the Gemara brought a statement of Rav Hanan bar Rava in the name of Rav, it now brings another statement of his, explaining the name of Abraham our forefather’s mother, since the Torah explicitly gives only the names of the mothers of Isaac and Jacob.

b.

And Rav Hanan bar Rava said that Rav said:

The name of

the mother

his mother

of Abraham

was:

Amtelai bat Karnevo.

And the name of

the mother of Haman

was also:

Amtelai,

but she was

the daughter of Orevati.

And your mnemonic is:

to distinguish between Amtelai bat Karnevo, who was Abraham’s mother, and Amtelai bat Orevati, who was Haman’s mother,

impure—

impure. Pure—

pure.

The beginning of the name “Karnevo” is “kar,” alluding to a lamb, which is a pure animal, and thereby alludes to Amtelai bat Karnevo, Abraham’s mother, since Abraham was pure. The name “Orevati,” by contrast, resembles the word for raven, which is an impure bird, and it alludes to Haman’s mother, Amtelai bat Orevati, since Haman too was impure.

The mother of David was Natzvat bat Adael

was

her name.

Samson’s mother

was called

Tzlelponit.

And his sister

Samson’s sister was called

Nishyan.

What difference does it make

to know Samson’s mother’s name?

For responding to the sectarians,

so that we can answer their questions, since we know her name from what the Prophets transmitted to us orally.

c.

And

another

Rav Hanan bar Rava said that Rav said: Abraham our forefather was imprisoned for ten years

in a prison.

Three

years he was imprisoned

in Kuta, and seven in Kardu,

where Nimrod or his father imprisoned him because of his opposition to idolatry.

And Rav Dimi of Neharde’a taught the reverse:

Abraham was imprisoned for seven years in Kuta and for three years in Kardu.

Rav Hisda said:

The place called

Ivra Ze’ira

a small ford

of Kuta is Ur of the Chaldeans,

where Abraham our forefather was thrown into the fiery furnace and was saved. Therefore, one who passes this place must recite the blessing: “Blessed is He Who performed miracles for our forefathers in this place.”

d.

And Rav Hanan bar Rava said that Rav said: On the day that Abraham our forefather died, all the great men of the nations stood in a line and said: Woe to the world that has lost

its leader! And woe to the ship that has lost its helmsman,

the one who guides the ship.