Beitzah 4b (ד:) — the Talmud in English

He said to him

Rav Pappa:

If only now,

if I had instructed you yesterday, when I was drunk from wine,

I would have forgotten,

I would have forgotten the halakha and improperly ruled leniently for you,

and told you,

according to the principle:

Rav and Rabbi Yoḥanan—

the halakha follows Rabbi Yoḥanan.

But this principle is not correct in our case.

For

Rava said

below [5b]:

The halakha

follows Rav in these three cases.

That is, in the three halakhot in which Rav disagreed with other amoraim concerning an egg laid on the first day of two consecutive sacred days, including this matter, the consecutive days of Shabbat and a Festival—the halakha in those cases follows Rav,

whether

Rav ruled in them

leniently, or whether

Rav ruled in them

stringently.

The three halakhot will be presented below, at the end of the sugya [at the end of page 5].

And indeed, now that the effect of the wine has passed, I know how to instruct you according to the halakha: With regard to an egg laid on Shabbat, the halakha follows Rav and not Rabbi Yoḥanan, and it is forbidden to eat it on the following day, which is a Festival.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: With regard to wood that fell from a palm tree on Shabbat—

it is forbidden to burn it on the Festival

that immediately follows it.

And do not challenge me

from what I said concerning an

egg

laid on Shabbat, that it is permitted on the following Festival, since with regard to palm-tree wood there is a reason to be more stringent and prohibit it than with regard to an egg.

Rabbi Yoḥanan explains his statement:

What is the reason

that one must be more stringent with palm-tree wood? It is because

with regard to an egg, on the very day

on which it was laid, Shabbat,

it is also fit to be swallowed,

it is fit to be swallowed,

and

nevertheless

we do not permit it

to be eaten

until the following day—

it is known

that a person

that

an egg

of that day

laid on a Festival

is forbidden,

and people will not err if we permit eating on the Festival an egg laid on Shabbat, saying that an egg laid on that very day is likewise permitted.

But

wood, which is not fit for use on its day,

since it has no use at all on Shabbat, as kindling is prohibited on it, is subject to the concern that

if we permit it on the following day

to

burn

it on the Festival that follows Shabbat,

people will come

to err and

say

that

on its own day

it is also permitted,

and is not muktzeh.

And

the fact that they did not use it

yesterday

is no proof for them that it is prohibited to burn it on the day it fell, for they will say:

It is because of Shabbat, when it is not fit,

that it is not fit then

for burning,

but on a Festival it is permitted to burn it even if it fell on that very day.

Rav Mattana said: With regard to wood that fell from a palm tree into the oven

on the Festival,

and it is muktzeh, since it had been attached to the palm tree and no one had intended that it fall on the Festival, and it is prohibited to use muktzeh wood for kindling on the Festival; moreover, the Sages decreed that wood that fell is prohibited lest one climb and detach it—therefore, if one wishes to use it—

He adds prepared wood to them and burns them!

It is permitted to do so because most of the heat generated by the burning comes from the permitted wood, and the use of the muktzeh is nullified by the majority.

And we raise a difficulty concerning Rav Mattana’s statement: What benefit does adding permitted wood provide with regard to using the wood?

But

when he

turns over

the wood in the oven,

it is

the

prohibited

wood, which is muktzeh, that he turns over, thereby moving muktzeh! And we answer:

Since most

of the wood

is permitted!

The kindling wood that is muktze is nullified by the majority, and it follows that

when he turns

the muktze wood, he is turning it

with permitted wood!

And we raise the question: How can he be permitted to increase the quantity of permitted wood?

But he is nullifying a prohibition ab initio!

But

if we had stated:

One may not nullify a prohibition ab initio!

And we answer: The rule that one may not nullify a prohibition ab initio applies

only to

a prohibition

by Torah law; but in the case of a rabbinic prohibition, one may nullify it.

And the prohibition of these pieces of wood is only rabbinic.

But

there is still a difficulty for Rav Ashi, who said:

Any item that has a permitted time, even

in the case of a

rabbinic prohibition, is not nullified—

what can be said?

After all, the prohibited wood will become permitted after the Festival, and yet it is not nullified!

And we answer:

This applies

when an item that has a permitted time is not nullified even in the case of a rabbinic prohibition,

when the prohibition itself is present,

that is, when the prohibited substance remains present even after its nullification, so that nullification permits one to use an existing prohibited item that will become permitted.

But

here,

the use of the heat of the wood for fuel takes place only after

it has been consumed by burning,

when the prohibited

wood

has already burned and become coals, since the normal manner of using fuel is with coals. Therefore, even an item that has a permitted time is nullified. ,

The Gemara now brings another dispute between Rav and an amora concerning an egg laid on the first day of two adjacent sacred days.

It was stated: The two Festival days observed in the Diaspora,

which all the communities in the Diaspora observe as two sacred days for every Festival, because they do not know whether the court in the Land of Israel intercalated the month or not. The messengers who go out to announce the date established as the beginning of the new month cannot reach them from the beginning of the month until the Festival.

Rav said:

An egg that

was laid on this one,

on the first Festival day, is

permitted on this one,

on the second Festival day. For whichever way one considers it, one of the two days is an ordinary weekday. If the first day is sacred, the egg was not prohibited on the following day, which is an ordinary weekday. And if the second day is sacred, the egg was laid on an ordinary weekday and was prepared for the following Festival from while it was still an ordinary weekday.

And Rav Asi said: An egg laid on this one—

is forbidden on this one!

The Gemara discusses this:

Shall we say that Rav Asi holds

that he prohibited it because the two Festival days observed in the Diaspora are

one sanctity,

meaning that the Sages assigned them the status of a single long day by making both of them certainly sacred forever, even when the date of the sanctification of the new month becomes known? Therefore, an egg laid on the first day is forbidden on the second?!

But it is impossible to say this, because:

But Rav Asi

used to

recite havdala

[he would say, “Blessed is He who distinguishes between sacred and ordinary”]

from one Festival day

to the

next

Festival day,

its companion,

the second one!

Since Rav Asi held that nowadays we are knowledgeable about the establishment of the months and know that the second day is an ordinary weekday, and that our practice of observing two festival days is only because we uphold the custom of our ancestors, who were uncertain, Rav Asi therefore recited havdala at the conclusion of the first day. If so, it follows that the Sages did not institute that the two days should certainly possess a single sanctity, for Rav Asi would not have recited havdala in the middle of the extended sanctified day.

And we answer:

Rav Asi was uncertain,

whether the Sages established the two days as a law for those in the Diaspora even when they would know the establishment of the months, or perhaps those in the Diaspora adopted this practice on their own because of uncertainty. In that case, when those in the Diaspora know the establishment of the months, they must recite havdala at the conclusion of the first festival day.

And

therefore Rav Asi, on the one hand,

acted stringently here

and, because of his uncertainty, treated the two days as one extended sanctity and prohibited an egg laid on the first day also on the second.

And

on the other hand, he also acted

here

concerning havdala

stringently,

and recited havdala at the conclusion of the first festival day.

And the amoraim disagreed as to which of the two [Rav and Rav Asi] was correct:

Rabbi Zeira said: It is more reasonable to follow Rav Asi,

for an egg laid on one day is prohibited on the other because the Sages established the two days as a fixed enactment and made them like one extended sanctity.

The proof is:

For nowadays,

for now

we know the

calculation

of the establishment of the month, and

nevertheless

we observe two days.

This implies that it is a fixed enactment and that the two days have a single sanctity.

Abaye said: It is more reasonable to follow Rav

for the two days do not constitute an extended sanctity, since they are observed only because of uncertainty, and one of them is an ordinary weekday while the other is sacred; in either event, the egg is permitted.

The proof is from this:

As we learned: At first

in the beginning

they would light beacons

of fire on the mountaintops on the day the court sanctified the month, in order to inform all the places of the time when the month had been sanctified by the court.

But

when the Cutheans corrupted

matters by lighting beacons on a day when the court had not sanctified the month, in order to mislead the people,

they instituted that messengers should go out

to inform every place when the month had been sanctified. In a place reached by the messengers by the fifteenth of the month, they observed one festival day, in accordance with the sanctification of the month; in places the messengers could not reach before the fifteenth of the month, they observed two festival days because of uncertainty.

And

the words of the Mishna imply that

if they were abolished

and the

Cutheans

and their corruption disappeared from the world,

we would observe

only

one day

by means of lighting the beacons on the mountaintops.

And where they reach

a place reached by the

messengers—

we would observe one day.

This proves that the Sages did not institute that the entire Diaspora should observe two festival days; they observed this practice only because of uncertainty. One day is sacred and one day is an ordinary weekday, and this is in accordance with Rav’s opinion, who permitted the egg on the second day, since in either event it is permitted.

Abaye adds and explains:

And now, when we know the establishment of the month

through calculation of the moladot—

why do we observe two days?

Because they sent from there,

Rabbi Elazar, from Eretz Yisrael, sent an instruction to Babylonia:

Be careful to preserve the custom of your ancestors,

to observe two festival days in the Diaspora even though you are knowledgeable about the calculation of the moladot, because

at times a persecution decree may be issued,

the government may at times issue decrees of persecution prohibiting the study of Torah, and people will forget the calculations of the “secret of intercalation,” yet they will continue to observe only one festival day,

and this will lead to corruption,

so that they may come to eat leavened bread on Passover, because a day will be missing from a full month or a day will be added to a deficient month. Therefore the Sages instructed them to observe two days, on one of which the festival will fall.

It was stated: The two festival days of Rosh Hashana,

which the Sages instituted should be observed everywhere as a matter of certainty and not as a matter of uncertainty, possess one extended sanctity. Therefore:

Rav and Shmuel both said: If it was laid

an egg

on this

on the first festival day of Rosh Hashana, it is

prohibited on this

on the second day.

The proof that these two days were instituted to be observed as one definite sanctity is from what

we learned

in tractate Rosh Hashana [30b]:

We learned:

Initially, they would accept testimony concerning the new moon

of Tishrei

all day

during the thirtieth day of the month of Elul. If the witnesses arrived even toward the end of the day, that day would be sanctified retroactively from its beginning with the sanctity of the Yom Tov of Rosh Hashanah. Therefore, even before the witnesses arrived, they refrained from work from the beginning of the day, lest witnesses arrive and it be sanctified retroactively.

This uncertainty continued until sunset, because they accepted witnesses all day; nevertheless, the two days were not considered a single long day, because the first was holy due to the doubt, and if the second became sanctified, it became clear that the first had been an ordinary weekday.

Once the witnesses were delayed in coming

beyond the time at which they ordinarily arrived: they came after the time of the offering of the afternoon Tamid, whereas every year the witnesses had arrived before that time.