Berakhot 19a — the Talmud in English

And if it enters your mind that they do not know

that the dead understand nothing at all, but merely feel the pain of their bodies

when he told them

to the forefathers,

what is there?

For they would not understand anything through this .

And the Gemara raises the opposite difficulty:

Rather, what

is your view to say, that Rabbi Yonatan holds

that they know.

If so, the reverse difficulty arises:

why does he need

Moses

to tell them

that the Holy One, blessed is He, fulfilled His promise, when they already know this on their own?

And the Gemara answers: The Holy One, blessed is He, sent him to tell them

in order to strengthen Moses’ merit

for his deeds on behalf of their sons.

Rabbi Isaac said: Anyone who speaks after the dead

in their disparagement after their death is

as though he speaks after a stone .

Some say

that the reason is because

they do not know

that people are speaking about them.

And some say that they know, but

nevertheless

they do not care.

The Gemara raises a difficulty:

Is that so?

How did you say that one who speaks disparagingly of the dead does not cause him distress?!

But Rav Pappa said: One man spoke a matter after Mar Shmuel,

he spoke disparagingly of him after his death,

and a reed fell

from the roof

a large and heavy reed fell from the roof,

and split the treasury of his brain

it crushed the casing in which the brain rests; and it is proven that he caused Shmuel distress through his words, and therefore he was punished.

And the Gemara answers:

A Torah scholar is different—

for the Holy One, blessed is He, demands his honor,

and even if he did not suffer, the one who spoke was punished because of the disgrace of the honor of Torah.

Rabbi Joshua said: Anyone who speaks after the bier

of Torah scholars

in their disparagement

falls into Gehenna

as it is stated [

Psalms 125:5], “The Lord does good to those who are good ...

and those who turn their crookedness”

those who turn the judgment of the good to liability by speaking their disparagement ,

the Lord will lead them with [-

together with]

the workers of iniquity

to Gehenna. And this is not specifically when he quarrels with the righteous during his lifetime and utters an evil report about him. Rather, even if he speaks disparagingly of him after his death, he descends to Gehenna, as it is stated at the end of the verse:

“Peace be upon Israel”—

even when there is peace upon Israel,

and its meaning is that even one who speaks when the righteous rests peacefully upon his bed—

“the Lord will lead them with the workers of iniquity” .

The tanna of the academy of Rabbi Ishmael said: If you saw a Torah scholar who committed a transgression at night, do not reflect upon him during the day

because he is still holding onto his sin, for

perhaps he repented.

And the Gemara raises a difficulty: Is it only

“perhaps

he repented,”

does this enter your mind?

Surely he certainly repented? —

Rather, he certainly repented!

And this applies to matters involving his body, but with money—

until he returns it to its owner

repentance is not effective, and until he returns it, it is possible that he has still not repented .

And Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said: In twenty-four places the court places a ban for the honor of the teacher. And all of them we learned in our Mishna,

in the six orders of the Mishna.

And now the Gemara understood that in twenty-four places we find that the Sages placed people under a ban for the honor of the teacher, because they did not show honor to their teacher.

Rabbi Elazar said to him: Where did we learn this?

He said to him

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi:

When you forget!

Go and find it.

He went out, investigated, and found three

Mishnayot in which placing under a ban for the honor of the teacher is mentioned:

one who treats the washing of hands lightly, one who speaks after the bier of Torah scholars, and one who is presumptuous toward Heaven.

And the Gemara explains:

“One who speaks after the bier of Torah scholars”—

what is it?

For we learned [

Eduyot 5:6]:

He

Akavya ben Mahalalel

would say: They do not give to drink

the sotah-water

either to the convert woman, or to the

slave woman

who was emancipated.

For if her husband warned her, and she secluded herself, they do not give her the sotah water to drink .

And the Sages say:

They do give her to drink.

And they said to him

the Sages: There was indeed

an incident involving “Karkemit” [

that was her name],

an emancipated slave woman in Jerusalem, and Shemaya and Avtalyon gave her to drink.

And

Akavya ben Mahalalel

said to them: Since Shemaya and Avtalyon were

examples,

they gave her to drink

as a complete Israelite! That is to say, they did so not according to the law .

And

because of this

they placed him under a ban

the Sages of Israel of that generation

upon Akavya ben Mahalalel,

because he spoke about Shemaya and Avtalyon after their deaths,

and he died under his ban,

and the court stoned his coffin.

And the Gemara discusses the additional law in which we find placing under a ban for the honor of the teacher:

“One who treats the washing of hands lightly”—

what is it?

And it explains:

For we learned [

in the continuation of that Mishna],

Rabbi Judah said: Heaven forbid that Akavya ben Mahalalel was placed under a ban! For the Temple courtyard was never closed before any person in Israel in wisdom, purity, and fear of sin like Akavya ben Mahalalel.

The gates of the Temple courtyard would be closed when they slaughtered the Passover offering of each group, and when it was filled from side to side they closed them; and among all those present there was no person as great as Akavya ben Mahalalel.

Rather, whom did they place under a ban? Elazar ben Hanokh, who cast doubt

treated lightly

upon the washing of hands.

And this is “placing under a ban for the honor of the teacher,” for they placed him under a ban because he transgressed the word of the Sages, who decreed concerning the washing of hands.

And when he died, the court sent and placed a large stone upon his coffin. This teaches you that anyone who is placed under a ban and dies under his ban, the court stones his coffin.

And the Gemara discusses the additional law in which we find placing under a ban for the honor of the teacher:

“One who is presumptuous toward Heaven”—

what is it?

And it explains:

For we learned [

Ta’anit 19a],

Shemaya ben Shetah sent to Honi the Circle-Maker: You must be placed under a ban

because you troubled the Omnipresent concerning the matter of rain; and when he prayed and too little or too much rain came, he said before the Holy One, blessed is He, repeatedly, “I did not ask for this.”

And were you not Honi

whose name had become renowned for greatness and importance,

I would decree a ban upon you.

But what can I do, for you act familiarly before the Omnipresent, and He fulfills your will, like a son who acts familiarly before his father,

and therefore finds it easy in his heart to sin against his father and trouble him over his desire,

and He fulfills his will. And concerning you the verse says [

Proverbs 23:25]

“Your father and your mother shall rejoice, and she who bore you shall exult.”

And this ban, which he wished to impose upon him for the honor of the Holy One, blessed is He, is considered “placing under a ban for the honor of the teacher.”

And the Gemara raises a difficulty:

And

what,

are there no more

cases in which we find the matter of placing under a ban

for the honor of the teacher? But there is what Rav Yosef taught: Theodosius the Roman instructed the Romans to feed them whole-roasted kids

roasted while whole, with their legs and ankles hanging, and their entrails around them on a spit, and they did so

on the nights of Passover,

as a remembrance of the Passover offering, which is roasted whole, as it is stated concerning it, “with its legs and with its innards.”

Shemaya ben Shetah sent to him: Were you not Theodosius

that is, an important person,

I would decree a ban upon you, for you feed Israel consecrated offerings outside.

And this is “placing under a ban for the honor of the teacher,” for the Sages prohibited the matter because it causes Israel to feed on consecrated offerings outside, since one who sees it thinks that they consecrated them for the sake of the Passover offering, and nevertheless ate them outside . And why did Rabbi Elazar not mention this ban?

And the Gemara answers:

We are speaking of our Mishna,

that he did not find more cases in the Mishnayot in which they placed under a ban for the honor of the teacher.

And

if

that

the ban of Theodosius,

is a beraita.

The Gemara raises a difficulty:

And

what,

is there none in the Mishna!? But there is that which we learned [

Kelim 5:10]:

A clay oven made as a utensil, movable, and whose beginning of formation is from clay. One fires it in a kiln like other pots. And if it becomes impure, the Torah required its demolition.

And if he demolished it in such a manner that he

cut it into rings, and placed

sand between each ring and the next,

cutting it all around into round rings, and then rejoined it with sand mortar between each ring and the next—Rabbi Eliezer declares it permanently pure, since it is no longer like a clay vessel, because it is no longer fired in a kiln.

And the Sages declare it impure, and this is the oven of Akhnai.

And the Gemara clarifies:

What is “Akhnai”?

And it explains:

Rav Judah said in the name of Shmuel: It teaches that they surrounded it—

the Sages surrounded Rabbi Eliezer, who declared it pure—with

laws like this snake

which coils itself in a circle,

and declared it impure

the oven according to the law of a clay vessel.

And it was taught: On that day they brought all the pure things

that had been made in this oven or had touched its air

which Rabbi Eliezer had declared pure, and burned them before him, and in the end they excommunicated him,

they placed Rabbi Eliezer under a ban, because he had argued very extensively in this matter. If so, we find in the Mishna another case of “placing under a ban for the honor of the teacher.”

And the Gemara answers:

Even so—

“a ban”

in the Mishna we did not learn,

because the end of the incident, “that they excommunicated him,” is mentioned only in the beraita.

The Gemara raises a difficulty:

Rather, “in twenty-four places”—

where can you find it?

And it explains:

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi compares one matter with another.

Whenever he saw in the Mishnayot that an individual disputed with the many in a major dispute, or that one of the Sages spoke harshly against someone greater than he, he would say: “Here it would have been appropriate to practice placing under a ban for the honor of the teacher” .

We learned in the Mishna:

Those carrying the bier and their replacements.

The Sages taught: One does not take out the dead

to bury him

close

to the

time of

reciting the Shema

because they thereby prevent the escorts from reciting it .

And if they began

to take him out even after the time for reciting the Shema had arrived,

they do not interrupt.

Even if, because of this, the time for reciting the Shema passes. For the mitzva of burying the dead is a matter of Torah law.

And the Gemara raises a difficulty:

Is that so!? But

when

Rav Yosef died, they took him out close to the time of reciting the Shema?

And the Gemara answers: Rav Yosef was

an important person,

and therefore his law

is different,

for it is not his honor that they engage in any matter, even reciting the Shema, until he is buried with honor .

We learned in the Mishna:

Those before the bier and those after the bier.

The Sages taught: Those engaged in eulogizing

before the burial of the dead ,

when the dead is lying before them,

do not interrupt the eulogy at all, so that all the people may recite the recitation of the Shema in their place; rather,

they withdraw one by one and recite

the recitation of the Shema , and they do not recite it in their place, so that it will not be mocking the poor:

And if

the deceased is not lying before them,

for the deceased is in another house , and they are eulogizing him here, they are permitted to interrupt the eulogy completely, even for the sake of prayer, which is rabbinic. Therefore

they sit and recite, while he

the mourner

sits and remains silent.

For he is an onen and is exempt as long as the deceased has not been buried .

And likewise

they stand and pray, while he

the mourner

stands and acknowledges the justice of the judgment upon himself, and says: Master of the worlds, I have sinned greatly before You, yet You have not exacted from me even one-thousandth. May it be Your will, Lord our God, before You, that You repair our breaches, and the breaches of all Your people, the House of Israel, with mercy.

Abaye said: A person should certainly not say this “

You have not exacted from me,” for it sounds as though he is saying, “Exact more from me”!

For Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said, and likewise it was taught in the name of Rabbi Yosei: A person should never open his mouth to the Adversary.

And Rav Yosef said: What is the verse? As it is stated [

Isaiah 1:9]

“We would have been almost like Sodom.” What did the prophet answer them —

“Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom.”

We learned in the Mishna:

“They buried the deceased and returned”:

And the Gemara infers: It follows that specifically

if they can begin and finish all of it, they may —

then they recite Shema.

But

if they can complete only

recite it!

And we raise a contradiction

from the wording of the beraita:

“They buried the deceased

and returned —

“if they can begin the recitation of Shema and finish even one chapter or one verse.”

And the Gemara answers:

This too is what

the tannai in our Mishna

said: If they can begin and finish even one chapter, or even one verse, before they reach the row, they should begin,

they should begin and recite all of it ,

but if not,

that they cannot complete even one verse —

they should not begin.