Chagigah 16b (טז:) — the Talmud in English

The first ones

mentioned in our Mishna from among all the pairs—Yosef ben Yo'ezer, Yehoshua ben Perahya, Yehuda ben Tabbai, Shemaya, and Hillel—

were Nesi'im.

And the two who followed them

the second members of each pair: Yosef ben Yohanan, Nittai the Arbelite, Shimon ben Shetah, Avtalion, Menachem, and Shammai—were

heads of the court.

Gemara:

The Sages taught: The three

scholars

of

the three

first pairs, who said that one should not lay hands

Yosef ben Yo'ezer, Yehoshua ben Perahya, and Yehuda ben Tabbai,

and two of the later pairs, who said that one should lay hands

Shemaya and Hillel,

were Nesi'im. And the two who followed them

those who disagreed with them—were

heads of the court; this is the statement of Rabbi Meir.

It follows, according to Rabbi Meir, that among the pair of scholars Yehuda ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetah, Yehuda ben Tabbai was the Nasi, and Shimon ben Shetah was the head of the court. For Yehuda ben Tabbai was one of the three first pairs, and he said that one should not lay hands—and this is also the opinion of the tanna of our Mishna.

And the Sages say

that this is not so, but rather:

Yehuda ben Tabbai was the head of the court, and Shimon ben Shetah was the Nasi.

And we raised a difficulty concerning this:

Who is the tanna

who taught this—Rabbi Meir or the Sages—

of that which the Sages taught:

Yehuda ben Tabbai said: I shall see consolation

as though he had said: “I shall not see consolation”; and the Gemara transformed it into a blessing, Rashi, Tractate Makkot,

if I did not kill a conspiring witness

a single witness

conspiring

who testified, together with another witness, falsely against a person, and they plotted to have him killed, and the court sentenced that person to death, but had not yet killed him; then witnesses came and refuted one of the witnesses, but no witnesses were found to refute his colleague.

For the Torah said: “You shall do to him as he schemed to do to his brother.”

And therefore I killed him, although he was only a “conspiring” witness and the accused had not yet been killed, in order

to remove the error from the minds of the Sadducees, who would say: Conspiring witnesses are not killed until the accused has been killed.

in order to refute the position of the Sadducees, who would say: “Conspiring witnesses are not executed until the defendant has been executed.” But according to our view, a conspiring witness is executed only before the defendant has been executed; once the defendant has been executed, the witness is not liable to the death penalty.

But according to our view, on the contrary, a conspiring witness is killed only before the accused has been killed; once he has been killed, the witness is not liable to death.

Shimon ben Shetah said

to Yehuda ben Tabbai:

I shall see

I

consolation, if you did not shed innocent blood!

Tosafot wrote that one cannot say: “Now, if the Holy One, blessed be He, does not bring about a mishap through the animals of the righteous [as we find with the donkey of Pinhas ben Ya'ir, which refused to eat produce from which tithes had not been taken], certainly He does not do so through the righteous themselves,” because they said this only with regard to eating, since it is disgraceful for a righteous person to eat forbidden food. The Sefat Emet wrote that, had it not been for their words, one could have said that killing a person is not considered a mishap, since it is possible that the witness was liable to death, and the Holy One, blessed be He, caused him to come into the hands of Yehuda ben Tabbai; see there.

For the Sages said: Conspiring witnesses are not killed until both of them have been refuted.

In that incident, only that one witness was refuted: witnesses testified concerning him, “You were with us elsewhere,” while they knew nothing about the second witness.

Immediately, Yehuda ben Tabbai accepted upon himself that he would issue a halakhic ruling only in the presence of Shimon ben Shetah.

So that, if he erred in his ruling, Shimon ben Shetah would teach him.

Throughout all the days of Yehuda ben Tabbai, he would prostrate himself upon the grave of that

witness

who had been killed, and his voice

Yehuda ben Tabbai’s voice when he cried

could be heard.

The people thought

that

the people

when they heard his voice at night, or during the day when they did not see him, Rashi, Makkot

were saying: It is the voice of the murdered man.

He said to them

Yehuda ben Tabbai:

It is my voice!

And

you will know

that this is so,

for

indeed

tomorrow he will be

he referred to himself in the third person

dead, and

again

his voice will not be heard; therefore, it is my voice.

his voice will not be heard; therefore, it is my voice.

Rabbi Aha, son of Rava, said

puzzledly

to Rav Ashi:

What proof is this that it was the voice of Yehuda ben Tabbai, based on the fact that the voice was no longer heard after Yehuda ben Tabbai died,

and

indeed:

Perhaps Yehuda ben Tabbai appeased him

the witness when he ascended to Heaven.

Or

perhaps

he brought a claim against him in judgment

the witness brought Yehuda ben Tabbai before the heavenly court, and he no longer cries here.

And

whose is this

beraita, from which it appears that at first Yehuda ben Tabbai issued a halakhic ruling in the presence of Shimon ben Shetah, until he accepted upon himself not to do so—was it according to Rabbi Meir or according to the Sages?

Granted, if you say it is Rabbi Meir

who is the tanna,

who says: Shimon ben Shetah was the head of the court

and

Yehuda ben Tabbai was the Nasi—

this is why he issued rulings

Yehuda ben Tabbai, before he accepted upon himself

halakhic rulings in the presence of Shimon ben Shetah.

But if you say it is the Sages

who are the tanna'im,

who say: Yehuda ben Tabbai was the head of the court

and

Shimon ben Shetah was the Nasi,

this is difficult for you:

Does the head of the court issue rulings in the presence of the Nasi—

who issues halakhic rulings?!

How, then, did Yehuda ben Tabbai initially issue a halakhic ruling in the presence of Shimon ben Shetah?!

And we reject this:

No

it is not as you said, that he accepted upon himself not to issue halakhic rulings in the presence of Shimon ben Shetah. For one can say that he was the head of the court and that, even initially, he did not issue halakhic rulings in the presence of Shimon ben Shetah; indeed, he did not need to accept upon himself to refrain from doing so.

And

what is the meaning of “he accepted upon himself,” as he said

Yehuda ben Tabbai:

to join

with others in issuing a halakhic ruling,

that even to join them I will not join

unless Shimon ben Shetah also sat with them.

We learned in the Mishna:

Menachem left; Shammai entered.

And we raised a difficulty concerning this:

Where did

Menachem go?

Abaye said: He went astray.

Rava said: He went to serve the king.

It was taught likewise

in accordance with the opinion of Rava:

Menachem went to serve the king, and eighty pairs of students went out with him, dressed in royal garments

a royal garment.

Rav Shemen bar Abba said that Rabbi Yohanan said:

Never regard a rabbinic prohibition

prohibitions that the Sages forbade on Shabbat and Festivals

lightly in your eyes! For laying hands

on a Festival

is not

forbidden

except as a rabbinic prohibition, and the great sages of the generation disagreed concerning it.

And we question this:

Is that obvious?!

And we answer:

A rabbinic prohibition involving a mitzva

a matter that is a mitzva but which the Sages prohibited as a rabbinic prohibition

was necessary for him

for Rabbi Yohanan to teach us, since laying hands is a mitzva.

And we question this:

Is this also obvious,

since we learned in the Mishna in tractate Beitza: There are rabbinic prohibitions that the Sages forbade even when their performance involves a mitzva, and Rabbi Yohanan did not need to teach us this [Rashi].

And we answer: Rabbi Yohanan needed to teach us, through his statement, that the subject of the dispute in our Mishna is the rabbinic prohibition involved in laying hands, in order

to exclude

to remove

the one who says—

to explain the dispute of the great sages in our Mishna—as follows: that

in the act of laying hands itself,

if it is a mitzva in obligatory peace offerings, they

disagree.

And the one who says that one should not lay hands does not say so because of a rabbinic prohibition; rather, he holds that obligatory peace offerings do not require laying hands at all, since the Torah mentions laying hands with regard to peace offerings only in the case of voluntary peace offerings.

And since there is no mitzva of laying hands with obligatory peace offerings, it is forbidden to lay hands upon them, since he is making use of consecrated property.

And

this teaches us

Rabbi Yohanan:

It is a rabbinic prohibition concerning which they disagree

whether the Sages decreed a rabbinic prohibition that would nullify the laying on of hands. But everyone agrees that laying hands is required even with obligatory peace offerings.

Rami bar Hama said: Learn from this

from Rabbi Yohanan’s words, who explained that the reason for those who say that one should not lay hands is the rabbinic prohibition against making use of an animal, that

laying hands with all one’s strength is required

with regard to offerings.

For if it enters your mind that it is not required

that he lay hands

with all his strength—

what is he doing

what prohibition is there in laying hands without force on a Festival?!

For he could

lay hands

even on a Festival, since he would not be making use of an animal?!

He raises an objection

from that which was taught: It is written:

“Speak to the children of Israel

and say to them: When a person brings an offering from among you to the Lord,

and he shall lay

his hand upon the head of the burnt offering.”

We learn from here that only

the children of Israel

males

lay hands,

since the entire passage was stated to “the children of Israel,”

but the daughters of Israel do not lay hands.

Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Shimon

the Gra

say: The daughters of Israel do lay hands; it is optional.

Tosafot asked in tractate Kiddushin 37b: Let it be derived from the fact that it is a time-bound positive mitzva, since laying hands is not performed at night, and women are exempt from every time-bound positive mitzva?! They answered that laying hands is compared to slaughtering, and one might have thought that just as slaughtering is valid when performed by women, so too they are obligated in laying hands. In the Turei Even here, he elaborated in explaining that with regard to laying hands, since the mitzva is not nullified once the night has passed, this is not a time-bound positive mitzva. In his view, the same applies to circumcision, which is likewise not included among time-bound positive mitzvot; see there. The Sefat Emet cited the words of the Turei Even in a different formulation: In such a case it is not a time-bound positive mitzva, because the fact that night is not a valid time for laying hands is merely a condition; the same applies to circumcision. See there what he wrote about this.

Rabbi Yosei said: A certain sage named

a sage whose name was

Abba Elazar

once told me:”

once told me: We once had a calf belonging to peace offerings, and we brought it to the Women’s Courtyard, and women laid hands upon it

and

we did not

do so

because

we hold that there is a mitzva of

laying hands for women, but in order to give the women satisfaction.

And if it enters your mind that “laying hands with all one’s strength” is required,

would

we perform an act of Temple service with consecrated property merely to give the women satisfaction?!

For when one lays hands with all one’s strength, he makes use of a consecrated animal?!

Rather, is it not that one can learn from this that it is not required

to lay hands

with all one’s strength, and this is a difficulty for Rami bar Hama?!

And we answer:

And we answer:

I will always say to you: It is required

to lay hands

with all one’s strength.

And Abba Elazar did not tell them to perform a complete laying on of hands, which would constitute an act of Temple service with consecrated property. Rather,

he said to them

Abba Elazar said to those women:

Relax your hands

lighten them, and do not press down with them—and do not lay hands with all your strength, so as not to make use of consecrated property.

And we question this:

If so,

since this was not a valid laying on of hands, because it was not performed with all one’s strength, how could they say in the beraita:

“Not because laying hands applies to women”,

implying that if the law of laying hands applied to women as well, it would have been possible to explain that he told them to lay hands in order to fulfill the mitzva of laying hands?

But

it should follow directly that the laying on of hands

was not valid

at all,

since they did not do it with all their strength?!

He said

by way of resolution

Rabbi Ami: He is stating “one point, and another”!

One point: There is no laying on of hands at all.

And another: It was in order to give the women satisfaction.

Rav Pappa said: Learn from this

from Rabbi Yohanan, who explains that the reason for the prohibition against laying hands is a rabbinic prohibition:

Even the

sides

of the animal

are forbidden

as a rabbinic prohibition!

That is to say: Although the primary rabbinic prohibition is not to ride upon an animal [because of the decree that one might cut a branch to guide it], nevertheless, all uses of an animal are forbidden, even where the person is not using the animal in the usual manner, such as its sides.

For if it enters your mind that the sides are permitted, let us lay hands upon its head

of the animal, which is no more than its side?!

Rather, is it not that one can learn from this:

even

the sides are forbidden.