Ketubot 64b (סד:) — the Talmud in English

But

he—

the husband—

since he adds !(pamud.bmp "

exact page location")

to his wife’s ketubba when he rebels against her, it appears

that the addition he gives her to her ketubba on Shabbat appears

as payment for Shabbat,

which is rabbinically prohibited, as a decree due to buying and selling and hiring.

He said

Rav Ḥiyya bar Yosef

said to Rava in astonishment:

What is the difference between a rebellious husband,

who adds only half a trapa’ik,

and a rebellious wife,

from whose allowance a full trapa’ik is deducted!?

He said to him

Rava said to Rav Ḥiyya bar Yosef:

Go and learn

from the marketplace of prostitutes—

who hires whom!?

Certainly, the man is the one who hires. Necessarily, his distress is greater than that of the woman; therefore, she “pays” more when she rebels against him.

Alternatively: This one—

the husband—

has his desire externally,

as his erection is apparent, and he is disgraced.

Whereas this one—

the wife—

has her desire internally,

and she is not disgraced.

Mishna:

A husband who

provides

[sustenance]

for his wife through a trustee,

that is, he does not support her with him in his home; rather, he gives her sustenance in the trustee’s home—

In this case,

he may not reduce her allowance

during one week

below two kav of wheat or four kav of barley,

in accordance with the customary consumption of most of the city.

Rabbi Yosei said: He stipulated barley for her only if he was Rabbi Yishmael, who lived near Edom,

and his words are explained in the Gemara.

And he gives her

also each week:

half a kav of legumes, half a log of oil, and a kav

of dried figs

[dried figs],

or a maneh of pressed figs

[figs pressed into a round cake and sold by weight].

And if he does not have

dried figs and pressed figs,

he stipulates produce equivalent to them from another place.

And he gives her: a bed,

to eat upon or to sleep upon.

Likewise,

a mat

that is soft,

and a reed mat,

as will be explained in the Gemara.

And he gives her

also annually:

a head covering

[scarf]

for her head, and a belt for her loins.

And shoes,

he gives her new ones

from festival to festival,

that is, on each of the three pilgrimage festivals.

And

he gives her

garments

[clothing]

worth fifty zuz from year to year.

And they do not give her

the clothing:

Not

when it is

new during the summer,

because it is too warm.

Nor

when it is

worn

[well-worn]

during the rainy season,

because it is too cold.

Rather, he gives her garments

new

worth fifty zuz during the rainy season, and she covers herself with their worn portions during the summer.

And the worn garments

that remain for her from them after the summer

are hers,

even though he purchased new garments for her for the rainy season.

And

he gives her a silver ma’a—

each week—

for her needs,

for small expenses.

And she eats with him

with her husband

from one Shabbat eve to the next Shabbat eve,

and the Gemara will explain whether “eats” is to be understood literally, or whether it refers to marital relations.

And if he does not give her a silver ma’a for her needs,

then

her handiwork is hers.

And what does she do for him,

as we learned above [59b]: “And she works with wool”:

A weight of five sela

of spun

warp

thread—for spinning it is twice as difficult as spinning weft thread because of the fineness of the spinning—

in Judea, which is

a weight of

ten sela in the Galilee,

as the sela coins of the Galilee are twice those of Judea.

Or a weight of ten sela

of spun

weft thread in Judea, which is twenty sela in the Galilee.

And if she was

a woman who was

nursing, they reduce the amount of her handiwork and add to her sustenance.

When are these matters stated—

that this is the measure that the husband gives his wife for sustenance and clothing?—

With regard to the poorest person in Israel.

But with regard to a person of stature, everything is according to his honor,

even several cooked dishes each day.

Gemara:

We learned in the Mishna: He may not reduce her allowance—for the week—below two kav of wheat.

According to the view of our Mishna, she can make from two kav of wheat the bread needed for two meals seven times during the week, and the Gemara challenges this:

According to whose view is our Mishna,

according to whose opinion does our Mishna rule in the dispute among the tannaim concerning the measure of wheat needed to make bread for one meal?

But the words of the Mishna are

not

like

Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka, nor

like

Rabbi Shimon,

who disagreed on this matter!?

As we learned in tractate Eruvin: One who wishes to go beyond the Shabbat boundary must place, at the onset of Shabbat, food at the end of two thousand cubits, which is the Shabbat boundary. This is considered as though he spent Shabbat in that place, and he may walk two thousand cubits in every direction from the place where he placed his food; this is called an “eruv of boundaries.”

And what

is

its measure,

the measure of an eruv of boundaries?

the amount of an eruv of boundaries:

The food of two meals for each and every person

among those participating in the eruv,

his weekday food and not his Shabbat food, the statement of Rabbi Meir.

Rabbi Yehuda says:

His food is

for Shabbat and not for weekdays.

And both this and that

[Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda]

intend to be lenient.

That is, it is necessary only to have the measure of a weekday or Shabbat meal, according to the smaller of the two. Rabbi Meir, however, would eat less bread on weekdays than on Shabbat, whereas Rabbi Yehuda would eat less bread on Shabbat. It follows that both are lenient in determining the measure of a meal.

Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka says,

the measure of two meals with which to establish the boundary is:

A loaf purchased

from a baker

for a pundeyon

[forty-eight pundeyonim equal one sela]—

from four se’a

of wheat

per sela.

That is, the size of the loaf is the size of one purchased for a pundeyon, when four se’a of wheat are purchased for one sela.

The initial assumption is that this refers to a loaf made from flour ground from an amount of wheat equal to one forty-eighth of four se’a.

Since each se’a contains six kav, four se’a contain twenty-four kav.

If we divide twenty-four kav by forty-eight, we obtain half a kav of wheat.

It follows that, according to Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka, the measure of one meal is a quarter of a kav of wheat.

Rabbi Shimon says:

The measure of two meals is:

Two-thirds of a loaf, from three loaves to a kav.

That is, two-thirds of a loaf, three of which are made from one kav of wheat.

Thus, the wheat needed for one meal is one-ninth of a kav.

Half

of such a loaf, the one mentioned by Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka and Rabbi Shimon, is the measure of the time needed to eat, which is the measure that determines the reception of impurity for one who enters

a leprous house

and remains there.

And half of half of it,

that is, a quarter of such a loaf—both according to Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka and according to Rabbi Shimon—is the measure for eating impure foods that cause

the body to become disqualified

[the person’s body] from eating teruma.

And half

of half of half of it,

of such a loaf—both according to Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka and according to Rabbi Shimon—is the measure

for receiving the impurity of food.

And

according to whose view

is our Mishna, which requires two kav of wheat for the meals of the entire week!?

If it is Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka,

who holds that a quarter of a kav of wheat is the measure of one meal, then from two kav of wheat

there are eight

[eight] meals only;

there are

not enough for the meals of the entire week.

And if it is Rabbi Shimon,

who holds that one-ninth of a kav is the measure of one meal, then from two kav of wheat there are

eighteen

[eighteen] meals

there are, whereas for the week she needs only fourteen meals, two meals each day.

And if so, according to whose view is our Mishna!?

And we answer:

Our Mishna is

indeed

the view of

Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka

is.

As Rav Ḥisda said,

this is how one should explain the measure stated by Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka: “A loaf purchased for a pundeyon, from four se’a per sela”:

Subtract from them—

from the amount of wheat the baker received in order to make a loaf—

one-third

for the labor cost of the

shopkeeper

[baker].

When you calculate the size of the loaf, and you have before you two figures—the price at which the baker sells the loaf and the price of the wheat—you must take into account that the baker takes one-third of the wheat as payment for his labor.

It follows that a loaf purchased for a pundeyon—which contains food for two meals—contains wheat worth only approximately two-thirds of a pundeyon, that is, two-sixths of a kav per loaf, and not half a kav per loaf, as the questioner calculated.

Here too,

also here,

bring a third and cast it upon them.

You must add one-third [“from outside,” from the entire amount], that is, half the amount, to the number of meals that the questioner calculated from two kav of wheat.

For that same amount of wheat which, according to the questioner’s calculation, is needed for one meal, in truth you need only two-thirds of it.

And from the remaining third of each loaf that remains in the woman’s possession, she can make another half-meal.

The Gemara is still puzzled:

still,

even from two kav of wheat it is impossible to obtain fourteen meals.

For even if we add four meals to the eight meals, which are half the amount [that is, as stated, one-third “from outside” of the total amount]—

twelve

[twelve] meals only

there are!

The difficulty has still not been resolved: How can two kav of wheat suffice for fourteen meals, two meals each day!?

And we answer: We learned in our Mishna that she

eats with him on the night of Shabbat;

it follows that she does not need wheat for fourteen meals.

The Gemara raises an objection to the proposed resolution, for the amoraim disagreed concerning the interpretation of the words of the Mishna, “and she eats with him from one Shabbat eve to the next”:

And if so,

this works well according to the one who says

that “she eats” with him from one Shabbat eve to the next means

actual eating

; she does not need provisions for fourteen meals.

But according to the one who says: “Eating”

means

marital relations

—what can be said?

For according to his opinion, even the meal on Shabbat eve she eats from her own provisions?!

Furthermore,

one can ask: What have we accomplished by saying that she does not need wheat for all the meals of the week, since she eats one meal with her husband, when in the end there are only

thirteen

meals

there are—

That is, from two kav of wheat she has thirteen meals, after adding to the twelve meals provided by the wheat she received one additional meal that she eats at her husband’s, whereas she nevertheless needs fourteen meals?!

Rather,

actually, our Mishna follows the opinion of Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka.

And

as Rav Hisda said

in explaining the measure of Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka in the Mishna in tractate Eruvin:

Deduct from them

—from the quantity of wheat given to the grocer— \-

half for

the grocer’s labor fee,

grocer

—here too,

that is, therefore,

bring in a half

[the other half comes from outside, meaning: double the quantity],

and cast it upon them

. You must double the number of meals that the objector calculated for two kav of wheat. In fact, a woman consumes at a single meal only half the quantity of wheat calculated by the objector, and the remainder stays with her for an additional meal.

The Gemara asks: If so,

is there not a difficulty between Rav Hisda’s statement and Rav Hisda’s statement?!

And we answer:

It is not difficult!

This

—the statement of Rav Hisda that the grocer takes one-third as his compensation—

applies in a place where they provide the firewood

[where the buyer is the one who provides the wood with which to fire the oven for baking].

This

—the statement of Rav Hisda that the grocer takes half as his compensation—

applies in a place where they do not provide the firewood

[where the buyer does not provide the wood; rather, it is supplied at the seller’s expense, and therefore he takes more wheat as his compensation].

The Gemara still asks:

If so

—that you double the number of meals that can be made from two kav of wheat—

there are sixteen

[sixteen meals]

there are

from two kav of wheat, whereas she needs only fourteen meals?!

Should we say that our Mishna is

in accordance with whom? With Rabbi Hidka

[and thus the anonymous Mishna follows Rabbi Hidka],

who says: A person is obligated to eat four meals on Shabbat

? There would then be sixteen meals in the week, and therefore she needs two kav of wheat?!

The Gemara explains that it is not necessary to establish our Mishna in accordance with Rabbi Hidka.

Rather,

even if you say

that our Mishna follows the opinion of

the Sages

, who say that a person is obligated to eat only three meals on Shabbat, she is found to require fifteen meals during the week.

And as for the fact that she makes sixteen meals from that quantity of wheat, this is not difficult—

deduct one

[remove one surplus meal]

for guests and passersby

, which she can give to guests!

The Gemara adds:

Now that you have arrived at this

[now that you have reached this point], having explained that some of the meals are needed for guests, there is no longer any need to interpret our Mishna as following the opinion of Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka, according to whom two kav of wheat yield sixteen meals—

Rather,

even if you say that our Mishna follows Rabbi Shimon

, and from two kav of wheat she can make eighteen meals during the week, even so our Mishna is well explained, because:

According to the Sages,

who maintain that one must eat three meals on Shabbat, so that she requires fifteen meals—

deduct three

[remove three surplus meals]

for guests and passersby.

Whereas

according to Rabbi Hidka

, who requires four meals on Shabbat, amounting to sixteen meals during the week,

deduct

two

meals

for guests and passersby

, for the woman must also feed guests and needy people who come to her.

We learned in the Mishna:

Rabbi Yosei said: It was Rabbi Yishmael, who lived near Edom, who allotted barley

:

The Gemara asks:

Does this mean that it was only in Edom that they ate barley, while everywhere else they did not eat it

—that is, was Edom the only place where people ate barley, with no places anywhere else in the world where barley was eaten?!

The Gemara explains:

This is what

the tanna of our Mishna said:

He did not allot barley in an amount double that of wheat

[as we learned: He should not allot her less than two kav of wheat or four kav of barley]—

rather, Rabbi Yishmael, who lived near Edom, did so because the barley

was poor Edomite barley.

We learned in the Mishna:

And he gives her half a kav of legumes:

Whereas

“he gives her

wine” is not taught.

And if so,

it supports

our Mishna

in favor of Rabbi Elazar!