Kiddushin 39b — the Talmud in English

For

granted, if he had taught us this,

if Rav had sown everything in one garden-bed, and maintained a certain distance between the species so that they would not draw nourishment from one another, as is the law of distancing kilayim [brought in the Mishna in tractate Kilayim, beginning of chapter 3, and explained in tractate Shabbat 84b], in such a manner that he sowed

four

rows of four different species

on the four sides

of the

garden-bed, and one

row, of a fifth species, he sowed

in the middle

of the garden-bed,

well,

then there would be room to learn from here that it is forbidden to sow kilayim outside the Land of Israel.

But here,

where Rav sowed each species in a separate garden-bed, there is no proof that he did so on account of kilayim; rather, it is possible that he did so

on account of beauty,

so that each species would be recognizable by itself in a special garden-bed.

Or alternatively, on account of the trouble of his attendant,

so that the attendant who went to pick a particular vegetable from the garden would not need to trouble himself to search for it among the other species, but would recognize it immediately by the garden-bed.

Mishna:

Anyone who performs one mitzva

in excess of his sins, and it is found that he has a majority of merits, is considered a completely righteous person, and his reward is that

they benefit him

in this world

, and they lengthen his days

in the World to Come,

and he inherits the “Land,”

the land of true life, in the World to Come.

And anyone who does not perform one mitzva

in excess of his merits, but his merits are only equal to his obligations,

they do not benefit him in this world,

and they do not lengthen his days

in the World to Come,

and he does not inherit the Land,

in the World to Come.

Gemara:

The Gemara initially assumed that the intention of the tannai in the Mishna is to say that through performing any mitzva whatsoever, a person can merit goodness even in this world [and even inherit the World to Come].

And he raised a contradiction,

the Gemara raises a contradiction between the words of the Mishna here, which maintains that it is possible to merit goodness in this world through performing any one mitzva, and the words of the Mishna at the beginning of tractate Peah, which maintains that only for certain actions does a person receive reward in both worlds:

For we learned there:

These are the matters whose fruits a person eats in this world, while the principal remains for him in the World to Come.

And

these are they: honoring father and mother, acts of kindness, hospitality, bringing peace between a person and his fellow, and Torah study is equivalent to them all.

And it follows that only through “these matters,” and no more, can a person merit goodness in both worlds, and not through any one mitzva whatsoever!

And we answer:

Rav Yehuda said, this is what he is saying,

the tannai in our Mishna:

Anyone who performs one mitzva

of any kind

in excess of his merits,

he is a completely righteous person. Therefore,

they benefit him

in this world,

and he is like one who fulfills the entire Torah,

and for this reason he also inherits the World to Come.

And the Gemara is astonished:

From the implication

of these words you learn

that those,

those mitzvot listed in the Mishna in tractate Peah, then

even

through fulfillment of

one

alone,

also,

a person merits to eat their fruits in this world, while the principal will remain for him in the World to Come.

And this is very astonishing: to say that even if he has a majority of sins, nevertheless he is entitled to enjoy both worlds on account of fulfilling only one mitzva, such as honoring father and mother or acts of kindness.

Rav Shemaya said:

The intention of the tannai in tractate Peah is

to say that if it was balanced,

that this person had half merits and half obligations, and among the half of the merits there was the mitzva of honoring father and mother or acts of kindness, then

it tips

this mitzva the scale toward good, and by its power he merits to be like a completely righteous person. But the other mitzvot do not have the power to tip the scale, and if his merits and sins were balanced, he is not considered righteous, and they do not benefit him, until he performs a mitzva in excess.

But the Gemara still raises a difficulty against what we have now learned:

And anyone who performs one mitzva in excess of his merits, they benefit him

in this world.

And he raised a contradiction

to this from the words of a beraita.

For it was taught:

Anyone

who

whose merits are greater than his sins, they make things worse for him,

so that his few sins will be purged in this world, and he will not be punished for them in the World to Come, but will receive reward there alone.

And he is like

in receiving his punishment here

one who burned the entire Torah and did not leave even one letter of it.

That is, they punish him severely, so that he will be cleansed completely.

And anyone whose sins are greater than his merits, they benefit him

here, so that he will receive his reward in this world, and not in the World to Come.

And he is like

in receiving the goodness in this world

one who fulfilled the entire Torah and did not diminish one letter of it.

But this is a contradiction to what we learned in our Mishna, that one who has a majority of merits is benefited also here.

Abaye said:

Our Mishna does not contradict the beraita.

Rather,

the Mishna,

our Mishna, which says that they benefit him and make things worse for him, intends to say something else:

They make a good day for him,

one whose merits are numerous will be punished here, and thereby they prepare for him a good day in the World to Come, since he will not be punished there, because he has already been punished here. And this is the intention of the Mishna when it says, “they benefit him.”

And

on the other hand, what the Mishna said, that they make things worse for him, refers to one whose sins are numerous, so that he will receive his reward here for his few merits, and thereby they prepare for him in the future

a bad day,

so that he will lose his reward in the World to Come, because he received it here.

And through this the Mishna agrees with the beraita, for it too maintains that one whose sins are few is made to suffer here; but the beraita used an explicit expression, that they make things worse for him here, whereas the Mishna stated that they make for him a “good day” through this worsening.

But the beraita,

Rava said

another answer: the Mishna and the beraita disagree in the dispute of tannaim whether there is reward for a mitzva in this world:

This,

this beraita,

whose opinion is it? It is Rabbi Yaakov’s! For he says: There is no reward for a mitzva in this world!

For it was taught: Rabbi Yaakov says: You have no mitzva and mitzva written in the Torah whose reward is stated alongside it for which resurrection of

the dead depends upon it,

to teach you that the reward stated in it is for the future and not here in this world.

And the proof of the matter is that

with regard to honoring father and mother it is written

a reward for the mitzva,

“so that your days may be lengthened and so that it may be good for you.”

And likewise

with regard to sending away the mother bird it is written

a reward for the mitzva,

“so that it may be good for you and you may lengthen your days.”

And reality indicates that the reward is not here, because

behold,

when his father said to him, “Climb up to the tower and bring me fledglings,” and he climbed up to the tower [

a tower containing a nest of pigeons],

and he sent away the mother and took the young, and upon his return he fell and died.

Where is the goodness of this one’s days, and where is the lengthening of this one’s days,

which the Torah stated as the reward for the mitzvot of honoring the father and sending away the mother bird?!

Rather,

necessarily, this is the explanation of the verse: “

‘So that it may be good for you,’ in a world that is entirely good; ‘and so that your days may be lengthened,’ in a world that is entirely long.”

And we refute:

Perhaps it was not so?

Perhaps the reward is in this world, and indeed such a situation cannot occur in which the son dies while performing a mitzva for which lengthened days are promised, as the Torah promises?!

And we answer:

Rabbi Yaakov saw an incident,

he saw it with his own eyes, and from the incident that he saw with his own eyes he proved his words.

And the Gemara raises a difficulty against the proof from the incident:

Perhaps

that person who was killed did not intend to perform it for the sake of Heaven, but

he was contemplating a transgression

at the time when he fulfilled the mitzva, and therefore the Torah’s promise of lengthened days did not protect him?

And the Gemara answers:

An evil thought

alone,

the Holy One, blessed be He, does not combine with action,

and therefore he should not have been punished at the time of fulfilling a mitzva for which the Torah promises lengthened days.

But the Gemara continues and raises a difficulty:

Perhaps,

he was contemplating idolatry

that person at the time of fulfilling the mitzva, and therefore he was killed

, and it is written

concerning the thought of idolatry,

“so that I may seize the House of Israel in their heart,”

and the verse teaches that one is liable for it through thought alone?!

And we answer:

He,

Rabbi Yaakov,

also, this is what he said: If it enters your mind

that there is

reward for a mitzva in this world, why did the reward of the

mitzva

not protect him, so that he would not come to a thought,

so that he would not come to a transgressive thought at the time of fulfilling such a mitzva?! Rather, from here Rabbi Yaakov proved that there is no reward for mitzvot in this world, and the intention of the verse is lengthened days in the World to Come.

And the Gemara raises a difficulty: how is it possible to say that Rabbi Yaakov saw an incident in which a person was killed while fulfilling the mitzva of honoring his father?

But Rabbi Elazar said: Agents sent to perform a mitzva are not harmed!

And we answer:

There, while they are going

to fulfill the mitzva,

it is different.

But in the incident that Rabbi Yaakov saw, it was at the time of his return.

But the Gemara still raises a difficulty:

But Rabbi Elazar said: Agents sent to perform a mitzva are not harmed, neither on their going nor on their returning!?

And it answers:

It was a rickety ladder, for the danger was established, and wherever the danger is established, we do not rely on a miracle,

even where the miracle is promised; and therefore the Torah’s promise of lengthened days did not help him here.

For it is written [

I Samuel, when Samuel heard the command of the Lord to go and anoint David as king over Israel]

“And Samuel said

to the Lord:

‘How shall I go, and Saul will hear and kill me?’”

Thus Samuel was afraid to go despite having been sent by command of the Lord, and despite being assured that he would carry out his mission! Since this was a case of established danger, because of Saul’s hatred of David.

Rav Yosef said: Had “Aher” expounded [

Elisha ben Avuya, who turned to an evil culture],

this verse,

concerning the promise of lengthened days for fulfilling the mitzva of honoring one’s father,

like Rabbi Yaakov, his daughter’s son [

who was his grandson, the son of his daughter]

, he would not have sinned.

And Aher, what is it,

what did he see and sin?

Some say: He saw something like this

that Rabbi Yaakov saw,

he saw,

he saw and said: If so, the words of the verse are not correct, and therefore he turned to an evil culture.

And some say: It was the expression of Hutzpit the Interpreter,

the tongue of Rabbi Hutzpit the Interpreter, who was killed as one of the Ten Martyrs,

he saw,

he saw

that it was being dragged,

how it was being dragged by

another thing [

a pig].

He said “Aher”: Could it be that

a

mouth that brought forth pearls should lick dust!?

And he therefore denied the providence of the Holy One, blessed be He,

he went out and sinned!

Rami bar Tovi bar Rav Kisna raised a contradiction to Rava

a contradiction:

On the one hand,

we learned

in our Mishna:

Anyone who performs one mitzva, they benefit him.

And we should infer from the language of the Mishna that only if he

performed

a mitzva,

yes,

then they benefit him. But if he

did not perform

an act of a mitzva, but only wanted to perform a mitzva, yet did not actually perform it,

no,

they do not benefit him for his thought of performing a mitzva.

And he raised a contradiction,

a contradiction to this from a beraita:

For it was taught:

A person sat

and

did not commit a transgression; they give him reward like one who performs a mitzva.

He said to him

Rava:

There,

where he receives reward without an action, it is referring to

a case where an object of transgression came into his hand,

and he subdued his inclination,

and was saved from it.

As in the case of Rabbi Hanina bar Pappi, that noblewoman demanded him,

a gentile woman demanded him for a transgressive act.

He said a word, and filled himself with boils and pain,

and covered his body with boils and pus-filled sores. And he did this in order to avoid the transgression.

She did

also

a thing [

a spell of sorcery]

, and he was healed,

and she healed him.

He fled,

he escaped,

he hid

in

that bathhouse,

in a place of a bathhouse in which there were such harmful spirits,

for when two entered,

if they entered it as a pair of two people, then

even in the daytime, they were harmed.

The next day the Sages said to him: Who guarded you?

Who guarded you from the harmful spirits there?