Meilah 22a (כב.) — the Talmud in English

Rav Pappa said: He cast upon him the case of the logs,

Reish Lakish challenged Rabbi Yoḥanan by pointing out the contradiction between our Mishna and the Mishna of “logs".

Reish Lakish held that the reason Rabbi Akiva concedes in the latter clause is that he maintains, “There is retroactive clarification” ,

meaning, with regard to each peruta that he spends until the last one, it can now be said that it has retroactively become clear that this peruta was not consecrated property,

As it was taught:

One who purchases

a barrel

of wine

containing one hundred log,

from a Samaritan,

on the eve of Shabbat during twilight, and does not have time to separate terumot and tithes before the onset of Shabbat, and has nothing to drink other than this wine, which is certainly tevel—what should he do?

He says: The two log that I am destined to separate

at the conclusion of Shabbat

are teruma gedola

from within the barrel.

The ten

log that I am destined to separate

are the first tithe.

The nine

log are

the second tithe! And he may begin to drink

and redeem the second tithe with money that he has at home, for whatever he is able to rectify now, he rectifies; and second tithe is redeemed through a declaration [without an act]].

And

having done so,

he drinks

, it is permitted for him to drink it,

immediately.

These are

the words of Rabbi Meir,

who maintains that there is retroactive clarification. With regard to the wine that he drinks on Shabbat, it can be said that it is neither teruma nor the first tithe. After Shabbat, he will separate teruma and tithes from what remains, and “it will become clear retroactively” that these were the teruma and tithes, while with regard to what he drank on Shabbat, “it will become clear” that it was ordinary produce.

Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Yosei, and Rabbi Shimon prohibit

doing so, because they maintain that there is no retroactive clarification.

And now Reish Lakish asks: Even according to Rabbi Meir, who maintains that there is retroactive clarification, this applies specifically when he specifies his clarification and says, “that I am destined to separate”; whereas when he makes an unspecified declaration and does not specify it, Rabbi Meir too concedes that it is not applicable to say “retroactive clarification.”

But in our Mishna Rabbi Akiva states that even when he makes an unspecified declaration and did not say, “The peruta that I am destined to separate,” it is nevertheless permitted to spend each peruta one at a time until the last one, on the basis of “retroactive clarification” ?

He said to him,

Rabbi Yoḥanan:

The latter clause

is discussing

one who says, “This pouch will not be released from consecrated property

”; therefore, it is considered as though he specified his clarification. Just as with regard to the log he says, “that I am destined to separate,” and this is effective on the basis of retroactive clarification, so too here it is effective on the basis of retroactive clarification.

An alternative explanation: The meaning of this wording is that it refers only to the final peruta, and retroactive clarification is not involved here. Even if Rabbi Akiva maintains that there is no retroactive clarification, he concedes that only the final peruta is consecrated property .

We have completed the chapter “The Agent Who Performed His Agency,” and the tractate of Me'ila is concluded.