Nedarim 29a (כט.) — the Talmud in English

He said:

he challenged

Rav Hamnuna

Ulla, who holds: “Sanctity lapses with the passage of time”:

But

where did the sanctity that was in them go—that is to say: Is it possible for the sanctity of consecrated property to lapse without redemption, even if the one who consecrated it initially consecrated it for a limited period?

!?

And

after all,

what if a man said

to

a woman: “

Today you are my wife, but tomorrow you are not my wife,”

that is, “Be my wife until tomorrow”—

would she cease to be his wife

the next day

without a bill of divorce!?

Clearly, her status would not lapse, and so too with the sanctity of consecrated property: the consecration never lapses except through the corresponding redemption.

Rava said

to Rav Hamnuna:

Are you comparing

[Do you say that one should compare]

sanctity of monetary value,

which is the subject of our Mishna and of Ulla’s statement,

to intrinsic sanctity,

namely, the betrothal of a woman!?

But one can distinguish and say:

Sanctity of monetary value

indeed

lapses with the passage of time,

as Ulla said, whereas

intrinsic sanctity does not lapse with the passage of time,

as is demonstrated by the case you cited of the betrothal of a woman.

Abaye said

to Rava—who upheld Ulla’s statement only because Ulla was speaking of sanctity of monetary value, but with regard to intrinsic sanctity he agrees with Rav Hamnuna that sanctity does not lapse with the passage of time:

And

is it indeed the case that

intrinsic sanctity does not lapse with the passage of time!?

But it was taught in a beraita:

One who says: “

This ox shall be an olah for thirty days, and after thirty days

it shall be

a shelamim”—

The ox became consecrated

for all thirty days

with the

sanctity of an olah, and after thirty days

the sanctity of an olah lapsed from it, and it became consecrated with the sanctity of

a shelamim.

And

according to your words:

Why!?

For

they are intrinsic sanctity, and

how did

it lapse

from it

with the passage of time!?

Rava said to Abaye:

Here, with what are we dealing

in that beraita?

With one who said: “

For its value”—

He did not consecrate it with the intrinsic sanctity of an olah or a shelamim; rather, he consecrated it for the value of an olah or a shelamim, and sanctity of monetary value indeed lapses with the passage of time.

According to Bar Padda, who holds that even sanctity of monetary value does not lapse with the passage of time, this beraita is to be understood as referring to a case in which he redeemed the ox—which had been consecrated for the value of an olah—after thirty days. His initial consecration of the ox as a shelamim after thirty days then took effect, as he had said.

The Gemara challenges the explanation of the beraita as dealing with “sanctity of monetary value”:

If so, say the latter clause

of that beraita: One who says: “This ox

after thirty days

shall be

an olah, and from now

until thirty days it shall be

a shelamim”—[that is,

this is the law:

after thirty days

it shall be

an olah, and from now

until thirty days it is

a shelamim].”

Granted, if you say

to explain the repetition of the law in the first and latter clauses of the beraita: