Pesachim 74a — the Talmud in English

Mishna:

It is written in the section of the Passover offering: “And they shall eat the flesh on this night, roasted over fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter herbs they shall eat it. You shall not eat from it raw, nor cooked, cooked in water, but only roasted over fire. Its head with its legs and with its innards.”

We have therefore learned:

a. The Passover offering must be roasted entirely as one.

b. The Passover offering must be roasted, and not cooked in water or in any other liquid.

c. The roasting must be specifically by the fire itself, and not by something that became heated on account of the fire. For the Torah said, “roasted over fire,” and this implies that it must be roasted by fire and not roasted on account of another thing, as will be explained in the Gemara.

And therefore the Sages said:

How do they roast the Passover offering:

They bring a spit

a branch that is sharp on one side and thick on the other side

of

a tree of the

pomegranate

and not one of metal or of another wood, as the reason will be explained in the Gemara.

And they thrust it

through its sharp side

into its mouth

of the Passover offering

until

it reaches

its place of perforation,

beneath the fat-tail.

At the time of roasting, he turns the Passover offering so that the lamb’s mouth is below and its place of perforation is above [and he hangs it above the fire, Rambam]. Thus the Passover offering is hanging on the spit, with its thick side below, and it does not slip from the spit at the time of roasting [Tosafot].

And he cuts the legs [the feet] from the knee and below [Meiri], and removes its innards and washes them [Rashi in the Pentateuch and Meiri].

And tannaim disagreed as to how he roasts the legs and the innards together with the Passover offering, as the Torah said, “Its head with its legs and with its innards”:

And he places its legs and its innards inside it

of the Passover offering, and roasts it,

the words of Rabbi Yosei the Galilean.

Rabbi Akiva says:

If he places the legs and the innards inside the Passover offering,

this is something resembling cooking!

That is to say: It appears somewhat like cooking, since the matter resembles placing them inside a pot to be cooked in it [Meiri].

Rather

this is how the Passover offering was roasted:

They hang

[they are hung] the legs and the innards at the time of roasting

outside it

[outside the Passover offering], thrusting them onto the spit above the lamb’s mouth [and it follows that at the time of roasting, when he turns the spit, they are positioned below the lamb’s mouth, since he turns the Passover offering at the time of roasting with its mouth below, as was explained, Tosafot Yom Tov in his understanding of Rashi].

The Passover offering may not be roasted:

a.

Not on a spit

of iron!

For part of the spit protrudes outside the Passover offering and becomes heated there by the fire, and through this the entire spit becomes heated. It follows that the Passover offering is roasted within it by the heat of the spit and not by the fire itself, and this is not “roasted over fire.”

b.

And not on a grill

[a flat piece of metal that is not perforated, which they place upon the fire and put the Passover offering upon it].

For the Passover offering is roasted by the heat of the grill and not by the fire itself.

Rabbi Tzadok said: An incident occurred with Rabban Gamaliel, who said to Tavi his slave, “Go out and roast the Passover offering for us on the grill”

that is perforated [this is how it is explained in the Gemara, and there it will be explained further].

Gemara:

We learned in the Mishna: How do they roast the Passover offering? They bring a spit of pomegranate wood:

And we raised an objection concerning it:

And let him bring

Why should the one roasting not bring a spit

of metal?!

And we explain: Because a metal spit,

since it is hot

in part of it,

the part protruding outside the Passover offering, it becomes

entirely hot,

even the part inside the Passover offering,

and it roasts

the Passover offering within it

on account of

the heat of

the spit.

And

this roasting is not valid, since

the Merciful One said: “Roasted over fire,” and not roasted on account of another thing,

such as the heat of the spit.

We further ask:

And let him bring

a spit

of

palm

wood?!

And we explain:

Since it has

the palm branch

fibers

[which by its natural formation is made like rows upon rows, Rashi; and the Meiri wrote that it has cracks].

When it becomes heated [Rambam in his Commentary on the Mishna and Meiri],

it releases water

[the spit releases moisture] from between the rows in the middle of the spit, which is inside the Passover offering.

And

if so:

the Passover offering becomes

the Passover offering

like cooked,

since that moisture becomes heated and cooks it somewhat, and the Torah said “roasted” and not cooked [Meiri].

We further ask:

And let him bring

a spit

of fig wood?!

And we explain: Because

since it is porous

[it has a pith inside, Rashi; and the Meiri wrote that the bones within them are not so hard, but rather porous and soft].

it follows that

it releases

the spit

water

[moisture] into the Passover offering, and the Passover offering becomes like cooked.

We further ask:

And let him bring

a spit

of oak

or

of carob, and

a spit

of sycamore?!

And we explain: Because

since they have knots

[like a kind of knots along the length of the branch], and he must cut them because they protrude and prevent the spit from entering the flesh [Meiri].

It follows that

it releases

the spit

water

[the spit releases moisture] at the place of the cutting, and it becomes like cooked.

And we ask: But the spit

of pomegranate

which we deemed fit for roasting the Passover offering upon it

also has knots,

and what is the difference between it and a spit of oak and the like?!

And we answer: The branch of a pomegranate is

smooth

[smooth]

in its knots,

its knots do not protrude and do not prevent the spit from entering the flesh, and there is no need to cut them [Meiri].

And if you wish, say:

The statement in the Mishna that he brings a spit of pomegranate does not refer to every branch of a pomegranate, but rather

to a one-year branch

[a branch from a one-year-old planting of a pomegranate tree],

which has no knots,

[it has no knots at all].

And we ask:

And

since you are concerned about taking a branch that requires cutting, then even a branch of pomegranate should not be fit, for

there is its place of cutting,

there is its place of cutting from the tree, and there it releases water, and it becomes like cooked.

And we answer:

He brings its place of cutting outward

[he places its place of cutting outside the body of the Passover offering], and the moisture emerging from there does not enter the Passover offering, and it does not become like cooked.

And now we explain that

the Mishna

which prohibited roasting it upon a metal spit, because “part of it is hot, all of it is hot,” and when the outer part of the spit becomes heated, the part within the Passover offering also becomes heated, and it is roasted within it by the heat of the spit [as was explained above]:

It is consistent

not with Rabbi Judah.

Since according to Rabbi Judah, in our case we do not say “part of it is hot, all of it is hot,” because since the spit is inside the Passover offering, the Passover offering protects it from becoming heated.

d.

This

is taught:

Rabbi Judah says:

Just as a wooden spit

that is inside the Passover offering

does not burn

from the heat of the fire beneath it, because the body of the Passover offering protects it,

so a metal spit does not cause to boil

its part inside the Passover offering from the heat of the spit outside the Passover offering; rather, the body of the Passover offering protects it.

They said to him,

the Sages:

This,

the metal one,

part of it is hot, all of it is hot; and this,

the wooden one,

part of it is hot, not all of it is hot.

That is to say: Even though the wood inside the Passover offering does not burn, the part of the spit inside the Passover offering does in fact cause boiling! But with a wooden spit—when part of it is hot, not all of it is hot—and therefore the body of the Passover offering is effective in protecting it so that it will not burn from the heat of the fire opposite it.

But with a metal spit, whose part inside the Passover offering becomes heated from the heat of the outer part of the spit, the body of the Passover offering is not effective in protecting it.

We learned in the Mishna:

And he places its legs

and its innards inside it, the words of Rabbi Yosei the Galilean; Rabbi Akiva says, “This is something resembling cooking, but they hang it outside it”:

It is taught:

Just as Rabbi Yosei the Galilean and Rabbi Akiva disagreed concerning how he roasts its legs and its innards, so Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Tarfon disagreed concerning it.

Rabbi Ishmael’s view: He places the legs and the innards inside the Passover offering, in accordance with the view of Rabbi Yosei the Galilean.

And therefore

Rabbi Ishmael calls it

“tokh tokh”,

that is to say, the sound of the boiling and cooking of the legs and the innards is heard within the Passover offering, like the sound of something being cooked in a pot, which produces a sound heard as “tokh tokh.” [Explained according to our version and according to Rashi’s first interpretation; see in the note his version and Rashi’s second explanation]

Rabbi Tarfon’s view: The legs and the innards are thrust onto the spit, above the lamb’s mouth and head [before he turns them at the time of roasting], and they appear like a hat on the head of the Passover offering.

And therefore

Rabbi Tarfon calls it

“a kid with its weapons displayed”,

for “a copper helmet” is rendered, “a helmet of copper.”

The Sages taught:

Introduction:

We learned above, in the chapter “The Place Where They Followed”: A place where they were accustomed to eat roasted meat on the nights of Passover [nowadays], they eat; a place where they were accustomed not to eat, they do not eat.

And the reason for the custom not to eat roasted meat on the night of Passover is that it appears as though one is eating Passover offerings outside [Rashi].

The Sages prohibited eating roasted meat on the nights of Passover only when it is roasted entirely in the manner that will be explained [according to Rashi].

What is a kid with its weapons displayed, which is prohibited to eat on the nights of Passover nowadays:

Any one which he roasted entirely as one!

But

if a limb was cut off from it,

or if

a limb was boiled

[cooked]

from it, this is not a kid with its weapons displayed.

The Gemara now establishes that this is what it says: If a limb was cut off from it, even if he roasted the kid together with the severed limb, it is not included in the prohibition of a kid with its weapons displayed. And likewise, if a limb was cut off from it and he did not roast it but cooked the kid, it is not a kid with its weapons displayed, and it is permitted to eat it.

And therefore we ask: Why was it necessary to teach, “a limb was boiled from it”?!

For

now one can say: If a limb was cut off from it

and he roasted it,

even though he roasted it together with it

[even though he roasted that limb together with the kid],

you say: It is not

a kid with its weapons displayed, and it is permitted to eat it.

If a limb was cut off from it and was not roasted with it, but

was boiled,

and

is it necessary

for you to say that it is permitted to eat it?!

Said

the interpreter,

Rav Sheshet: What they said in the beraita, “a limb was boiled from it,” does not refer to a limb that was cut off from the Passover offering, since once it was cut off, it was already permitted by the cutting itself.

Rather, the beraita refers to one who

boiled

it

—one of the limbs—

while attached,

and the entire permission is because it was boiled and not roasted—as a Passover offering.

It is prohibited to eat meat that was cooked in a pot because of the blood within it, unless it was first salted with complete salting.

And if one wishes to eat the meat as roasted meat, he gives it light salting, (\8) and roasts it upon the fire, for the fire draws out the blood in the meat.

Rabba said: This stuffed meat

[lambs or chickens which they stuff by filling meat between their flesh and their bones and roast them together]

is permitted,

even if they did not initially give it complete salting, but only light salting, like the salting of roasted meat.

He said

Abaye objected

to him:

how is it permitted to eat it,

but behold

the roasting releases the blood trapped in the meat with which they filled the lamb, and

it absorbs

the lamb, through the heat of the roasting,

blood

that was emitted from the meat?!

He said to him

Rabbah to Abaye:

As it absorbs, so it emits,

just as that blood—which came out of the meat trapped in the lamb—is absorbed into the lamb, so it is emitted from it through the roasting. Just as the heat of the fire emits the blood that was in it, it does not absorb it from elsewhere.

And we explain:

Let us say that it assists him

from our Mishna:

He places its feet and its innards inside it

of the pesach, and roasts them together.

But behold,

what is the reason

that it is permitted, and we are not concerned that the pesach will absorb—through the heat of the roasting—from the blood in the meat of the feet and the innards that they placed inside it?

Is it not because we say: As it absorbs, so it emits,

for even that blood that was absorbed into the pesach from the meat that they placed inside it is emitted. And this is in accordance with Rabbah, who permitted mulyaita?!

They said

the members of the academy rejected [this]: From our Mishna one cannot prove that roasting emits even the blood that was absorbed into it from outside.

For the fact that we are not concerned about the blood absorbed into the pesach from the meat that they placed inside it,

there it is different, since there is a perforated place of slaughter

which is hollow,