Pesachim 85b (פה:) — the Talmud in English

We now explain the law concerning one who removes the Paschal offering from one group to another:

And one who removes the meat of the Paschal offering

from one group to another

within one house,

from where

do we learn that this is prohibited?

And we explain:

as it was taught in a beraita:

It is written:

“You shall not take any of the meat outside from the house.”

I have derived

from the verse

only

that one who removes the meat of the Paschal offering

from a house

in which the group eats

to a house

other; but

from one group to another

within the same house,

from where?

The verse states: “outside,”

to teach you that one may not remove the meat

outside the

group of

its eating [Rashi].

Rabbi Ami said: One who removes the meat of the Paschal offering from one group to another

is

not liable

to receive lashes

until he places down

the meat after removing it.

And the reason is:

The term “removal”

is written with regard to it [not “you shall remove”]

not merely “you shall take out

as with Shabbat,

as it is stated concerning the labor of removal from a private domain to a public domain: “Let no man go out from his place on the seventh day,” which means, “Let him not remove” [Tosafot].

And since this is so, we derive:

Just as with Shabbat, liability applies only once he performs both uprooting and placing down, so here too, liability applies only once he performs both uprooting and placing down.

And since this is so, we derive:

Rabbi Abba bar Memel raised an objection

to Rabbi Ami’s statement from the Mishna that we learned in tractate Zevaḥim:

-]]The bulls that are burned and the goats that are burned [for example, the bull and goat of Yom Kippur, the bull of the anointed priest, and the bull for an unwitting communal decision, which are burned outside the three camps]—

were carried [that is, transported]

they

on poles

to outside the three camps in order to burn them.

If

the front ones

at the front of the pole

went outside the wall of the Temple courtyard [which is the first camp],

which is the first camp,

and

the rear ones still

had not gone out,

their law is:

The front ones render the garments they are wearing impure

and require immersion, for the Torah states: “The one who burns them shall wash his garments.” And in tractate Yoma we derive from the verse, “He shall take it outside the camp” [in the singular] “and burn it,” that as soon as they have gone outside the wall of the Temple courtyard, which is the first camp, they already render garments impure.

But

if

the rear ones,

which had not yet gone outside the wall of the Temple courtyard,

do not render the garments impure

that they are wearing.

And now this is difficult for Rabbi Ami: Since you say that wherever the Torah uses the term “removal,” the law of removal is like the removal of Shabbat, for which uprooting and placing down are required, here too, since the verse says, “He shall take it outside the camp,” according to Rabbi Ami’s statement one should be required to wash his garments only once he has performed uprooting and placing down.

But

in the case discussed in the Mishna,

it was not placed down

the bull when the front ones were taken outside the wall of the Temple courtyard. For they were still carrying the bull outside the three camps; why, then, are they required to wash their garments?!

He,

Rabbi Abba bar Memel,

raised this objection

to Rabbi Ami from this Mishna,

and he

also

resolves it

answering his own objection: Here we are dealing

with the animals being dragged,

the bulls along the ground, which constitutes placing down; therefore, they render the garments impure.

Mishna:

A limb

of the Paschal offering

part of which went out

outside the wall of Jerusalem, and became disqualified as yotze.

he

cuts,

making an incision in the meat at the point where it went out,

until he reaches the bone.

And he peels

the meat

until he reaches the joint [the place where the bones join one another].

the meat

And he cuts

there, the sinews that connect the bone.

However, at the boundary of the area where it went out, he may not break the bone, because of the prohibition against breaking a bone of the Paschal offering [this Mishna was already mentioned above, on page 85a, and explained there].

But

if a limb

of

other

consecrated offerings

part of which went out beyond its boundary [sacred offerings of the most sacred order beyond the Temple courtyard, and offerings of lesser sanctity beyond the wall of Jerusalem], he

cuts off

the part of the limb that went out

with a cleaver,

at the line separating the part of the bone that went out from the part that remained inside, because

this does not involve the prohibition against breaking a bone.

And our Mishna explains the law of the wall of the city of Jerusalem with regard to eating the Paschal offering and offerings of lesser sanctity:

The wall of the city of Jerusalem was thick, and its gates had doors that stood within the thickness of the wall.

The thickness of the gateway was divided into three areas.

a. The area in which the door is located [when it is closed], extending to the place where the door knocks against the frame surrounding it.

This area is called the “agaf.”

b. The area from the beginning of the edge of the thickness of the opening in the wall on the side facing the city of Jerusalem, up to the place where the door is located, is called “from the agaf inward.”

c. The area from the point where the door knocks against the frame to the outer end of the thickness of the opening in the wall, on the side facing outside the city of Jerusalem, is called “from the agaf outward.”

The law of the opening in the wall is:

From the agaf

of the opening in the wall of the city of Jerusalem,

and inward,

toward the city—it is

considered inside

the city, and one may eat the Paschal offering and offerings of lesser sanctity there.

But the thickness of the opening that is

from the agaf outward—

it is

considered outside

the city, and one may not eat there [and there is no distinction between whether the door was open or locked].

The law of the agaf itself will be explained in the Gemara.

The area of

the windows

in the thickness of the wall of Jerusalem,

and the thickness

of the wall [on top of the wall], is

considered inside

the city, and one may eat offerings of lesser sanctity there.

Gemara:

Rav Yehuda said that Rav said:

Just as the Mishna distinguished the law of the opening with regard to eating offerings—that from the agaf inward it is considered inside, and from the agaf outward it is considered outside [Meiri; see Rashi],

so

it is likewise with regard to joining together to form a quorum

for prayer.

If nine stood inside the house, and the tenth stood from the agaf inward, he is considered inside and joins them to complete the quorum, since he too is inside the house. But if he stood outside the agaf [even when the door was open], he does not join them.

And this

disagrees with Rav’s statement, who holds that from the agaf outward it is considered outside,

with the opinion of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi.

For Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Even an iron partition does not separate between Israel and their Father in Heaven!

That is, there is no separation before the Omnipresent; everything is revealed and known before Him, and nothing is concealed from Him.

Therefore, even if an iron partition separated the ten joining together for prayer, this is not considered a separation, and they join together.

According to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi’s method, even those standing from the agaf outward join them [Meiri].

And now we explain what we learned in the Mishna: From the agaf inward it is considered inside; from the agaf outward it is considered outside:

And we challenge this:

This itself is difficult [the Mishna appears to contradict itself]:

because the Mishna appears to contradict itself:

In the first clause,

you said: “From the agaf inward it is considered inside,”

and one may infer:

this means that

the interior of the

agaf itself is considered outside.

But

say the latter clause: “From the agaf outward it is considered outside,”

and one may infer the opposite:

this means that

the interior of the

agaf itself is considered inside?!

And we answer:

This is not difficult: here, it is referring to the gates of the Temple courtyard;

here, it is referring to the gates of Jerusalem.

At the gates of the Temple courtyard, the interior of the agaf was sanctified and is considered inside [apart from the Gate of Nicanor, whose interior of the agaf was not sanctified, as explained in the Gemara below; Rashi], as we inferred from the latter clause of the Mishna.

At the gates of Jerusalem, even the agaf itself was not sanctified and is considered outside, as we inferred from the first clause of the Mishna. [

see another explanation of Rashi’s words in the Gemara’s resolution in the note ].

And

as Rabbi Shmuel bar Rav Yitzḥak said: Why were the gates of Jerusalem not sanctified

when the windows and the thickness of the wall are considered inside, according to Rashi in the Mishna?

Because lepers—

who are sent outside the three camps, and are forbidden to enter Jerusalem—sit there and

shelter beneath them from the sun during the sun and from the rain during the rain;

if they had been sanctified with the sanctity of Jerusalem, it would have been forbidden for the lepers to sit in the area of the thickness of the gateways.

And

furthermore,

Rabbi Shmuel bar Rav Yitzḥak said: Why was the Nicanor Gate not sanctified

[the eastern gate of the Temple courtyard]?

Because lepers

on the eighth day of their purification—when they are still lacking atonement and are forbidden to enter the Temple courtyard—

would stand there and insert the thumbs of their hands

into the Temple courtyard, so that some of the blood of the leper’s guilt-offering could be placed upon them.

Rav said: Roofs and upper chambers

of Jerusalem, with regard to the sanctity of Jerusalem for lesser sanctified offerings, and of the Temple courtyard, with regard to the sanctity of the courtyard for most holy offerings,

were not sanctified.

And we challenge this:

Is that so? But Rav said

himself

in the name of Rabbi Ḥiyya:

Large groups would register for a single Paschal offering, so that each person would receive only

a kezayit of the Paschal offering

[an olive-bulk of the Paschal offering];

and the Hallel split the roof

[the Hallel was splitting the roof], meaning: Because of the tumult of the multitude—who stood on the roofs and recited the Hallel over the Paschal offering, which requires Hallel when it is eaten—it appeared as though the roofs were splitting.