Pesachim 89b — the Talmud in English

Mishna:

If one associates another person with him in his portion.

One of the members of the group sharing ownership of the Paschal offering went and associated another person with himself, relying on the fact that he had a share in the offering.

The members of the group are permitted

to separate from him

and give him his portion.

And he eats his own portion

together with the other person whom he associated with his portion.

And they eat their own portion,

as a separate group of their own.

The tanna of our Mishna holds that one Paschal offering may be divided between two groups [as in the anonymous Mishna above, on page 86a, and unlike Rabbi Shimon in the beraita there].

Gemara:

They raised a question: If, among the members of a group, one of them had hands that were generous,

meaning that he was a glutton who hurried to grab and eat a great deal; the tanna expressed this in refined language.

What is the law as to whether they may say to him,

meaning, may the other members of the group say to him:

“Take your portion

equal to the amount that each of the other members of the group eats

and leave!”

The two sides of the question are:

Do we say

that:

He can say to them, “You accepted me”—

he can say to them: You accepted me as I am, with the understanding that I would eat to the full extent of my appetite, in return for the money that I paid to join you.

Or perhaps

maybe

they can say to him

that:

When we accepted you, it was to improve the slaughter.

Our accepting you as a participant was for the benefit of the offering, since all of it must be eaten that night; and in order not to leave any of the Paschal meat over, we joined you to the group, estimating you as eating the amount eaten by most people.

But

with the understanding that you would eat more than we do,

if we had known that you would eat more than we eat—

we would not have accepted you,

we would not have accepted you.

Come and hear a proof

from what we learned in our Mishna:

“If one associates others with himself in his portion, the members of the group are permitted to give him his portion, and he eats his portion while they eat their portion.”

What is the reason

that the members of the group are permitted to give him his portion?

Is it not

because

it is like one of them having generous hands?

Just as one whose hands are generous eats more than the other members of the group, so too, one who associates others with himself in his portion causes the two of them together to eat from his portion more than any other individual in the group.

And if it enters your mind

to say that

“if one of them had

generous

hands”

one of the members of the group

“had generous hands,”

he can say to them

he can say to them:

“You accepted me.”

If so, in our Mishna as well, when one associates another person with himself in his portion—

let this person be

the one who associates the other person with himself in his portion

like one whose “hands are generous”!

Since the Mishna says that when he associates another person with himself in his portion, the members of the group may tell him to leave, it follows that the same law should apply to one whose hands are generous.

The Sages said

in order to reject the proof:

No.

The reason in our Mishna, in the case of one who associates others with himself, is not that he causes the two of them to eat an excessive amount.

Rather, it is because the members of the group do not want many people to participate in the meal, since having many people leads to many opinions, and they may delay the meal in this way.

Opinions are different

this matter differs from excessive eating.

For even if

the one who associates another person with himself, together with the person whom he associated,

both of them

eat together only

the

amount eaten by

one member of the group,

and they do not cause excessive eating, nevertheless

they can say to him,

the other members of the group can say to the one who associated the other person:

“We do not want a stranger among us.”

We are uncomfortable having an unfamiliar person with us.

The Gemara brings another proof to resolve the question:

Come and hear a proof:

We learned in a beraita:

An attendant who ate an olive-bulk of meat beside the oven

before serving the meat to the members of the group at the place where they were sitting—is prohibited from continuing to eat where the members of the group are sitting. Rather, he must remain in his place and finish eating the Paschal meat there, because one may not eat the Paschal offering in two places.

And

if he was intelligent,

he fills his stomach with it

from the meat, in the place where he is standing.

And

if the members of the group wished to do him a kindness

before they began eating at the place where they were sitting,

they come, sit beside him, and eat; these are the words of Rabbi Yehuda,

who holds that one may not eat the Paschal offering in two places [whereas Rabbi Shimon permits it, above, on page 86a].

And we infer from the beraita:

“They wished”

the members of the group wished to do him a kindness—

yes.

And this implies that if

“they did not wish, no,”

they do not do so.

From the words of the beraita we learn that the members of the group may say to the attendant, “We did not accept you with the understanding that we would exert ourselves for you.”

And why?

Let him say to them: “You accepted me!”

Let the attendant say to the members of the group: You accepted me as I am, with all the needs I have!

Rather, it must necessarily be that he cannot say, “You accepted me”; and likewise, one whose hands are generous cannot say, “You accepted me.”

And the Gemara rejects this:

The case there is different,

the case of the attendant is different because

the other members say to him

the other members of the group:

“When we accepted you,

our accepting you was

with the understanding that you would serve us,”

with the understanding that we would make you stand before us and serve us. But

that we would exert ourselves for you,

that we would exert ourselves on your behalf,

we did not accept you for that.”

This is not so in the case of one whose hands are generous. The other members of the group could not know how he customarily eats; they should have investigated whether he was a glutton, and since they did not investigate, it is clear that they accepted all the food he would eat upon themselves.

Come and hear a proof:

We learned in a tosefta:

“If, among the members of a group, one of them had generous hands, they are permitted to say, ‘Take your portion and leave.’ And furthermore, even if

there were

five

people

who made a joint meal,

a shared meal during the rest of the year, and one of them had generous hands,

they are permitted

the other four

to say to him: ‘Take your portion and leave’” [as will be explained below].

This is explained below.

This beraita explicitly says that, when one of them has generous hands, they are permitted to tell him to leave. Therefore we conclude:

Infer from this

that this is indeed the law.

The Gemara now returns to explain the end of the beraita: “And furthermore, even if five made a joint meal, they are permitted to say to him, ‘Take your portion and leave.’”

And we ask:

“What is the meaning of ‘and furthermore’?”

Why is the statement concerning a joint meal a greater novelty than the statement concerning a group formed for the Paschal offering?

And we answer:

“It says, ‘Not only”

not only that

“it says”:

“Not only the Paschal offering,”

it is unnecessary to say that, in the case of the Paschal offering, the members of the group may say to him, “Take your portion.” This is because

they can say to him

the members of the group can say to the glutton:

“When we accepted you—

it was to improve the slaughter!”

When we accepted you, our intention was to improve the offering, so that no leftover meat would remain; we needed the amount eaten by one ordinary person, and no more.

But even a joint meal as well, since it is merely companionship,

meaning that they all joined one meal out of affection and friendship, and one might have said that, because of their affection and friendship, they accepted him upon themselves to eat as much as he was able.

Even so,

they are permitted to say to him, “Take your portion and leave.”

They accepted him only to the extent eaten by most people.

Some say: “This”,

referring to members of a group among whom one had generous hands—

was not our question.

In that case, it is obvious that they may say to him, “Take your portion and leave.”

Rather, this is what we asked:

whether

the members of the group are permitted to divide

the Paschal offering and give each person his portion,

or are not permitted to divide it,

but must eat it together.

Come and hear a proof:

It was taught in a tosefta:

“If, among the members of a group, one of them had generous hands, they are permitted to say to him, ‘Take your portion and leave.’”

Since the beraita spoke specifically of a case where one of them had generous hands, and did not speak of every person, it implies: if he had

generous hands, yes,

they are permitted to say to him, “Take your portion and leave.” But if

he did not have generous hands, no.

And we conclude:

Infer from this

that the members of a group are not permitted to divide among themselves.

Rav Pappa and Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, combined their bread with each other.

They joined together and combined their meals.

By the time

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, had eaten

one

loaf of bread,

Rav Pappa had eaten four.

He said to him,

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, said to Rav Pappa:

“Divide it for me,”

give me my portion.

Rav Pappa said to him: “You accepted me,”

you accepted me as I am, with the way I eat.

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, raised against him

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, raised against Rav Pappa

all these refutations,

all the questions raised above against the reasoning that one can say, “You accepted me”:

A. From our Mishna, which says that, when one associates others with himself in his portion, the members of the group are permitted to give him his portion. He cannot say, “You accepted me.”

B. The attendant who ate an olive-bulk of meat beside the oven: only if they wish do they do him a kindness, and the attendant cannot say, “You accepted me.”

And he answered,

Rav Pappa answered him

as we answered

as we answered above.

And again

he raised an objection

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, raised an objection to Rav Pappa from the beraita:

“The members of a group

who had one member with generous hands are permitted to say, ‘Take what is yours and leave.’”

He said to him,

Rav Pappa said

“There,”

the reason in that beraita is because

they say to him

the members of the group say to the glutton:

“When we accepted you, it was to improve the slaughter.” But you joined me in an optional meal out of companionship and friendship, and you wanted to eat with me as companions; therefore, you accepted upon yourself all of my eating.

But you joined me in an optional meal out of companionship and friendship, and you wanted to eat with me as companions; therefore, you accepted upon yourself all of my eating.

And again

he raised an objection

Rav Huna raised an objection from the end of the beraita: “And furthermore, even if five made

a joint meal

a shared meal, they are permitted to say to him, ‘Take your portion and leave.’”

Rav Pappa reconsidered,

and divided it for him,

giving Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, his portion.

He went,

Rav Huna went,

and combined his meal with Ravina.

He joined Ravina for a meal.

By the time Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, had eaten one

loaf,

Ravina had eaten eight

[eight].

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, said:

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, said:

“One hundred Pappas,”

it is preferable to join a meal with one hundred people like Rav Pappa

and not

to join a meal with

one Ravina.”

The Sages taught: “If one associates others with himself in his Paschal offering”—

a person who designated a lamb as a Paschal offering and then associated additional people with his offering in return for payment, which they gave him from money they had set aside to purchase a Paschal offering.

And

likewise, one who associates others

with his festival offering

meaning that he associated them with a lamb he had consecrated as a peace-offering for the Festival, which they would bring on the eve of Passover on behalf of all those registered for it, so that they could eat the Paschal offering when already satisfied—

the money in his possession,

which those people paid him in order to join him, is transferred to the offering with which he associated them, and the money

becomes unconsecrated.

Even though the person who associated them had already consecrated the lamb as his Paschal offering, nevertheless, now that they have joined the Paschal offering or the festival offering, the money is transferred to it and becomes unconsecrated. The Gemara below explains the reason for this.

And one who sells his burnt-offering or peace-offerings,

if, after he had already consecrated an animal to offer as a burnt-offering or peace-offering, he sold it so that another person could achieve atonement through it—

has accomplished nothing.

A person’s burnt-offering cannot be offered to achieve another person’s atonement; it may be offered only so that its original owners will achieve atonement through it.

And the money

that the purchaser paid for the burnt-offering or peace-offerings,

whatever its amount,

any price that he paid, even if the purchaser paid more than the animal’s value—

shall be used for a voluntary offering.

It is placed in the collection boxes [containers shaped like a horn, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top] that were in the Temple; offerings called “the public’s voluntary burnt-offerings” were brought from this money when the altar was inactive, when there was nothing else to offer on it. And we ask:

But since he has accomplished nothing,

the money

that the purchaser gave

why should it be used for a voluntary offering?

Rava said

in answer:

It is a penalty.

The Sages penalized the purchaser so that he would not again purchase someone else’s burnt-offering or peace-offerings in order to achieve atonement through them.

And we ask:

And what

is the meaning of the money

“whatever its amount,”

what is the tanna teaching us by this?

And we answer:

Even though

the burnt-offering and the peace-offerings

were not worth

[were not worth]

more than four

dinars,

and they gave him

in payment for them

five,

even the extra amount,

even the additional fifth dinar,

was also included in the penalty.

Do not say that the purchaser gave the fifth dinar to the seller merely as a gift and not as payment for the purchase, since the burnt-offering and peace-offerings were worth only four; and therefore he should not be penalized for that amount. The tanna therefore teaches us that this amount, too, is included in the penalty.

Ulla said, and some say

said this

Rabbi Oshaya [

both were from the Land of Israel]:

Is it possible that our Babylonian colleagues know

would that our Babylonian colleagues know

the reason for this matter,

the reason for this matter, and inform us of it: for they taught in a beraita: “One who appoints others with him for his Pesach offering and for his festival offering—the money in his possession is non-sacred.” And why did they say this? For

this one

who appoints

designated a lamb for his Pesach offering. And this one

who was appointed with him

had designated

previously

the money for his Pesach offering.

And if so,

how,

how did the

consecration

that was in the money

take effect

become profaned

upon

the lamb, which also was

consecrated?

For the profanation of consecrated money is possible only if the purchaser had given money for a non-sacred animal, in which case the sanctity in the money would become profaned upon a non-sacred animal, and the money would become non-sacred.

But here, since the animal had already been consecrated previously for the sake of Pesach, where did the sanctity that was in the money go?

And since this is so, what is the reason for the matter

that it teaches: “the money in his possession is non-sacred”?