Pesachim 94a — the Talmud in English

And also

for Rav Yehuda

who says that the exemption of a distant road depends on the time of eating,

it is not difficult.

There is no difficulty against his words from his position that the exemption of one impure with corpse-impurity depends on the time of slaughter.

For although concerning a distant road the exemption depends on the time of eating, nevertheless concerning impurity it can be proved that the exemption depends on the time of slaughter.

For

one impure with corpse-impurity—

the Torah rejected him—

the Torah disqualified him from making the Passover offering even though he was fit at the time of eating,

as it is written: “Any man who will be impure through a person”.

But

do we not deal

with one impure through a person

whose seventh day falls on the eve of Passover?! [Rav Yehuda holds like Rabbi Yitzhak above, 90b, who expounded from the verse that it is speaking of one impure through a corpse on their seventh day],

and behold, one impure through a person on his seventh day can immerse on that very day and eat from the Passover offering in the evening,

and even so the Torah said that he is to be rejected—

the Torah deferred him to the Second Passover!

And from here we learned that the exemption of impurity does not depend on the time of eating, but rather on the time of slaughter.

The Sages taught:

If he was standing outside Modi'in, and he could enter

by riding

horses and mules

that run quickly,

might he be liable

to karet if he did not reach the Temple courtyard at the time of slaughter?

The verse states: “And he was not on the road”—

and he shall be cut off.

And

if

this one had been on a road

that was distant—for being outside Modi'in is a distant road.

If he was standing within Modi'in,

close to Jerusalem,

and he could not enter because

he had

camels and wagons

on which he was bringing his household, and they were

holding him back

from reaching Jerusalem,

might he not be liable

to karet?

The verse states: “And he was not on the road

and he refrained from making the Passover offering, and that person shall be cut off.”

But he was not on the road—

for he was not compelled, since he could have left his household on the road and gone alone to Jerusalem.

The passage before us discusses how much time there is between dawn and sunrise, and likewise between sunrise and sunset, and likewise between sunset and the emergence of the stars.

The Sages of Israel and the Sages of the nations of the world disagreed concerning the course of the sun.

The view of the Sages of Israel [below, on page 94b] is that during the day the sun travels beneath the firmament [from east to west] and illuminates the earth. But at night the sun travels [returns from west to east] above the firmament. And since the firmament conceals it from our eyes, there is darkness at night.

The passage before us follows the view of the Sages of Israel.

And as for what we see—that even after the sun is concealed from our eyes there is still some light, until after a period of time it becomes completely dark—according to the Sages of Israel this happens because the sun enters into the thickness of the firmament, and the deeper it enters, the darker the day becomes, until it reaches the other side of the firmament, and then it becomes completely dark.

And likewise at dawn, the sun breaks through the thickness of the firmament, until it emerges and becomes visible to our eyes at sunrise [according to the words of Rabbenu Hananel and the Maharsha].

And according to this, the passage before us is to be understood:

Rava said: The world is six thousand parasangs

—the circumference of the world, above and below which the sun travels from east to west beneath the firmament, is six thousand parasangs.

And the thickness of the firmament

—the thickness of the firmament—

is one thousand parasangs

—one thousand parasangs.

And from where did Rava know his statements?

One—

one thing that he said, that the circumference of the world is six thousand parasangs—

tradition

—he received it from his teachers.

And one—

one thing that he said, that the thickness of the firmament is one thousand parasangs—

reasoning

—he learned this through reasoning, from what his teachers taught him, that the circumference of the world is six thousand parasangs.

And from where did Rava reason that the thickness of the firmament is one thousand parasangs?

He applied it

Rava

to this,

like

Rabbah bar bar Hana said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan:

How much does an average person travel

on an average

during the day?—

ten parasangs,

which are forty mil.

And of these forty mil,

from dawn until sunrise there are five mil.

And likewise,

from sunset until the emergence of the stars there are five mil.

It follows that between sunrise and sunset a person travels thirty mil. [40

the journey from dawn until the emergence of the stars. Subtract the five between dawn and sunrise, and subtract the five between sunset and the emergence of the stars; there remain thirty mil].

And we have already explained that beginning at the time of sunset the sun penetrates into the thickness of the firmament until it reaches the end of the thickness of the firmament, and then it becomes completely dark, and that is the time of the emergence of the stars. And likewise from dawn, the sun begins to break through the thickness of the firmament, until it is visible to our eyes at sunrise.

And according to Rabbi Yohanan’s principle, that there is a journey of five mil between dawn and sunrise and between sunset and the emergence of the stars, while between sunrise and sunset there is a journey of thirty mil—and five is one-sixth of thirty—

it follows

that

the thickness of the firmament

is

one-sixth

of the sun’s journey

during the day.

That is, the thickness of the firmament is one-sixth of the circumference that the sun traverses around the world during the day.

And since Rava learned from his teachers that the circumference of the world is six thousand parasangs, he consequently knew through reasoning that the thickness of the firmament is one thousand parasangs, for the thickness of the firmament is one-sixth of the circumference of the world.

It raises an objection,

there is a contradiction to Rava’s words from a beraita:

Rabbi Yehuda says:

The time in which the sun traverses the

thickness of the firmament

is

one-tenth of the day.

You can know—

proof that this is so is that

how much does an average person travel during the day

from dawn until the emergence of the stars?

Ten parasangs,

which are forty mil.

And from dawn until sunrise

he travels

four mil.

And likewise,

from sunset until the emergence of the stars

he travels

four mil.

And since between sunset and the emergence of the stars, and likewise between dawn and sunrise, when the sun traverses the thickness of the firmament, there is a period of a journey of four mil, which are one-tenth of forty mil, which is the journey of a person during the day, it follows that the thickness of the firmament is one-tenth of the circumference of the earth.

And since Rabbi Yehuda said that between dawn and sunrise there is a journey of four mil, and likewise between sunset and the emergence of the stars, it follows that from sunrise until sunset there is a journey of only thirty-two mil. 32 = [4 + 4] subtracted from 40.

And from here

a refutation of Rava.

For according to his words, from dawn until sunrise there is a journey of five mil, and likewise from sunset until the emergence of the stars there are five mil, while between sunrise and sunset there is a journey of thirty mil.

And likewise

a refutation of Ulla,

who said on the previous page that a person travels thirty mil during the day, and from dawn until sunrise there are five mil, and likewise from sunset until the emergence of the stars there are five mil.

And we conclude:

a refutation.

And the Gemara continues:

Let it be said

also

a refutation of Rabbi Yohanan.

Shall we say that there is here also a contradiction to the words of Rabbi Yohanan, for Rabbah bar bar Hana said in his name [above, 93b] that a person’s journey during the day is ten parasangs? And it appears to the Gemara that he added in the name of Rabbi Yohanan that between dawn and sunrise, and likewise between sunset and the emergence of the stars, there is a journey of five mil, and his words are difficult in light of the beraita, which says that the journey is four mil!

He can say to you

Rabbi Yohanan’s answer:

I

Rabbi Yohanan, only

during the daytime did I say.

I spoke only about a person’s journey during the entire day, which is ten parasangs, and I did not explain how much he travels before sunrise and how much after sunset.

And the Rabbis—

Ulla and Rava—

are the ones who erred

They erred in my words and explained on their own that before sunrise and after sunset a person travels five mil, because

they calculated the early and the dark:

they saw that ordinarily people leave their homes at a distance of a journey of five mil before sunrise, and likewise return to their homes at a distance of a journey of five mil after sunset.

But I [Rabbi Yohanan] hold according to the words of Rabbi Yehuda, that there is only a period corresponding to a journey of four mil before sunrise and after sunset. And the people who leave their homes five mil before sunrise rise before dawn. And likewise those who return to their homes five mil after sunset arrive at their homes after the emergence of the stars.

And furthermore, we considered this:

Let it be said

also

a refutation of Rabbi Hanina—

shall we say that there is a contradiction from the beraita to the words of Rabbi Hanina? For Rabbi Hanina said that between Sodom and Zoar there are five mil. And the Torah explains that Lot left Sodom at dawn and arrived at Zoar at sunrise, whereas Rabbi Yehuda said that between dawn and sunrise a person travels four mil!

And we answer:

No.

There is no contradiction to the words of Rabbi Hanina from the beraita. For although from dawn until sunrise a person travels only four mil [as Rabbi Yehuda said in the beraita], nevertheless Lot ran from Sodom to Zoar, as it is stated [Genesis 19

“And they hastened

the angels Lot.” And therefore Lot

is different—

he differed from the ordinary case, for he managed to travel, during the time required to travel four mil, a distance of five mil.

And now the Gemara comes to prove that this is not according to Rava’s words, in what he said, that there are five mil before sunrise and after sunset.

Come and hear

a contradiction from the beraita to Rava’s words, in what he said, that the world is six thousand parasangs:

For we learned in a beraita:

Egypt was four hundred parasangs by four hundred parasangs.

And Egypt

is

one-sixtieth of Cush.

And Cush is one

of

sixty in the world.

And the world

is

one-sixtieth of the Garden.

And the Garden is one-sixtieth of Eden.

And Eden is one-sixtieth of Gehinnom.

It follows that the entire world is like the lid of a pot,

which is a small thing in relation

to Gehinnom.

And from here there is a contradiction to Rava’s words. For when the calculation is made, Egypt is 400400 parasangs, and Cush is sixty times as large, and the world is sixty times as large as Cush; it follows that the world is larger than 6,000 parasangs.

And we conclude:

a refutation.

Come and hear

a contradiction to Rava’s words from another beraita:

For it was taught in the school of Elijah: Rabbi Natan says: The entire inhabited world

—the entire area of the world inhabited by human beings—

sits beneath one star.

You can know

proof of this,

for a person fixes his eye on one star

and sees it standing opposite him.

He walks

the person

eastward,

and he still sees the star

standing opposite him

in the same direction. And likewise when a person walks

to

each of the

four directions of the world,

the star still

stands opposite him

in the same direction.

But if the inhabited area of human beings were larger than a star, then when a person standing in the west sees the star above his head, when he walks eastward he would not see the star above his head, but rather diagonally toward the west.

It follows from this that the entire inhabited world sits beneath one star.

And since every star is as large as the entire inhabited world, and we see that the inhabited world is larger than one thousand parasangs, and there are innumerable stars in the firmament, it follows that the entire world is much larger than six thousand parasangs.

And we conclude: from here

a refutation

of Rava.

Come and hear

a contradiction to Rava’s words from another beraita:

The Wagon—

stars close to one another in a form resembling a wagon [and it is the constellation Taurus]. Rashi]—is found

in the north

of the heavens.

And the Scorpion [

stars close to one another in a form resembling a scorpion]

is in the south

of the heavens.

And the entire inhabited world

the area of the world inhabited by human beings

in its entirety is settled only

in a small area, which is found

between the Wagon and the Scorpion.

For every person sees the Wagon in his north and the Scorpion in his south. [

And the inhabited area is not the measure of the entire area between the Wagon and the Scorpion, for there are many stars between them, and every star is as large as the entire inhabited world. Rashi].

And the entire inhabited world is not present

the sun does not traverse it from its beginning to its end

except for one hour during the day.

to pass from its beginning to its end.

You can know

proof of this,

for

behold,

at the fifth [

at the fifth hour of the day]

the sun is in the east, and at the seventh [

at the seventh hour of the day]

the sun is in the west.

And only from

half

the hour

six and

until half the hour

seven, [

half an hour before midday and half an hour after midday]

the sun stands above every person.

It follows that the inhabited area of the world is one-twelfth of the entire world, for the sun traverses the inhabited area in one hour, which is 1/21 of the entire day.

And if so, the length of the entire world is twelve times the inhabited area, and the inhabited area is larger than one thousand parasangs; it follows that the world is much larger than six thousand parasangs.

And we conclude: from here

a refutation

of Rava.

Come and hear

a contradiction to Rava’s words from the words of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai:

For Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai said:

In Isaiah [14:13] it is said concerning Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, who said in his heart, “I will ascend upon the heights of the cloud; I will become like the Most High.” And Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai asked:

What answer did the divine voice answer that wicked man at the time that he said, “I will ascend upon the heights of the cloud; I will become like the Most High”?

It emerged [

it went out]

a divine voice and said to him: