Shabbat 33a — the Talmud in English

Rava said: For example, these women of Mehoza, ![](pamud.bmp "

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who eat,

who are accustomed to eating and drinking,

and do not work

for their livelihood, and they rob their husbands, and also cause their husbands to rob.

And it is written

in the prophecy of Amos there:

“I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees”,

these

“the locust consumed.”

And

in the prophecy of Joel

it is written: “What remains

what the locust leaves

the locust consumes; what the locust leaves the grasshopper consumes, and what the grasshopper leaves the caterpillar consumes.”

It follows that the locust is only the beginning of the calamity.

And because of the abundance of the species of locust, famine is caused.

And it is written

in Isaiah:

“He shall cut off on the right and be hungry, and he shall eat on the left and not be satisfied; each man shall eat the flesh of his own arm.” Do not read “the flesh of his arm,” but rather “the flesh of his offspring.”

For the sin of delaying judgment,

for even after the judgment had become clear to the judges, they delay it not for the sake of Heaven.

And

for the sin of

distorting judgment,

that is, that they deliberately judge a judgment that is not true.

And

for the sin of

corrupting judgment,

that the judgment became corrupted because they did not examine it properly .

And

for the sin of

neglecting Torah study—

sword and great plunder

[it increases].

And pestilence and famine come. And people eat and are not satisfied. And they eat

their bread by weight. For it is written: “And I will bring upon you a sword avenging the vengeance of the covenant.”

And covenant means nothing other than Torah, as it is stated: “If not for

My covenant, day and night.”

And it is written: “When I break for you the staff of bread, and ten women shall bake.”

And it is written

at the end of the portion of the curses that all these things are punishment because of

“because and because you rejected My judgments,”

and this is the distorting and corrupting of judgment.

For the sin of a vain oath,

that he swears concerning something known not to be so, such as concerning a man that he is a woman,

and a false oath, and desecration of the Name,

a great person who is not careful in his deeds, and through him the Name of Heaven is desecrated,

and desecration of Shabbat—

the punishment for this is:

a wild beast increases, livestock is destroyed, people grow fewer, and the roads become desolate

with no one passing through.

As it is stated: “And if by these you will not be chastised by Me.”

Do not read “by these

[with a tzere]

but “by an oath”

[with a kamatz, and it is the language of an oath].

And it is written: “And I will send the beast of the field among you.”

And concerning a false oath it is written: “And you shall not swear by My Name falsely, and you shall profane the Name of your God.”

And concerning desecration of the Name it is written: “And you shall not desecrate My holy Name.”

And concerning desecration of Shabbat it is written: “Those who desecrate it shall surely be put to death.”

And all these are written in it in the language of “desecration,”

and he derives

by a hekesh

“desecration, desecration” from a false oath,

that the punishments stated concerning a false and vain oath were stated also concerning these.

For the sin of bloodshed, the Temple is destroyed, and the Divine Presence departs from Israel. As it is stated: “And you shall not corrupt

the land in which you are, for the blood corrupts the land.”

“And you shall not defile the land in which you dwell, in which I dwell among you.”

And from this it follows:

indeed, if you defile it—

you will not dwell in it, and I will not dwell among you.

For the sin of forbidden sexual relations, idolatry, and

if

the Sabbatical years and Jubilee years are not released—

exile comes to the world, and

the enemies

exile them, and others come,

these enemies,

and dwell in their place.

As it is stated

in the portion of forbidden sexual relations:

“For all these abominations the people of the land have done

who were before you.”

And it is written: “And the land became defiled—

and I visited its iniquity upon it.”

And it is written

after it:

“And the land shall not vomit you out when you defile it.”

And from here, exile comes to the world for the sin of forbidden sexual relations.

And concerning idolatry it is written

[in the portion of Bechukotai]

“And I will place your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols.” And it is written: “And I will make your sanctuaries desolate.”

And it is written after it:

“And you I will scatter among the nations,”

from here, exile comes for the sin of idolatry.

Concerning the Sabbatical years and Jubilee years it is written: “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days of its desolation, while you are in the land of your enemies

and then the land shall rest and make up for its Sabbaths.”

And it is written: “All the days of its desolation it shall rest.”

For the sin of vulgarity of the mouth, many troubles and harsh decrees are renewed, and the young men of the enemies of Israel

[an expression of sagui nehoro]

die; orphans and widows cry out and are not answered.

As it is stated: “Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over its young men, and He will not have mercy upon its orphans and its widows,”

and this is because of

“for every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks vulgarity”; despite all this, His anger has not turned back, and His hand is still outstretched.

What is “and His hand is still outstretched”

that he says?

Rav Hanan bar Rava said: “Everyone knows why a bride enters the wedding canopy,

and there is no need to explain.

Rather, anyone who makes his mouth vulgar

in this matter,

even if a decree for seventy years for good is sealed against him,

because he made his mouth vulgar,

they turn it against him

his decree

for evil.

And this is the explanation of “and His hand is still outstretched,” in the sense of “until,” meaning, all the years of a person, which are seventy years, the hand of judgment is outstretched against him to annul his merits because of the sin of vulgarity of the mouth.

Rabba bar Sheila said that Rav Hisda said: Anyone who makes his mouth vulgar,

his punishment is that

they deepen Gehenna for him, as it is stated: “A deep pit”

prepared for

“the mouth of strangers,”

for the mouth that speaks strange things.

Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak said: Even

one who

hears and remains silent

is also punished.

As it is stated: “The one abhorred by the Lord will fall there,”

the one who sits there and remains silent is abhorred by the Lord.

Rav Oshaya said: Anyone who clears himself

who becomes free from his other affairs

for a transgression, boils and wounds emerge upon him—

on his body.

As it is stated: “A wound of a boil, a polishing in evil”—

for one who polishes himself in evil.

And furthermore, he is judged with

the illness of

hydrocele.

As it is stated

at the continuation of the verse:

“And blows of the chambers of the belly.”

Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak said: A sign of a transgression,

through the transgression comes

hydrocele

[from illness].

The Sages taught: There are three types of hydrocele:

This one that is

from a transgression

is

thick,

that is, his flesh becomes hard, thick, and swollen in thickness.

And

this one that is

from famine,

it is

swollen,

there is pus in it.

And this one that is from

sorcery is thin,

his flesh is thin and emaciated.

The younger Shmuel suffered from it—

from hydrocele.

He said: Master of the world! Who can cast lots?

Who can cast a lot to distinguish and announce that this hydrocele is not from a transgression?

He was healed,

he recovered from his illness.

Rava said: I know about

Abaye, who was called

Nahmani

[because he was raised in the house of Rabba bar Nahmani] that the hydrocele came upon him because

they gathered themselves

that is, because of the famine.

Rava suffered from it

from hydrocele.

And we raise an objection: And why did he suffer from it?

But it was Rava who said: There are more killed by the delaying of bodily openings

many are those killed because of delaying bodily openings

than by those swollen from hunger,

from those who die because of famine. For since Rava held that delaying bodily openings causes this, surely he himself would not have delayed his bodily openings. And from what Rava said, “I know about Nahmani,” that he certainly did not starve himself, it follows that this matter was bad in his eyes; and if so, why did he become ill with hydrocele?

And we answer:

Rava is different, for the Sages forced him in his time,

those who were before him caused him to delay his bodily openings when he needed to do so,

against his will.

The Sages taught: There are four signs.

A sign of a transgression—

hydrocele.

A sign of baseless hatred—

mildew.

A sign of arrogance—

poverty.

A sign of evil speech—

diphtheria,

an illness that begins in the intestines and ends in the throat.