Shekalim 3a (ג.) — the Talmud in English

Rather, one who writes a document in

the first Adar

writes simply “Adar”

without qualification.

But in the second Adar

he writes “Adar”

the second

[sheni].

We learned in our Mishna: “And on the fifteenth of it”

they repair the roads, the streets, and the ritual baths, and they attend to all the needs of the public.

The Meiri wrote: Since this time was close to the end of the year, the court would examine and investigate these matters, in order to hasten and expedite their completion, so that the year would end together with its punishments.

The Gemara now cites a Tosefta in tractate Moed Katan, which discusses the permissibility of performing labor during the Festival for the needs of the public.

The beraita there specifies what constitutes the needs of the public, and from it we learn here what the needs of the public mentioned in our Mishna are that must be attended to on the fifteenth of Adar.

According to the Gra, the beraita was not cited to say that all the needs of the public must be attended to on the fifteenth of Adar if they had not been attended to earlier, since the Tosefta’s ruling applies only to Chol HaMoed.

Rather, this beraita was cited only to raise an objection concerning the law of marking graves and uprooting diverse kinds.

It was taught:

These are the needs of the public:

They judge cases of monetary law and capital cases,

and

cases involving lashes.

They redeem consecrated valuations, things devoted to the Temple, and consecrated property.

They give the sota to drink,

who secluded herself with another man after her husband warned her not to seclude herself with him.

And they burn the cow,

the red cow, in order to prepare from its ashes the water of purification.

And they decapitate the heifer whose neck is broken

if a slain person is found near a city.

And they bore the ear of a Hebrew slave,

who loves his master and does not wish to leave after six years.

And they purify the leper.

All these things are also performed during the rest of the year. But if it happens that the judgment, the boring of the slave’s ear, the decapitation of the heifer, or something similar is delayed, it may not be postponed any further; rather, it is performed on the fifteenth of Adar.

And they remove the shoe from the shoemaker’s last,

which is the mold upon which the shoe is placed so that it will assume its shape.

But they do not put it back

on the last.

This law concerning the shoe has no connection at all with the needs of the public. Rather, it is a continuation of the beraita there, which deals with the permissibility of labor during Chol HaMoed.

After the beraita explained that labor is permitted for the needs of the public, it added that during Chol HaMoed it is permitted to remove a shoe from the last.

We learned in our Mishna: “And on the fifteenth of it … they mark the graves.” And we raised a difficulty:

There

there,

we learned

at the beginning of tractate Moed Katan, concerning Chol HaMoed:

They irrigate

during Chol HaMoed

the irrigated field

[a field situated on a mountain, where the rain does not remain but runs downward, so it must always be irrigated]. Since, if it is not irrigated, the owner will suffer a great loss, the Sages permitted exertion on Chol HaMoed in a matter involving loss.

And they mark the graves,

to indicate during the Festival that a corpse is located there.

But why did they need to mark graves whose markings had been erased by the rain during the intermediate days of Passover?

And

had they not already marked

the graves

in Adar,

as we learned in the Mishna, that on the fifteenth of Adar they mark the graves?

And he answered:

It can be resolved

[you must explain that it concerns] a case in which

a torrent of rain fell

after they had marked them with lime in Adar,

and washed away

the marking. In such a case they permitted marking them again even during Chol HaMoed.

We also learned there later in the Mishna:

And they go out

during Chol HaMoed

also concerning diverse kinds.

And we ask:

Had they not already gone out

to gather the diverse kinds

in Adar,

as explicitly stated in our Mishna? Why, then, did they need to go out again during the Festival? And we answer:

It can be resolved

that it concerns a time

when the year was late

[delayed], so that the seeds were late in sprouting,

and the plants were not discernible

yet on the fifteenth of Adar.

In such a case, they go out concerning diverse kinds during the Festival.

From where

is there an allusion in the Torah

to the marking

of graves?

Rabbi Berekhya

said:

Rabbi Yaakov bar bar Yaakov said in the name of Rabbi Hunya of Beit Havorin.

Rabbi Yose said it

in the name of

Rabbi Yaakov, son of Rav Aḥa, in the name of Rabbi Hunya of Beit Havorin, and Rabbi Uziya, son of Rav Neḥunya of Beit Havoran:

It is written concerning the leper who is sent outside the camp [Leviticus 13]:

“He is impure, he is impure, he shall call out,”

so that the impurity will call to you with its own voice

and announce itself,

saying to you: Keep away

from me!

The impurity calls out by means of marking the graves, for then a person notices it and keeps away.

Rabbi Ila in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman

said: From here: It is written [Ezekiel 39]:

“The passersby will pass through the land, and when one sees a human bone, he shall build a marker beside it.”

For in the future Israel will make markers on the bones of the corpses cast about.

Thus, a marker must be built over a human bone.

And we expound this verse:

“Bone”

from here that they mark bones

[when they contain a quarter-kav, or when they constitute the majority of the structure and the majority of the number of a person’s bones. With less than this, they do not impart impurity through a tent, and no marking is required].

“Human”

from here that they mark a spine and a skull,

which impart impurity through a tent when they are intact, even though each is only a single bone.

“He shall build”

implies that it must be joined together like a building.

From here that they mark upon a fixed stone,

placing a stone over the impurity and marking the stone with lime, excluding a case in which one places a detached stone that can roll away.

For

if you say

[you say] that they also mark

upon a detached stone,

then

it too will move

and roll away

and impart impurity to another place.

People will say that the impurity is located there and will render pure objects impure there unlawfully; and they will purify objects located at the actual site of the impurity, since the marker has been removed, not knowing that a corpse is there.

“Beside it”

means that the marker is not placed directly over the impurity itself, but near the impurity,

in a place of purity

[as we derive from the fact that it says “he shall build beside it,” rather than “he shall build upon it”].

The reason is explained in tractate Moed Katan [5b]: this is done so as not to cause the loss of pure objects. If the marker were placed directly over the grave, it would not be noticed from a distance. Sometimes, by the time people saw the marker, they would already have passed over it and formed a tent over it.

Therefore, they mark near the site of the impurity. In this way, the marker causes a person to pause in his walking, and he does not come to contract impurity through a tent.

“A marker”

from here that there is a marker,

with which graves are signaled and marked.

It was taught:

If one finds a single marked stone,

he must be concerned that there is impurity beneath it.

Even though this is not the established practice,

to place a stone over the impurity—for we learned that the marker is not built over the impurity but only near it, around it, in a place of purity—nevertheless, since there is only a single stone here, it must be that this marker was built over the impurity and not around it.

Therefore,

one who forms a tent over it is impure.

For

I say: A corpse was placed beneath it,

as explained.

But if

there were two

stones, with a space between them, we say that the stones were placed around the corpse, and the impurity is between them. Therefore,

one who forms a tent over them is pure. And one who forms a tent

over

the space between them is impure.

However,

if

one finds two marked stones but

there was

plowing in between

[the field between the stones had been plowed], it is certain that the corpse was not placed in this space, since one does not plow a place in which a corpse is buried.

Therefore,

they are like

stones

standing alone,

so that we treat each stone as an individual stone, and again say that it is more likely that the impurity lies beneath it. One who forms a tent

between them is pure,

whereas one who forms a tent

around them,

in the place of the stones, is

impure.

It was taught: They do not mark

with a marker

upon flesh

of a corpse, even if it contains an olive-bulk, because

perhaps

the

flesh

has already decomposed to less than an olive-bulk, in which case there is no impurity here. For the flesh of a corpse does not impart impurity through a tent when it is less than an olive-bulk.

Rabbi Yusta bar Shunam asked

[challenged]

before Rabbi Mana:

Why do they not mark the flesh?

And

why

will he not thereby render pure objects impure retroactively!?

For as long as the flesh has not decomposed, it imparts impurity through a tent. If it has no marker, then, before the flesh decomposes, one who passes there will lose the pure objects he carries with him, since he does not know that impurity is present there.

And he answered:

He would be better off suffering damage from it

temporarily,

during the short period until the flesh decomposes,

than

having a marker erected there, through which

he would suffer damage from it forever.

For one who sees it will assume that impurity is still there, and they will needlessly burn any consecrated objects that accidentally or unknowingly pass over it.

Halakha 2 – Mishna:

Rabbi Yehuda said: At first,

when the agents of the court went out to uproot diverse kinds in the fields,

they would uproot

the diverse kinds

and throw them

beside the owners of the fields,

before them,

so that they would be embarrassed.

When transgressors became numerous

[the Gemara explains], they stopped throwing them before the owners. Rather,

they would throw

the uprooted diverse kinds

onto the roads.

Afterward,

they instituted that they would declare the entire field ownerless,

by virtue of the principle that the ownerlessness declared by a court is valid ownerlessness. The Gemara will explain the reason for these enactments.

The Tur and the Beit Yosef disagree in Choshen Mishpat 273 as to whether the court had to actively declare each field ownerless, or whether this was an enactment of the Sages that these fields would automatically become ownerless.

Gemara:

We learned in our Mishna:

Rabbi Yehuda said

that at first they would uproot them.

It was taught: Rabbi Yehuda said: At first the

agents of the court

would uproot

the diverse kinds

and throw them before the owners.

And

the owners

would rejoice with two joys.

One—

they would weed their fields,

for by removing the diverse kinds the field was weeded automatically.

And one—

they would benefit from the diverse kinds

that had been uprooted and thrown into their fields, for they would give them to their animals.

When transgressors became numerous, they would

the agents of the court

throw

the uprooted plants

onto the roads,

so that the owners would suffer a loss and would not benefit from them.

Even so, they would

the owners

rejoice

in this,

because they would weed their fields.

Therefore,

they instituted that

the agents of the court

would declare the entire field ownerless.

The owners would then no longer profit from the diverse kinds.

The Gemara now explains the basis of the law of ownerlessness declared by a court:

From where do we know that the ownerlessness declared by a court

is

valid ownerlessness?

As it is stated in the Book of Ezra:

“And whoever does not come within three days, in accordance with the counsel of the officers and the elders,

all his property shall be destroyed, and he shall be separated from the congregation of the exile.”

Thus, Ezra and his court had the power to declare ownerless all the property of a person who violated their instructions. From here we learn that ownerlessness declared by a court is valid ownerlessness.

And we raise a difficulty:

From where do we know that it is exempt from tithes?

For we derive from a verse that property made completely ownerless by its owners is exempt from tithes. The Gemara asks whether property made ownerless through the declaration of a court is likewise completely ownerless, even to exempt it from tithes; or whether a court has the power only to remove the owners’ rights, but not the rights of the Levites, in which case it remains liable for tithes.

And we say:

Rabbi Yonatan, son of Rav Yitzḥak bar Aḥa, heard proof

[that ownerlessness declared by a court is exempt from tithes]

from this

beraita.

As it was taught:

One may not intercalate the year

by adding a second Adar

neither in

the year

of the Sabbatical year,

because intercalating the year would extend the prohibition against working the land by an additional month, and everyone would take possession of the growth that sprouted on its own, since produce and grain would not readily be available to them, and they would find no grain from which to bring the omer offering and the two loaves.

And

likewise,

one may not

intercalate the year

in the year following the Sabbatical year,

which is the first year in the count of the next Sabbatical cycle, for the reason that will be explained below.

But if they intercalated it,

it is an intercalated year.

Rabbi Yonatan infers from this halakha that if the court intercalated the Sabbatical year, it is intercalated, even though in principle it should not be intercalated:

And

why would that

one month that

[the court]

adds

in the Sabbatical year

not be exempt from tithes,

like all produce of the Sabbatical year, which is ownerless?

It is certainly exempt from tithes, even though the produce of this month was made ownerless only through the court’s declaration when it intercalated the year.

This proves that even ownerlessness declared by a court is exempt from tithes.

The later authorities disagree as to whether the owners of Sabbatical-year produce must declare it ownerless, or whether it is automatically removed from their ownership by virtue of afke'ata de-Malkha, “the King’s removal of ownership,” whereby the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded that the produce should automatically be ownerless.

The Afikei Yam, in Part 2, section 25, challenged the Beit Yosef, who holds that the produce is not automatically ownerless, from this passage:

According to him, what is the Gemara’s proof that ownerlessness declared by a court is valid ownerlessness? Surely their power cannot be greater than that of a Torah commandment. Their entire power is merely to instruct the owners to declare the produce ownerless, in which case it is obvious that the ownerlessness takes effect, since this is not ownerlessness declared by a court but ownerlessness declared by the owners.

The Gemara now comes to explain the words of the beraita, before returning to discuss this proof:

And we say:

Thus far

[up to this point] we have heard only that the year may not be intercalated

in the Sabbatical year,

because this extends the prohibition against working the land, as explained.

But it still requires explanation: In

the year following the Sabbatical year—

what

is the reason that the year may not be intercalated?

And we answer:

Rabbi

said,

Avun:

In order

not to increase

the prohibition of the new grain.

For the old grain has already been exhausted during the Sabbatical year, and in the eighth year there is only new grain, which is prohibited until the sixteenth of Nisan. If they intercalate the year, they will extend the period during which eating the new grain is prohibited by an additional month.

Rabbi

Zeira said in the name of Rabbi Elazar: This is what you say

[what you said]—that the year may not be intercalated in the Sabbatical year—

was only before Rabbi permitted bringing vegetables from outside the Land into the Land.

For he was concerned that they might bring with them a clod of earth from the lands of the nations, which imparts impurity through contact and carrying, and thereby render the pure objects of the Land of Israel impure.

But once Rabbi permitted bringing vegetables from outside the Land into the Land,

[and certainly grain, which is not as commonly brought together with a clod of earth], there is no longer a distinction between the Sabbatical year and the other years.

Rather,

it

is a

Sabbatical year—

it

is a

year like the other years of the seven-year cycle!

Even in the Sabbatical year, they intercalate the year as they do in all other years, because there is no longer any concern about a shortage of grain for the Omer and the Two Loaves, since people do not need to eat the aftergrowth of the Sabbatical year, as they have all they require from produce brought from outside Eretz Yisrael. And they can find grain from which to bring the Omer and the Two Loaves among the aftergrowth of the Land.

Rabbi Mana said:

Now it is possible to intercalate the year even immediately after the Sabbatical year.

For

this statement that you made—

that one may not intercalate the year immediately after the Sabbatical year—applies specifically

in earlier times, when the years were in their proper order:

the grain would ripen early in Nisan, and it would be fit to eat from the new crop on the sixteenth of Nisan. Therefore, they would not intercalate the year, so as not to extend the prohibition of the new crop for an additional month.

But now, when the years are not as they should be,

the grain does not ripen early even when spring arrives, and the prohibition of the new crop has already expired.

It follows that if we were to intercalate the year, we would not be increasing the period of the prohibition of the new crop, since in any event the grain is not fit to eat at that time.

Therefore:

it is a Sabbatical year—

it is like the other years of the seven-year cycle.

It was taught:

The court

of the house of Rabban Gamliel intercalated the year immediately after the Sabbatical year.

The Gemara now returns to discuss the proof cited above: that even an item rendered ownerless by the court is exempt from tithe, as demonstrated by the fact that when the court intercalated the Sabbatical year, the produce was exempt from tithe even during the additional month, although this was not complete ownerlessness, but only ownerlessness declared by the court.

Rabbi Avun said: There is no proof from this

if your proof is from here—that they intercalate the year during the Sabbatical year—

you cannot derive anything from it

there is no proof from there at all.

This is because intercalating the year is not a decree of the court, but a law of the Torah.

As it is written:

“Observe the month of springtime.”

And we interpret this:

“Ensure that it occurs in its renewal!”

The month of springtime, which is the month of Nisan, must occur during spring.

Therefore, if spring is delayed, an additional month is added.

Consequently, if the court intercalated the Sabbatical year, the produce becomes ownerless by Torah law; it is complete ownerlessness, and not ownerlessness declared by the court.

Although it is prohibited by rabbinic law to intercalate the Sabbatical year, this is only a rabbinic prohibition. But if they intercalated the Sabbatical year for whatever reason, the intercalation certainly takes effect, and the produce is ownerless by Torah law.

Therefore, this is no proof at all concerning the question of whether ownerlessness declared by the court exempts produce from tithe.

And where does he say this

where do you find it stated that ownerlessness declared by the court is also considered ownerlessness for the purpose of exemption from tithe? It is a Mishna in tractate Pe'ah.

One who harvests his field must leave in the field for the poor the leket—the gleanings.

The leket is one or two stalks that fall during harvesting and are not harvested together with the bundles of stalks.

And we learned in tractate Pe'ah: One who, after harvesting, made in his field, in a place where there were stalks of leket, a

stack

of sheaves of grain, and it was found

not to have been gathered—

the poor had not taken the stalks of leket that had been lying on the ground—

beneath it

beneath the stack, and it was consequently found that the stalks of leket belonging to the poor had become mixed with the stalks in the landowner’s stack:

All

the stalks

touching the ground—

they belong to the poor!

The Sages penalized the landowner for stacking his grain in a place where there were stalks of leket, decreeing that all the stalks touching the ground belong to the poor, despite the fact that most of the stalks are his.