Shekalim 9a — the Talmud in English

The old Tiberian half-eighth ![](pamud.bmp "

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is our law, said Rabbi Yohanan

And why does he call it

this measure

old,

although it is customary even now?

Because [

because]

it was in his days [

in earlier days]

small

small.

And

afterward

large [

the measure grew].

And

again

small,

it contracted and returned to its smallness,

as it had been [

as it had been previously].

And therefore he calls it “old,” to tell you that nowadays they measure according to its smallness, which is like its old measure, and not as at the time when they added to it.

And the Gemara discusses:

what is its measure

of

a cup

for the four cups on the night of the Seder, according to volume measurement?

He said

Rabbi Yose in the name of Rabbi Yose ben Pazi, and

so said

Rabbi Yose bar Bibi in the name of Shmuel:

the measure of the cup is

two fingerbreadths

two fingers [there are four fingers in a handbreadth] in length,

by two fingerbreadths

in width.

By a height of [

in height]

a finger and a half

and another

third

of a finger.

It was taught:

If one carried wine on Shabbat from one domain to another,

dry [

congealed], the measure for which he becomes liable is

an olive-sized amount, the words of Rabbi Natan.

Because a quarter-log of wine that congeals stands at the measure of an olive-sized amount.

And with congealed wine, they calculate the measure of its carrying as a complete quarter-log, and not according to the measure of wine dilution, since congealed wine cannot be diluted.

They said

the Sages of Caesarea, and

so said

Rabbi Yose bar

Bibi in the name of Shmuel: this

the matter

that

said

Rabbi Natan,

that the measure of a quarter-log of liquid that congealed is an olive-sized amount—

like

the method of

Rabbi Yose bar Yehuda.

For Rabbi Yose bar Yehuda said, concerning the words of Beit Hillel, who said, “The blood of carcasses imparts impurity like the carcass itself”: They rendered impure only blood containing at least the measure of a quarter-log, since a quarter-log is a measure that can congeal and stand at an olive-sized amount.

And just as,

and as

Rabbi Yose bar Yehuda

said that the measure of a liquid which, when it congeals, will stand at an olive-sized amount, is

a quarter-log, so Rabbi Natan said, a quarter-log,

which, when it congeals, will contain an olive-sized amount.

That is, the methods of Rabbi Natan and Rabbi Yose bar Yehuda are equal: according to both of them, the measure of a quarter-log that has congealed stands at an olive-sized amount.

Said

Rabbi Simon in the name of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi: an incident

occurred

with his mule

of

Rabbi, which died, and they declared its blood pure.

And they said that it does not impart impurity

because of

the impurity of

a carcass.

And Rabbi Eliezer asked Rabbi Simon: up to what amount

is the measure of blood that they declare pure in a carcass?

And

Rabbi Simon

paid no attention to him

and did not answer his question.

And Rabbi Eliezer asked

Rabbi Eliezer

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi:

up to what amount is the measure for which the blood of carcasses is pure?

And he said to him: Up to a quarter-log

of blood, this is

pure. More than a quarter-log—

this is

impure.

And fire

burned

against Rabbi Eliezer, because Rabbi Simon did not return the tradition to him, [

Rabbi Eliezer was angered because Rabbi Simon did not give him an answer].

Rav Bibi was sitting and

was

repeating this incident,

he was sitting and reciting this incident in which they declared the blood of the carcass pure.

And Rabbi Isaac bar Kahana said to him,

asking him: Is it only

up to a quarter-log of blood that it is pure,

and

more than this it is impure?

And Rav Bibi kicked him

[he pushed him with his foot], and did not answer him.

Rabbi Zerika said to Rav Bibi,

Rav Bibi: Is it because

he asked you, that you kick him?

Is it because Rabbi Isaac asked you this question that you rejected and pushed him?!

He said to him: Because

since

my mind was not

settled,

I kicked him,

and I rejected him and did not answer him.

For Rabbi Hanan said:

With whom does the verse speak, the verse in the curses in the portion of Ki Tavo:

“And your life shall hang in the balance before you”?

This is one who

is

buying [

purchasing]

wheat for a year,

and eats from it, but has no field of his own, and every year must buy wheat; his life hangs in the balance before him, for he does not know whether he will be able to buy in the coming year.

And what is said [there],

“And you shall fear night and day”—

this is one who buys

wheat from

the grain merchant,

who sells grain little by little, and every day fears lest tomorrow he will not have any.

And what is written,

“And you shall not believe in your life”—

this is one who buys

baked bread

from the baker [

the baker], who buys bread each time he eats, and always stands in fear lest he will not have bread for the next meal.

And Rav Bibi continued and said:

And I—

I rely on the baker! [

And I buy bread from the baker]. And therefore, because of the trouble of livelihood, my mind was not settled, and because of this I rejected him and did not answer him.

And what is it now? [

Like “What was the conclusion?” What is the conclusion: up to what amount did they declare the blood of the carcass pure?]

We learned: Rabbi Joshua ben Patura testified concerning the blood of a carcass that it is pure!

And it implies that even more than a quarter-log it is pure.

And the Gemara rejects this: It may be said:

what is “pure”

that Rabbi Joshua ben Patura says?—

pure from rendering fit.

For foods do not receive impurity until liquid comes upon them, and the blood of a carcass is not considered liquid and does not render foods fit to receive impurity.

But to render impure

with the impurity of a carcass, it may be said

that it does render impure.

And we say: It is impossible to say so, that the blood of a carcass renders impure but does not render fit.

For there we learned: The blood of a creeping creature

has the law

of its flesh.

Just as the flesh of a dead creeping creature

renders impure

with the impurity of a creeping creature

and does not render fit

foods to receive impurity, for flesh is not liquid—so too the blood of a creeping creature renders impure with the impurity of a creeping creature, and does not render foods fit to receive impurity.

And the Mishna concludes:

And we have none comparable to it.

And the Gemara understood that we have found no other thing of this kind, which does not render fit but does render impure.

And since no similar thing was found, necessarily the blood of a carcass, if it does not render fit, also does not render impure; for if we say that it does not render fit but does render impure, then we have found another thing besides the flesh of a creeping creature that renders impure and does not render fit.

And the Gemara rejects:

Perhaps

what we say concerning the flesh of a creeping creature, “And we have none comparable to it,” does not mean that we have found no other thing that renders impure but does not render fit.

Rather, only

with

regard

to the measure of its impurity

did they say

that its blood

of a creeping creature

renders impure like its flesh,

at the same measure.

That is, just as the flesh of a creeping creature renders impure even in a small measure, the size of a lentil [a type of legume], so too the blood of a creeping creature renders impure in this measure.

But the blood of carcasses, although it is said concerning it that it “renders impure like its flesh,” its measure of impurity is not equal to its flesh, for flesh renders impure with an olive-sized amount, whereas if the blood renders impure only with a quarter-log [since it can congeal and stand at an olive-sized amount].

It follows that we have no proof from what Rabbi Joshua ben Patura testified concerning the blood of a carcass, that it is pure, that it is entirely pure. For it may be said that it is pure only from rendering foods fit to receive impurity, but to render impure, it does render impure.

And the Gemara concludes:

Rabbi Yose said: Two amoraim disagree concerning it:

One said

the blood of a carcass is

impure [

with a quarter-log].

And one said it is pure

entirely, even in more than a quarter-log.

And the Gemara explains the dispute:

The one who says it is impure

holds

like Rabbi Yehuda,

in tractate Eduyot, who said that there are six matters among the leniencies of Beit Shammai and the stringencies of Beit Hillel, and one of them is the blood of carcasses, for Beit Shammai declare it pure and Beit Hillel declare it impure.

The ruling follows Beit Hillel over Beit Shammai, that it is impure.

And the one who says it is pure,

holds

like Rabbi Joshua ben Patura,

above, who testified concerning the blood of carcasses that it is pure.

Rav Avduma of Min Nahota said to Rabbi Yose

who said that the one who says the blood of a carcass is impure holds like Rabbi Yehuda:

And it is correct!

It is correct that you said that Rabbi Yehuda renders the blood of carcasses impure.

Since

Rabbi Yehuda—

was the decisor in the house of the Nasi.

He would issue rulings in the house of the Nasi, that is, in the presence of Rabbi. And Rabbi’s mule died, and he ruled according to his method: since there was there less than a quarter-log of blood, therefore he declared it pure.

We learned in the Mishna: The donor may not enter the chamber while wearing garments in which it is possible to conceal money,

lest he become poor, and they say:

because of the sin of stealing from the chamber the man became poor.

Rabbi Ishmael taught: A long-haired man [

with overgrown hair, from the expression “his locks are curled”]

may not contribute

to the chamber

because of suspicion,

lest they suspect him of taking money from the chamber and placing it among his hairs.

It was taught: The treasurers would comb themselves in their locks,

rubbing the hair of their beard, where the hairs clung together because of sweat, in order to separate the hairs so that he would be unable to place money there.

It was taught: They would speak

the treasurers

with him from the time he entered

to contribute

until the time he left,

so that he would be unable to place money in his mouth.

And the Gemara raises a difficulty: Why was this necessary?

Let us say another solution:

“And he should fill his mouth with water,”

he should fill his mouth with water, and he would be unable to put anything into his mouth.

Rabbi Tanhuma said:

They did not do so

because of the blessing!

For the donor must recite a blessing over separating the contribution, as one recites a blessing over separating the contribution at the threshing floor. And when his mouth is filled with water, he is unable to recite a blessing.

Said

Rabbi Shmuel ben Nahman in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: In the Torah, in the Prophets, and in the Writings we find

a source for this,

that a person must be clear in the eyes of people,

so that they will not suspect him,

just as he must be clear in the eyes of the Omnipresent.

From where in the Torah?

For it is written,

that Moses said to the children of Gad and the children of Reuben: If you go armed and fight, and afterward return, then

“You shall be clear before the Lord and before Israel.”

From where in the Prophets? For it is written

in the Book of Joshua, concerning the children of Gad and the children of Reuben, when the children of Israel suspected them that they had built an altar in order to rebel against Him.

They said:

“The God, the Lord, the God, the Lord! And Israel shall know.”

From where in the Writings? For it is written

in Proverbs:

“And find favor and good understanding in the eyes of God and man.”

Gamaliel Zugah [

that was his name]

asked Rabbi Yose bar Rabbi Bun: Which

of these verses

is the clearest of them all,

in which it is stated most explicitly that a person must clear himself also before people?

He said to him:

The words of the verse

“You shall be clear before the Lord and before Israel”

are the most explicit verse.

Halakha 3—Mishna:

A. His agent

of the house of Rabban Gamaliel,

when he brought the half-shekel,

would enter

at the time when the donor contributed,

and

he would take the money from the chamber into the baskets.

And his shekel

was placed

between his fingers, and he threw it before the donor, and the donor intended and pushed it

from the chamber

into the basket

of three seahs in which he contributed, and from it they took for the public offerings.

Because Rabban Gamaliel wanted to be certain that offerings would be brought from his shekel, and that his shekel would not remain in the chamber and become “the remainder of the chamber,” from which they build the wall of Jerusalem and the Temple courtyard.

B. The donor enters into the chamber, and the guards stand outside. And

the donor does not contribute until he

says

to them: “Shall I contribute?”

And they

answer

and say to him: “Contribute!”

And he again asks: “Shall I contribute?” And they say to him

“Contribute!”

And he asks again: “Shall I contribute?” And they say to him

“Contribute!”

And so he asks

three times,

and they answer.

And such is the way of the Sages: they repeat matters three times, as we find with the cutting of the omer, when he says, “Shall I cut?” and they answer him, “Cut,” three times. [

And the Yaavetz proved from here in his book Lehem Shamayim that for every matter of a mitzva a person must prepare himself.]

C.

He contributed the

contribution

first [

at the beginning of Passover]

and covered [

covered] all the shekels remaining in the chamber

with leather coverings,

tanned leather, so that they could place upon it the shekels that would come from the countries surrounding the Land of Israel, which could not bring them before Passover, and would bring them from Passover until Shavuot, and place them upon the leather covering so that he could contribute from them at the beginning of Shavuot.

And he contributed the contribution

second

at the beginning of Shavuot, and again

covered

the remaining shekels with leather coverings, and upon them they placed all the shekels

brought

from Babylonia and Media and from the distant countries, and from them they contributed at the beginning of the festival of Sukkot.

But after the contribution

third,

at the beginning of the festival, he no longer covered, since there was no further contribution after it.

And why did he cover

after the first and second contributions?

For if he did not cover, there was concern

lest he forget,

and return

and contribute from the thing already contributed. But when he covered, the covered coins became “remainders,” and he contributed from what was upon the leather covering.

When he covered them, the covered coins became “remainder,” and he collected from what was on the leather cover.

D.

He contributed the

contribution

first for the sake of

shekels that come

from the Land of Israel.

And

the contribution

second

he contributed

for the sake of

shekels coming

from the walled cities [

nearby]

to it [

to the Land of Israel].