Sukkah 53b (נג:) — the Talmud in English

David said: Is there anyone who knows

whether it is known

whether it is permitted

if it is permitted

to write the Name

on earthenware

on a shard,

and throw it into the depths, and let it rest

so that it would sink and come to rest over the opening to the depths and cause them to be sealed.

There was no one

and there was no one

who said anything to him.

David did not wish to issue the halakhic ruling himself, since Ahitophel, his teacher, was present, and it is prohibited to issue a halakhic ruling in the presence of one’s teacher.

David said: Whoever knows how to say it and does not say it —

will be strangled in his throat.

Ahitophel applied a kal va-chomer to himself: If, in order to make peace between a man and his wife,

by means of testing the sota with the bitter waters,

the Torah said: My Name, which was written in holiness —

shall be erased in the water!

The passage concerning the sota is erased into the water so that, if the woman had not become impure, her husband’s suspicion of her would be removed.

To make peace throughout the entire world —

how much more so

it is permitted to erase the Name.

He said to him

Ahitophel said to David:

It is permitted

it is permitted to erase it.

David wrote

David

the Name on an earthenware shard, and threw it into the depths, and the depths descended

and the level of the subterranean waters fell

sixteen thousand cubits,

sixteen thousand cubits.

When he saw

when David saw

that it had descended greatly,

that the subterranean waters had fallen to an excessive depth,

he said: The more they are raised,

the closer the subterranean waters are to ground level and the less deeply they lie,

the more the world is watered

the more moisture there is in the upper soil, where trees and vegetables grow.

He said

David

fifteen

psalms of the Song of

Ascents,

for raising the subterranean waters upward,

and raised them

and raised the level of the subterranean waters

fifteen thousand cubits, and established them

and established them

at

a depth of

one thousand cubits,

one thousand cubits.

Ulla said: Learn from this that the thickness of the earth

the depth of the earth—from the ground to the level of the subterranean waters—is

one thousand cubits,

one thousand cubits.

And we raise a difficulty:

But we see

we see

that we dig

that when we dig a pit to a depth

of a little

a small amount

and

already

water emerges,

even when the pit is not one thousand cubits deep!

Rav Mesharsheya said: That

water is not subterranean water; rather, it comes

from the watercourses of the Euphrates.

from the underground channels through which water from the Euphrates seeps.

Since the source of the Euphrates is at a high elevation, the abundant water flowing there, besides flowing in the Euphrates, also seeps through the ground and finds its way even through the mountains of Babylonia, which are lower than the river’s source.

We learned in the Mishna:

And the priests stood at the upper gate from which one descends

from the Israelite Courtyard to the Women’s Courtyard. When they reached the tenth step, they sounded a tekia, a terua, and a tekia.

Rabbi Yirmeya raised a dilemma:

What was that tenth step that they reached and upon which they sounded the blasts?

Did they reach

the tenth step

by the fact

that they descended

that they descended

five, and

now

stand

they stand

at ten,

on the tenth step from below?

Or perhaps they descended ten,

that they descended ten steps,

and stand

and now they stand

at five

on the fifth step from below?

And we conclude:

Teyku. The dilemma remains unresolved.

The Sages taught: Once it is stated [Ezekiel 8] “

”

with their faces eastward,

do I not know

on my own

that their backs were toward the Sanctuary of the Lord,

which was located to the west!?

Rather, what is the meaning of the verse: “

with their backs toward the Sanctuary of the Lord”?

It teaches that they were exposing

revealing

themselves and defecating

their excrement

downward.

We learned in the Mishna:

We turn our eyes to Him and our eyes to Him.

And we raise a difficulty:

Is that so? But didn’t Rabbi Zeira say: Whoever recites

twice

“Hear, hear,”

repeating and doubling the verse,

is like one who says “We give thanks, we give thanks,”

as he is silenced because he appears to acknowledge two authorities!

Rather, this is what they say: They —

bowed eastward.

And

those

we

bow

to Him, and our eyes await Him.

Bowing and longing are two distinct matters.

Mishna:

The blasts in the Temple always took the form of “a tekia, a terua, and a tekia.”

Although they always sounded the terua together with a tekia before it and after it, each is considered a separate mitzva, and they are counted as three blasts.

They may not decrease

on any day

from twenty-one blasts in the Temple.

And they may not add to forty-eight.

According to this reckoning:

Every day there were twenty-one blasts in the Temple:

Three [a tekia, a terua, and a tekia]

tekia, terua, tekia]

for the opening of the gates.

And nine for the daily offering of the morning,

as they sounded blasts for each of the three sections of song that the Levites sang at the time of the libation of wine.

As stated, each “blast” consisted of three blasts [a tekia, a terua, and a tekia].

And nine

blasts were sounded for each of the three sections of song that the Levites sang

for the daily offering between the evenings.

And for the additional offerings they added another nine,

a three-part sequence for each of the three sections of song of the additional offerings.

And on the eve of Shabbat they added six:

First they sounded

three

blasts in order

to cease the people from labor.

And three

blasts were sounded when the day became holy,

to distinguish between the sacred and the profane,

as from that point it was forbidden under penalty of stoning.

On the eve of Shabbat that fell during the Festival there were forty-eight:

Three

as on every day

for the opening of the gates.

Three for the upper gate,

the Nicanor Gate. When they went out from the Israelite Courtyard to the Women’s Courtyard to draw the water.

And three for the lower gate,

which they sounded when they descended to the Women’s Courtyard, extending the blast until they went outside through the gate in the Women’s Courtyard.

And three for filling the water,

when they returned and brought it through the Water Gate.

And three

when they stood the willow branch

upon the altar.

Nine for the daily offering of the morning, nine for the daily offering between the evenings, and nine for the additional offerings.

Three to cease the people from labor, and three to distinguish between the sacred and the profane.

Gemara:

The Mishna,

which counts the tekia and the terua as separate mitzvot of sounding, is

not in accordance with Rabbi Yehuda!

As it was taught in a beraita, Rabbi Yehuda says:

One who sounds

the minimum —

may not sound fewer than seven

blasts. [These are seven sequences, each consisting of “a tekia, a terua, and a tekia,” totaling twenty-one according to the Sages].

And one who adds —

may not add more than sixteen

sequences of “a tekia, a terua, and a tekia,” totaling forty-eight according to the Sages.

And the Gemara explains:

With regard to what do they disagree?

Rabbi Yehuda holds: “

a tekia, a terua, and a tekia” —

the mitzva of sounding

is one.

And the Rabbis hold: The tekia is by itself and the terua is by itself,

and likewise the tekia that follows it is by itself.

And we raise a difficulty:

What is Rabbi Yehuda’s reason,

for counting the tekia, the terua, and the tekia that follows it as one mitzva?

And we answer:

The verse says [Numbers 10]: “

”

And you shall sound a terua.”

Apparently, the terua and the tekia —

are one.

And the Rabbis

hold:

That

verse

came to

obligate a

plain tekia before it

the terua,

and

a plain tekia

after it.

And what is the reason of the Rabbis?

As it is written [Numbers 10]: “

”

And when assembling the congregation —

you shall sound a tekia and not a terua.”

And if it enters your mind

that

“a tekia and a terua

and a tekia” are one mitzva,

then it is one,

then how

does the Merciful One say

that in the sounding to assemble the people only

half of the mitzva [a half-mitzva, namely, a tekia without a terua]

he performs, and the other half

of the mitzva

he does not perform!?

And Rabbi Yehuda: That

sounding is not a mitzva, but merely

came as a signal alone,

to assemble the Children of Israel, and it is not “half a mitzva.”

And the Rabbis:

Although this sounding is merely

a signal,

since assembling the congregation is not itself a mitzva,

the Merciful One nevertheless made it a mitzva!

For the verse established it as a mitzva that, when they assemble the congregation, they must assemble it specifically by means of a tekia. Therefore, the Rabbis hold that if the mitzva of sounding is as Rabbi Yehuda says, namely, “a tekia, a terua, and a tekia,” and one tekia alone is only “half a mitzva,” it is impossible that the sounding to assemble the congregation should consist only of a tekia and not a terua, since that would be half a mitzva.

And the Gemara says:

In accordance with whose view is this statement of Rav Kahana: There is no

interruption

between the tekia and the terua whatsoever,

except for an interruption “of the time needed to breathe”?

In accordance with whose view? —

In accordance with Rabbi Yehuda,

because he holds that the two are one mitzva.

And we refute this:

It is obvious

that only according to Rabbi Yehuda, who holds that the tekia and the terua are one mitzva, may one not interrupt between them. For according to the Rabbis they are two mitzvot, so why, in their view, would one not be able to interrupt slightly between them?!

And if so, why does the Gemara need to teach us this!?