Yoma 73b (עג:) — the Talmud in English

And we answer:

David asked

out of order,

as he should have first asked whether Saul would descend to Keilah, and only afterward asked whether the people of Keilah would hand him over.

And

therefore

they answered him in order,

answering the question that should have been asked first.

And once he knew

from the answer he received concerning Saul’s descent, while he had not received an answer concerning his being handed over,

that he had asked out of order—

he asked again

about his being handed over, and now his question was

in order.

As it is stated [I Samuel 23]

“

“Will the people of Keilah hand

me

and my men over to Saul?”

“And the Lord said: They will hand him over.”

And if

the hour is pressing and

the matter required

Saul

two

things

at once—

they answer him with two.

As it is stated [I Samuel 30]:

“And David inquired of the Lord, saying:

a. Whether

shall I pursue this troop?

b.

Shall I overtake it?

And He said to him

through the Urim ve-Tummim:

a.

Pursue

them

it!

b.

For you shall surely overtake and you shall surely rescue it.”

And the Gemara adds a principle concerning the Urim ve-Tummim:

And although a prophet’s decree

concerning calamity

is revoked,

and can be nullified if they repent,

a decree issued by the Urim ve-Tummim—

is not revoked,

as it cannot be nullified!

As it is stated [Numbers 27]

[Numbers 27]

“by the judgment of the Urim.”

The response of the Urim ve-Tummim is considered a judgment, which cannot be nullified.

And

why are they called “Urim ve-Tummim”?

“Urim”—

because they illuminate their words,

as their instruction is clear and lucid.

“T

u

mmim”—

because they complete their words,

as they are not nullified.

And if you say: In Gibeah of Benjamin—

why did they not complete

their words? For twice, on the first two days of their war against the people of Benjamin, the Israelites asked the Urim ve-Tummim whether to go up and wage war against Benjamin following the incident of the concubine at Gibeah. They received an answer to go up, and nevertheless the Israelites were defeated in their war against Benjamin!?

Your answer is:

They,

the Israelites,

did not examine the matter,

as they did not ask

whether

their war would be

for victory or for defeat,

but only asked whether to go up and wage war. They received an answer to wage war, but it contained no promise of victory [according to Rashi in Tractate Shevuot 35b; and see Rashi’s wording here].

And

only

on the last occasion,

in their third battle,

when they examined the matter,

asking whether they would be victorious,

they agreed

with them from Heaven and answered them through the Urim ve-Tummim that they would be victorious: “For tomorrow I shall deliver him into your hand.”

As it is stated

the third time: [Judges 20]

“And Phinehas son of Eleazar son of Aaron stood before it in those days, saying,

asking:

‘Shall I continue to go out to battle against the people of Benjamin, my brother, or shall I desist?’”

The question “or shall I desist?” means: Will I be victorious?

“And the Lord said

through the Urim ve-Tummim:

‘Go up, for tomorrow I shall deliver him into your hand.’”

How is

the instruction of the Urim ve-Tummim

given?

Rabbi Yohanan says: The letters protruded.

Reish Lakish says:

the letters through which the answer was given were uprooted from their places and

joined

into words that constituted the answer to the question.

And we raise an objection:

But the letter

tsadi

is not written among them,

so how could an answer be given if it required this letter!?

Rav Shmuel bar Yitzhak said: “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” is written there,

on the breastplate, in addition to the names of the tribes, and the letter tsadi appears among them.

And we raise another objection:

But the letter tet is not written there!

Rav Aha bar Yaakov said: “The tribes of Jeshurun” is written there,

on the breastplate.

Meytivi

against what Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish said—that the priest read the answer on the basis of the joining of the letters—from that which was taught in a beraita:

Any priest who does not speak through the Divine Spirit, and

the

Shekhinah does not rest upon him—

one does not inquire through him.

The proof is:

For Zadok asked

the priest through the Urim ve-Tummim,

and an answer arose for him.

Whereas

Abiathar

the priest asked

and no answer arose for him.

a response.

As it is stated [II Samuel 15]

[2 Samuel 15]:

“And Abiathar ascended,”

as David removed him from the High Priesthood because no answer arose for him from the Urim ve-Tummim, and David understood from this that the Divine Spirit had departed from Abiathar. The continuation of the verse is

“until all the people had finished”

.

And we answer:

He provided assistance

the priest

along with them,

the letters. For if the priest had not been on the level of the Divine Spirit, the letters would not have protruded or joined together.

We learned in the Mishna:

“And one inquires only of a king”

or of the head of the court.

From where are these matters derived?

Rabbi Abbahu said: The verse states

concerning Joshua, who, when he was appointed leader of the Jewish people, had the status of a king [Numbers 27]:

“And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, and he shall inquire of him by the judgment of the Urim;

by his word they shall go out and by his word they shall come in—he and all the children of Israel with him, and the entire assembly.”

“He”—

this is

Joshua, who had the status of a

king.

“And all the children of Israel with him”—

this is

the

priest anointed for war.

“And the entire assembly”—

this is the Sanhedrin.

We have completed, Ourselves, the chapter “The High Priest Came to Him”

Mishna:

Five expressions of affliction are stated with regard to Yom Kippur. From here the Sages said that one is obligated to afflict oneself on Yom Kippur through five forms of affliction, and these are:

On Yom Kippur it is prohibited:

a.

eating and drinking.

b.

washing.

c.

anointing.

d.

wearing sandals.

e.

marital relations.

And the king,

whose practice is to present himself as handsome,

and the bride,

who needs to be attractive in order to find favor in her husband's eyes,

may wash their faces,

and the reason for this permission will be explained in the Gemara.

And the woman who has given birth,

a woman who has recently given birth,

may wear sandals

in order to avoid the cold, as it is harmful to a woman who has given birth.

All these permissions—for the king, the bride, and the woman who has given birth—are

the words of Rabbi Eliezer.

But the Sages prohibit them.

One who eats

on Yom Kippur

the quantity of

a

large date

[a date]

of the largest size

[a large one],

including its equivalent and its pit.

And one who drinks

a beverage in the quantity of

“a cheekful.”

Is liable

to karet if he did so intentionally, and a sin-offering if he did so unintentionally.

All foods combine to reach

the quantity of

the size of a date.

And all beverages combine to reach

the quantity of

“a cheekful.”

One who eats

less than the requisite quantity

and drinks

less than the requisite quantity—

they do not combine

the food and the beverage to reach the quantity that creates liability.

Gemara:

We learned in the Mishna: Yom Kippur is prohibited with regard to eating.

And we raised a difficulty: Is it merely

“prohibited”

with regard to eating, and nothing more?

But

one is punished by karet

for eating it!

Rabbi Ila said, and some say Rabbi Yirmeya: It was necessary

to state the “prohibition”

only

with regard

to

eating

half the requisite quantity,

less than the size of a large date, for which there is no punishment of karet, but there is merely a prohibition against eating it.

However, even if we establish that the wording of the Mishna refers to eating half the requisite quantity, this may still be challenged:

For

this works according to the one who says: “Half the requisite quantity—

is prohibited by Torah law.”

But according to the one who says: “Half the requisite quantity—

is permitted by Torah law,”

what can be said?

For according to him there is no prohibition!

The Gemara cites the source of their dispute:

As it was stated: Half the requisite quantity—

Rabbi Yohanan said: It is prohibited by Torah law; Reish Lakish said: It is permitted by Torah law.

This works according to Rabbi Yohanan,

as it is indeed possible to establish that the wording “prohibited” in our Mishna refers to less than the requisite quantity.

But according to Reish Lakish,

who permits, by Torah law, eating less than the requisite quantity—

what can be said?

Why did the Mishna use the wording “prohibited,” when it is permitted to eat less than the requisite quantity on Yom Kippur, whereas eating the requisite quantity entails liability for karet?

And we answer:

Reish Lakish concedes that

half the requisite quantity

is prohibited by rabbinic law,

and this is the prohibition to which the Mishna refers.

And we challenge this:

If so,

if indeed according to Reish Lakish half the requisite quantity is prohibited by rabbinic law, the difficulty raised in tractate Shevuot [23b] returns:

One who swore that he would not eat half the requisite quantity of a prohibited food, and ate it—

should not be liable for a sacrifice for an oath,

just as one who swore to fulfill or violate a mitzva and violated his oath is exempt from a sacrifice for an oath.

Apparently,

why

did we learn:

One who

swore an oath that he would not eat, and ate unslaughtered carcasses, animals with defects, creeping things, or creeping animals—

is liable

for a sacrifice for an oath.

And Rabbi Shimon exempts him.

And we raised a difficulty

in tractate Shevuot:

Why is he liable

for a sacrifice for an oath, and how does his oath take effect, when

he is already under oath and bound by the revelation at Sinai

not to eat prohibited foods? If so, he is like one who swore to fulfill a mitzva, whose oath does not take effect.

And there we gave two answers in tractate Shevuot:

The first was that

Rav, Shmuel, and Rabbi Yohanan said:

Here we are dealing

with one who includes

in his oath

permitted things together with prohibited things,

in which case he can also swear regarding a prohibited thing, which he is commanded not to eat. Since the oath takes effect with regard to the permitted thing, it also takes effect with regard to the prohibited thing.

Rabbi Shimon, however, disagrees and maintains that an oath that includes both a permitted and a prohibited thing does not take effect with regard to the prohibited thing.

And

the second answer:

Reish Lakish said:

Everyone agrees that an oath cannot take effect with regard to a prohibited thing, even if he includes a permitted thing with it in his oath.

Therefore,

you find

that an oath takes effect with regard to a prohibited thing

only:

Either when he

specifies

in his oath that he will not eat

half the requisite quantity

of a prohibited thing, because half the requisite quantity is a permitted thing, since it does not constitute the requisite quantity.

Or

this applies

according to the Rabbis,

who maintain that one who swears not to eat, without specifying a quantity, intends to prohibit eating the quantity of an olive-size and not less than that. Therefore, according to them, he is prohibited from eating less than an olive-size only if he specified in his oath that he was prohibiting himself from eating less than an olive-size.

Or even

when he

simply states the quantity prohibited by his oath, without specifying that he swore regarding eating half the requisite quantity.