Bechorot daf lamed aleph: the last thing we were discussing was a Bechor (firstborn animal) that had a concentration of blood, and according to Rabbi Yehuda, it was dangerous. According to Hachamim (the Sages), you're not allowed to let blood (bloodletting). You are allowed to, as long as you don't make a mum (blemish). If you do make a mum, you're not allowed to slaughter based on that mum; you have to make another mum. Rabbi Shimon says you could let blood, and you're allowed to slaughter even based on that mum.
And we brought the Bimei Yer Shita, even in the baraita (early tannaitic teaching), that says it all depends on whether it's a place that makes them or not. And then we said there's the same machloket (dispute) regarding a barrel of terumah that is in safek (doubt): if it became tameh (ritually impure) or not, how should we treat it? We tried to compare the Tannaim (Mishnaic sages) with one another, and we ruled out that comparison.
And then we said that, in regards to Bechor, the machloket is in the way down the same the pesukim (verses), and in regards to the barrel of terumah, the machloket is also in regards to pesukim. Their machloket is not contingent on one another; they have nothing to do with each other. And with that, we're going to start four lines in, second word: Hacha (here). Over here, Hacha in regards to the barrel of terumah, which we're not sure is tameh or not. I gave you the mishmeret to safeguard my terumot, plural. We're talking about two types of terumot: one terumah that we know is tahor (ritually pure), and the other ones we're not sure are tahor or tameh.
And Hashem said you have to safeguard it, meaning you have to keep it tahor. You're right, we read it, but it's spelled in the singular, and therefore you don't have to watch over it. You have to watch over the one that's for sure tahor, but the one that we're in safek, we don't have to watch over. So the Gemara says, “You're telling me that it goes by the reading of the pasuk (verse), not the way we write it,” meaning the reading is the most important part. But we have a famous one in regards to the Jewish maidservant. It says you're not a seller to a different nation, as in clothing. And we're understanding that once the master put his talit (prayer shawl) over her, meaning he married her, even if he divorced her, she goes back to her father, and her father cannot sell her as a maidservant again. Same idea: if her father married her off and then the husband divorced her, she comes back to her father; her father can't sell her as a maidservant.
That's it. That's v'Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer omer (says): we are not going to be doresh (expound) b'vigdo bah, because there's no yud (letter yod). Rather, we're going to go as is: b'vigdo bah, lashon begidah. He rebelled against her. He betrayed her. Keivan shebagad bah—once he betrayed her, once the father sold her as a maidservant—shuv eino rashai lemokhra. He could never resell her.
But according to Rabbi Eliezer, if he married her off and the husband divorced her and she came back to the father, then he is allowed to sell her as a maidservant. Bottom line: according to Rabbi Eliezer, we're doresh pesukim based on the way they're written, not the way they're read. So you can't say Rabbi Eliezer's reason is because we go by the way it's read, mishmeret terumotai, to teach me that safek terumotai needs to be watched. So that's not—again, where did Rabbi Eliezer learn that terumah that is safek needs to be watched?
Ela hacha b'hacha ka miflaggi. Rather, you have to say that in regards to terumah that is a safek, the real machloket between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer is this: Rabbi Akiva savar (held), the pasuk says, “V'ani, hineni natati lecha, et mishmeret terumotai” (And I, behold, I have given you the charge of My offerings), and we're going to be doresh the word lecha (for you). So Rabbi Akiva savar, “ha-re'uyah lecha shemor, v'she'einah re'uyah lecha”: if it's fit for you, it's tahor, then you have to safeguard it. If it's not fit for you, because even if it's safek tameh, then you don't have to watch it. But Rabbi Eliezer held that it's also fit for you, just in case Eliyahu HaNavi (Elijah the Prophet) might come and tell you it's tahor. Okay, then that's why you have to keep it safe. So technically it is and I'm not a Jew.
Right away, if you want to tell me that he said you're allowed to let blood from a Bechor even if you're going to make a mum, because your kavanah (intent) is not to make a mum, until now Shmuel never told us that if you do something without the intent to do the sin, it's mutar (permitted). But he already told it to us. This is a machloket between Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda in Masechet Shabbat. Rabbi Yehuda held an issur (prohibition) even if you don't have the intent to do the issur, and Rabbi Shimon said it's okay.
Rabbi Chiya bar Ashi amar Rav (Rav said), halacha k'Rabbi Shimon (the law follows Rabbi Shimon). So here we have it. Over there, already, Rabbi Chiya bar Avin matni b'la gavrei. He brings it with Rabbi Chiya bar Ashi; Rabbi Chanina bar Ashi brings it straight out. So then why do you have to tell me that whole thing, that it's different from what he added to his words in the Mishnah? He said that you're allowed to let blood even in the place where it makes a mum, and you're allowed to slaughter it based on that mum because he didn't make that mum on purpose; rather, he did it for his benefit. So he says it's a mum that's okay; it's well held like that. He says straight out, “I'm going to be on the baraita of the baraita next Mishnah.”
If someone nicks or punctures the ear of a Bechor and makes a mum—I did it on purpose—as it says, if we're going to fine him, you can never slaughter this Bechor. If it bumps into the wall and has another mum, then you can slaughter it based on that second mum.
So I'm going to ask the question: does Rabbi Eliezer ever fine a person forever? Or, I mean, he—but we have a, it says, if someone has a... when he cut off by itself he's still from his from his, even though he knows how to cut it off now. Let's say he cut it on purpose. It says when a new one grows, he has to say again, he has to wait for it to grow again and then be tahor from it, and then he could finally be tahor from everything, or the original one gets smaller than the size of a lentil. However, if at the time he cut it off it was the size of a lentil, he can never be tahor from it forever, even if he cuts it off, because it's a fine. We're going to fine anyone who cuts off his tzaraat (skin affliction). Here's the thing: Rabbi Eliezer does not impose a fine, and Hachamim are the ones who do. That contradicts our Mishnah.
So my answer is only when it comes to a person's assets, his money, his Bechor. However, when it comes to a person's body, he's not kones (imposes a fine). You could say, look, the reason he fines when it comes to his assets is because he might come to do it again and again. If you allowed him to slaughter this Bechor because of the mum, he's going to continue doing it next time and next time and next time, and that's it. So you have to fine him. You have to fine him so that it's never going to be mutar. Are we worried that if we don't fine him, he's going to come and cut his tzaraat again and again? We don't have to worry about that. You just have to tell him that you're not tahor this time around, you have to wait until you get another tzaraat, and that should be good enough.
And amar Abaye (Abaye said), “Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Eliezer, kashya (difficulty). The Rabbanan (the Sages), the Rabbanan, and the kashya.” Now wait a second: Rabbi Eliezer on Rabbi Eliezer was a contradiction, and we had to figure it out. But Rabbanan, they don't contradict themselves? Over here, by metil mumba (making a blemish), they hold that we don't fine a person forever, and then over here, by tzaraat, they say, okay, we're going to fine a person until he gets it all over his body and he's tahor from it. So they do fine him. They're also not country they think, because in each place they fine him based on what he did. Meaning, in regards to Bechor, what do you try to do? Behind mama with this mum, so behind my with this mum they said, “Okay, you can't eat it.” This mum, is that going to help us over here? In regards to they fine him for whatever he was trying to do. He tried to beam it to him himself by cutting off this, uh, his entire body, so they fine him and he's not going to be tahor until his entire body gets tzaraat and then he gets tahor from it. So it's sort of like a middah k'neged middah (measure for measure) thing.
So now, Bayra had a question in regards to that tzaraat Subiyah, that, as I said, you have to wait until a new tzaraat grows and you become tahor from it. Yit Har Tanan or Ve Yit Har Tanan? Are we saying Yit Har? And that means when he gets another tzaraat, he becomes tahor from the first one. However, he's still, even though he can't become tahor from the second one yet—meaning once he gets the second tzaraat, now the first one's okay—or Ve Yit Har Tanan, or does he have to wait until he's completely tahor from both of them, and then he becomes tahor?
I think I'm asking: what's the practical difference if he's tahor from the first one or not before the second one? So the Gemara explains, le-chatan shenireh bo nega (a bridegroom in whom a lesion appeared). We're talking about le-chatan. He had a tzaraat before he got married. He cut it off. And then another one happened right after his wedding during the Shavuot; another tzaraat grew. It's not chatan. He doesn't have to show it to the Kohen (priest), not anything that's on his body, on his clothing, on his tzaraat. We don't want him to ruin his Simcha (joy). We don't want him to stop his Simcha. Just continue. Same thing if a person has a tzaraat on the holiday: he can go through the holiday and then show it to the Kohen.
Now if you say, meaning when he gets the new one he becomes tahor from the old one, he's from the first one, so for the second one we let him wait through this before showing it. But if you're saying, so okay, if you're not going to be the second one, but he's already because the first one, so what's the halachah (Jewish law)? We answer, “take off, we're not sure.”
So if someone punctures the ear of a Bechor and it becomes a ba'al mum (blemished animal), u'met, and then the person who punctured dies—the man who punctured the ear dies—do we fine his children afterwards or not? If you want to say, in regards to someone selling his Jewish slave to Goyim (non-Jews), the rule is because you're taking him away from mitzvot (commandments), so fine the person to go buy back that, and they fine the person's children also to go buy back that. And sometimes we fine them: you have to go buy back that even if it costs 10 times as much as you sold them for. The thing is, because every day he's not doing mitzvot, that's on you. Okay, so there's a reason for the fine, and there's a reason to fine the children too.
Now, im timtzei lomar—let's say a person had a vineyard, and he didn't pluck the grapes before Chol Hamoed, the holiday. He was waiting for Chol Hamoed to do all the work. He was figuring, it's davar ha'aved—there's a loss now, there's a loss now; I'll be able to do it on Chol Hamoed. And Hachamim usually gozer (decrees) that if you waited on purpose until Chol Hamoed, then we're not doing it. So u'met, let's say the man who didn't do the work before the holiday died, they didn't fine his children after him, and his son is allowed to pluck those grapes on Chol Hamoed, because it's a loss. I can always say, a father never really did his work; he just didn't do the work before, but he never really did an issur.
In regards to a man who punctured the ear of a Bechor, making him a ba'al mum, and then died, what would be the halachah? Do we say that we fine him and he's not around anymore? Or do we say we fine his assets, and this Bechor, which is his asset, is around, and therefore even the son can't use it?
So Amar Mar (the Master said), you learned in Masechet Shevi'it. Sadeh (field) that they plucked from it all the thorns that was all over the place, you're allowed to plant there on the eighth year or on the first year of the cycle. If they used fertilizer or they let just animals hang out over there and they do their business over there, and that caused the land to be fertile, then you cannot plant there right after the Shemitah (Sabbatical year), because the Hachamim fine it. We have a tradition in our hands. If a person fertilized the land on the Shemitah year and died, his son can plant there right after the Shemitah year. Alma (thus), what do you want? You know what he did? They fine him, not his son.
And amar Abaye, in Akitinan, we have a tradition in our hands. If someone was metameh (render impure) his friend's wine, let's say a person who was tameh went and touched his friend's wine bottle, making everything tameh over there, and then the guy died, they didn't fine his son to pay for it. A damage that is not recognizable is not considered a damage. Really, technically, from the Torah, however, the rabbis did fine him; you have to pay for it. However, they fine him, not his son. And we will stop right here. Baruch Hashem. Amen.