וְאֶל־הַלְוִיִּ֣ם תְּדַבֵּר֮ וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ אֲלֵהֶם֒ כִּֽי־תִ֠קְחוּ מֵאֵ֨ת בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל אֶת־הַֽמַּעֲשֵׂ֗ר אֲשֶׁ֨ר נָתַ֧תִּי לָכֶ֛ם מֵאִתָּ֖ם בְּנַחֲלַתְכֶ֑ם וַהֲרֵמֹתֶ֤ם מִמֶּ֙נּוּ֙ תְּרוּמַ֣ת יְהוָ֔ה מַעֲשֵׂ֖ר מִן־הַֽמַּעֲשֵֽׂר׃
"Parle aussi aux Lévites et dis-leur: Lorsque vous aurez reçu des enfants d’Israël la dîme que je vous donne de leur part, pour votre héritage, vous prélèverez là-dessus, comme impôt de l’Éternel, la dîme de la dîme.
Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot
MISHNAH: When does one start to read the Shema in the evening1The Mishnah presupposes that everybody knows that there is an obligation to recite the verses Deut. 6:4–9 since it is written (v. 7) “You shall teach them to your children and speak about them when you sit in your house, when you go on the road, and when you are lying down and when you are getting up.” Since it says “when you are lying down” before “when you are getting up”, the obligation of the evening is discussed before that of the morning.? From the time that the priests enter to eat2The spelling of the Yerushalmi is largely phonetic, in contrast to the Babli whose Hebrew spelling is historical. Since the א was silent in Galilean speech of the time and had lost its role as glottal stop, the Mishnah in the Yerushalmi has לוֹכֵל for classical לֶאֱכוֹל in the Babylonian Mishnah. their Terumah3Terumah, the heave, is the gift to the Cohen from agricultural produce (Num. 18:12) and also the Cohen’s part of the tithes given to the Levites from produce (Num. 18:26). These gifts must be eaten in ritual purity (Num. 18:13: “every pure person in your family may eat it.”) There are several stages in the cleansing from ritual impurity. Serious impurities (defilement by a corpse, a leper, or a sufferer from gonorrhea) need special rituals. More common defilements, such as touching a dead animal or coming in contact with a more severely impure person, need immersion in the ritual bath (miqweh). This immersion removes impurity but does not yet allow a person to touch sanctified food or to enter the Temple before nightfall, as it is said (Lev. 22:6–7): “He may not eat of sanctified food unless he immersed himself in water. When the sun leaves he shall be purified and after that he may eat of the sanctified food.” [For the more severe kinds of impurity, a sacrifice is needed before the Cohen may eat sacred food in the Temple; this does not concern us here.] The Halakhah will discuss the exact meaning of “the sun leaving” and its relation to sunset and nightfall.
Today, no Cohen may eat any Terumah and the minimal amount set apart for Terumah must be burned; it is ritually unclean from the start since nowadays everybody is defiled by the impurity of dead bodies. That impurity can be removed only by sprinkling with water treated with the ashes of the Red Heifer (Num. 19). The Mishnah was edited approximately between 200 and 220 C. E. It must be assumed that the rules of the Mishnah are intended to be practical. It follows that 130 years after the destruction of the Temple there were still places in Israel where the Cohanim could purify themselves by the ashes of the Red Heifer (in Galilee which was only minimally damaged by the two wars with the Romans.), until the end of the first night watch4The night is divided either into three (Babylonian) or four (Roman) watches. are the words of Rebbi Eliezer5The name of R. Eliezer is attached only to the statement about the night watch. The start of the time of the evening Shema is accepted by everybody. Rebbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was one of the foremost students of Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, the founder of the Synhedrion of Jabneh after the destruction of the Temple. He was the most conservative of all teachers of his time and reputed to transmit old traditions most reliably.. But the Sages say until midnight. Rabban Gamliel says until the first sign of dawn6It will be seen that the difference between Rabban Gamliel and the other sages is practical rather than theoretical. They agree that “when you are lying down” means “all the time that you are lying on your bed” and not “when you are ready to go to bed”. The latter interpretation is that of R. Eliezer..
It happened that his (Rabban Gamliel’s) sons returned from a wedding feast and told him: We did not recite the Shema‘. He said to them: If dawn has not yet come then you are obligated to recite.
Not only that, but everywhere the Sages said “until midnight”, the obligation is to the start of dawn. The obligation of burning fats and limbs on the altar [and eating of the Passover sacrifice] is until the start of dawn.134This entire Mishnah, and the following one, are still the words of Rabban Gamliel. In the Venice print and the Leyden manuscript, the Passover sacrifice is not mentioned in the Mishnah preceding the chapter but it is in the Mishnah repeated before the Halakhah. The Biblical precept is to burn the remaining parts of the sacrifices on the altar “the entire night until morning” (Lev. 6:1).
In the interpretation of the Mishnah, there is a fundamental disagreement between Rashi and Maimonides. Rashi (Berakhot 2a, s. v. להרחיק) כדי writes: “Concerning burning of the fats, the Sages did not restrict it to ‘until midnight’ at all and it is mentioned here only to emphasize that everything that has to be done in the night is kasher the entire night.” Maimonides, in his commentary on the Mishnah, writes: “They said about all of these activities ‘until midnight’, even though there would be time until the first signs of dawn, as a ‘fence’ that no one should come to act under pressure and prolong his actions until after the start of dawn; that is what they said ‘In order to remove people from sin.’ ” And he formulates this in his code (Maäse haqorbanot 4:2): “In order to avoid wilful transgression, the Sages said to bring to the altar the parts that have to be burned only until midnight.”
Neither the Yerushalmi nor the Babli discuss the burning of sacrifices during the night. However, as Rebbi Ḥuna points out in the following paragraph, in his opinion the entire discussion in the Mishnah is about Rabbinic precepts, rather than Biblical commandments. This is compatible only with the point of view of Maimonides. It is a well known principle that Maimonides follows the Yerushalmi in all points in which there is no contrary opinion indicated in the Babli; he will take the silence of the Babli in this matter as an endorsement of the interpretation of the Yerushalmi.
All sacrifices that can be eaten during one full day only could be eaten until the first dawn. In that case, why did the Sages say, only until midnight? In order to remove people from sin.
Today, no Cohen may eat any Terumah and the minimal amount set apart for Terumah must be burned; it is ritually unclean from the start since nowadays everybody is defiled by the impurity of dead bodies. That impurity can be removed only by sprinkling with water treated with the ashes of the Red Heifer (Num. 19). The Mishnah was edited approximately between 200 and 220 C. E. It must be assumed that the rules of the Mishnah are intended to be practical. It follows that 130 years after the destruction of the Temple there were still places in Israel where the Cohanim could purify themselves by the ashes of the Red Heifer (in Galilee which was only minimally damaged by the two wars with the Romans.), until the end of the first night watch4The night is divided either into three (Babylonian) or four (Roman) watches. are the words of Rebbi Eliezer5The name of R. Eliezer is attached only to the statement about the night watch. The start of the time of the evening Shema is accepted by everybody. Rebbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was one of the foremost students of Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, the founder of the Synhedrion of Jabneh after the destruction of the Temple. He was the most conservative of all teachers of his time and reputed to transmit old traditions most reliably.. But the Sages say until midnight. Rabban Gamliel says until the first sign of dawn6It will be seen that the difference between Rabban Gamliel and the other sages is practical rather than theoretical. They agree that “when you are lying down” means “all the time that you are lying on your bed” and not “when you are ready to go to bed”. The latter interpretation is that of R. Eliezer..
It happened that his (Rabban Gamliel’s) sons returned from a wedding feast and told him: We did not recite the Shema‘. He said to them: If dawn has not yet come then you are obligated to recite.
Not only that, but everywhere the Sages said “until midnight”, the obligation is to the start of dawn. The obligation of burning fats and limbs on the altar [and eating of the Passover sacrifice] is until the start of dawn.134This entire Mishnah, and the following one, are still the words of Rabban Gamliel. In the Venice print and the Leyden manuscript, the Passover sacrifice is not mentioned in the Mishnah preceding the chapter but it is in the Mishnah repeated before the Halakhah. The Biblical precept is to burn the remaining parts of the sacrifices on the altar “the entire night until morning” (Lev. 6:1).
In the interpretation of the Mishnah, there is a fundamental disagreement between Rashi and Maimonides. Rashi (Berakhot 2a, s. v. להרחיק) כדי writes: “Concerning burning of the fats, the Sages did not restrict it to ‘until midnight’ at all and it is mentioned here only to emphasize that everything that has to be done in the night is kasher the entire night.” Maimonides, in his commentary on the Mishnah, writes: “They said about all of these activities ‘until midnight’, even though there would be time until the first signs of dawn, as a ‘fence’ that no one should come to act under pressure and prolong his actions until after the start of dawn; that is what they said ‘In order to remove people from sin.’ ” And he formulates this in his code (Maäse haqorbanot 4:2): “In order to avoid wilful transgression, the Sages said to bring to the altar the parts that have to be burned only until midnight.”
Neither the Yerushalmi nor the Babli discuss the burning of sacrifices during the night. However, as Rebbi Ḥuna points out in the following paragraph, in his opinion the entire discussion in the Mishnah is about Rabbinic precepts, rather than Biblical commandments. This is compatible only with the point of view of Maimonides. It is a well known principle that Maimonides follows the Yerushalmi in all points in which there is no contrary opinion indicated in the Babli; he will take the silence of the Babli in this matter as an endorsement of the interpretation of the Yerushalmi.
All sacrifices that can be eaten during one full day only could be eaten until the first dawn. In that case, why did the Sages say, only until midnight? In order to remove people from sin.
Jerusalem Talmud Terumot
HALAKHAH: “One does not give heave from pure produce”, etc. Rebbi Joḥanan in the name of Rebbi Yannai (Num. 18:27): “Your heave will be counted as if it were grain from the threshing-floor and what was drawn off from the wine-press..” Since for threshing-floor and wine-press it is impossible that part of it be impure and part pure4For fluids it is obvious that if part of it became impure, all is impure. The case of grain is more complicated but in two cases the assertion is certainly true. If the grain is prepared for impurity (Demay, Chapter 2, Note 141) before threshing, then in sweeping the grains together to form an orderly heap, any impurity will be spread through the entire heap. If the grain is not prepared, then any moistening of the heap will make the entire heap prepared., even so one infers what is possible from what is impossible5The verse quoted refers to heaves of the tithe for grain and wine. For these, it is impossible to give Great Heave (Chapter 1, Note 64) from pure for impure since Great Heave is given only from earmarked produce; it is inferred that nowhere may one give heave from pure produce on impure.
The statement that abstract principles can be transferred from impossible to possible cases is not found in the Babli but Tosaphot refer to it several times to explain the background of talmudic reasoning (Beẓah 13b, s. v. כשם; Giṭṭin 30b, s. v. וכי; Menaḥot 54b, s. v. כך; Bekhorot 59b, s. v. אף).. In that case, the heave given should not be heave! It is written: “From itself6“From itself” is repeated in Num. 18 several times, verses 26, 28, 29, 30, 32. While it is asserted in the next paragraph that heave of the tithe, the subject of that paragraph, need not be from the particular batch of tithe for which it is given, it is emphasized sufficiently to point out that Great Heave may be given from any part of the batch, even if part of it is pure and the remainder impure.”.
The statement that abstract principles can be transferred from impossible to possible cases is not found in the Babli but Tosaphot refer to it several times to explain the background of talmudic reasoning (Beẓah 13b, s. v. כשם; Giṭṭin 30b, s. v. וכי; Menaḥot 54b, s. v. כך; Bekhorot 59b, s. v. אף).. In that case, the heave given should not be heave! It is written: “From itself6“From itself” is repeated in Num. 18 several times, verses 26, 28, 29, 30, 32. While it is asserted in the next paragraph that heave of the tithe, the subject of that paragraph, need not be from the particular batch of tithe for which it is given, it is emphasized sufficiently to point out that Great Heave may be given from any part of the batch, even if part of it is pure and the remainder impure.”.
Jerusalem Talmud Terumot
Everything teaches for itself and for others7Every verse of the Torah first is needed for its subject but then can be used to deduce rules for other cases by the standard rules of inference, either following R. Ismael or R. Aqiba., the heave of the tithes teaches for others what it does not teach for itself8While very few verses speak about the obligation of the Great Heave and no details are given, the verses dealing with the heave of the tithe are many and partially contradictory. As explained in the paragraph, the general expressions are taken to refer to the Great Heave and the detailed instructions for the heave of the tithe.. The heave of the tithe teaches for Great Heave that it should not be taken from pure produce for impure but itself can be taken from pure produce for impure. From where? Rebbi Yose in the name of Ḥizqiah, Rebbi Jonah in the name of Rebbi Yannai (Num. 18:28): “You shall give from it the Eternal’s heave to Aharon the priest;” it should be given to Aharon in his status as priest9Sacral meals, the main duty of a Cohen, must all be eaten in strict purity.. Cahana said (Num. 18:29): “From its best, the sanctified part from it;” take from its sanctifiable part. The heave of the tithe teaches for Great Heave that it should be taken from earmarked produce6“From itself” is repeated in Num. 18 several times, verses 26, 28, 29, 30, 32. While it is asserted in the next paragraph that heave of the tithe, the subject of that paragraph, need not be from the particular batch of tithe for which it is given, it is emphasized sufficiently to point out that Great Heave may be given from any part of the batch, even if part of it is pure and the remainder impure. but itself may be taken from non-earmarked. From where that heave of the tithe may be taken from non-earmarked produce? (Num. 18:28) “From all of your tithes,” one in Judea and one in Galilee. The heave of the tithe teaches for Great Heave that it should be taken only from finished produce, itself also should be taken from finished produce10Chapter 1, Note 206..