Comentários de Citação sobre Isaías 5:10

You shall set aside a tenth part - This is what is written in the Sifri: "You shall set aside a tenth part of all the yield of your sowing that is brought from the field every year" (Deut. 14:22) [from a superficial reading] I can only find that one is obligated to tithe the yield of sowing, from where do I know that he is obligated on tithing also on interest and merchandise and all other types of gain? The text says "all" - it could have said simply "the yield of your sowing", why [does it have the word] "all"? To include interest and merchandise and all other types of ways of gain. And this too is in the Hagadah (?): "that is brought from the field every year" - that is to say if you don't tithe your field properly, you will be left only with "what comes from the field", meaning, your field only produces according to the tithes that were taken previously, therefore, "what comes from the field" - that is to say what you were used to take to tithing from the field. A story: a certain rich man who had a field that produced a thousand kor, and that same rich man gave 100 kor for tithes, and he separated this every year, and did so all his days. When he got sick to the point of dying he called his son and said to him: 'my son, know that this field that I am giving you for inheritance gives a thousand kor every year, make sure that you will separate 100 kor as I did'. Then he died. His son stood on his place and the field produced a thousand kor as it did when the father was alive, and [the son] separated 100 kor. In the second year the son looked and understood that tithing was a great thing. He said: 'We will not separate for the next year' And the field diminished [its production] and produced only 100 kor. He was disappointed, and his relatives heard that the field diminished and that he did not separate the tithes. They all came together near him, wearing white and happy. He said to them: 'I am under the impression that you are happy with my disgrace.' They said to him: 'We are disappointed in you since you brought upon yourself all this disgrace, and why did you not separate the tithe as it would have been right to do? Come and see that in the beginning, when the field first came to your hands,you were the owner of the house and the Holy One of Blessing was your kohen, whose part [in your field] was the tithe to be given to the poor and now that you didn't separate the part of the Holy One of Blessing, the Holy One is the master of the house and you are His kohen, in that your field will not do the thousand kor it did in the beginning, when you did separate the 100 kor. And this is why it's written "to each man his holy things will be his [and whatever he gives to the kohen will be his]" (Numbers 5:10) - that is to say, when he does not separate as appropriate the only thing that will be his is his holy portion, that is, the tithe. And on this our sages said: 'the one who delays his tithes will in the end have only one tithe, as it is written '[For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bat] the seed of a homer will yield an ephah' (Isaiah 5:10). The tithe of an ephah is is three se'ahs and in a homer there are thirty se'ahs and it is written 'For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bat' and Rav Natan Haophaniel (?) explains 'what comes out of the field' that is - if not, if you do not separate the tenth will be for the one that comes out to the field, which is, the wicked Esav, which is: the idolaters will get it.

AND POINTLESS OATHS [Heb. shvuat shav]. Rav writes in his second explanation: the tanna calls a false oath a pointless oath. This is based on the Talmud, Shevuot 20b, where Rav Dimi says in the name of R. Yochanan that a pointless oath is when one swears that he has eaten or not eaten, and the opposite is true. Rashi ad loc. explains: shav here means “nothing”, as in the verses “cords of nothingness [Heb. chavlei shav]” (Isaiah 5:10) and “I have struck your children for nothing [Heb. leshav]” (Jeremiah 2:30); in this instance, as well, the oath has left his mouth for nothing. The souce for the prohibition is “Do not mention the name of Hashem, your G-d, in vain [Heb. leshav]” (Exodus 20:7).
I first wondered at this, because the mishna in Shevuot 3:8 asks “What is an oath of shav?” and does not list the case of one who makes an oath about past events. We can answer this as follows. The Talmud there says that Ravin disagrees with Rav Dimi and calls the oath of “I have eaten/I haven’t eaten” a false oath [*see my comments on Temurah 1:1, s.v. sofeg], while a pointless oath is one that involves an obviously false claim, such as “this is a woman” of a man. He holds that one who makes a false oath receives lashes, and the Talmud traces the source for this to the double use of the word shav in the verse in Exodus 20:7: one shav indicates that a pointless oath incurs lashes; the second shav, which now seems unnecessary, indicates that even a false oath incurs lashes. How, the Talmud asks, does Ravin know that a false oath is about a past event? It answers that, since the Torah clearly compares the false oath to the pointless oath, it is reasonable to assume that just as the pointless oath concerns a past event, a false oath concerns a past event. Rashi ad loc. explains that a pointless oath is about a “past event” because it makes a claim that is obviously false, as opposed to an oath about doing or not doing something in the future.
We can similarly say that Rav Dimi would agree that any oath about a past event would follow logically from the classic case of a pointless oath, which is making an obviously false claim. Because the term “pointless oath” refers most directly to an oath claiming the opposite of what is well-known, the mishna defines a pointless oath as “making an oath claiming the opposite of something well-known,” but indeed, any false oath concerning a past event would be included in this.
[*But there is a simpler approach. The Talmud says there (Shevuot 21b) that one who makes the oath “I have/haven’t eaten” is obligated to bring a sacrifice of atonement, whereas the abovementioned mishna says that one who makes a pointless oath is not obligated to bring a sacrifice. For this reason, the end of that same mishna says “this is the ‘pointless oath’ which one who makes intentionally must receive lashes for, but for which one who makes it unintentionally need not bring a sacrifice,” and the Talmud says that “this” means to exclude the case of “I have/haven’t eaten” which would require a sacrifice, as I wrote on that mishna (Shevuot 3:8, s.v. zo hi). Now even though the Talmud was in the middle of defending Ravin’s position, it is clear that even Rav Dimi agrees to this detail, as the Talmud says in Shevuot at the beginning of page 21a that Rav Dimi holds that swearing “I have/haven’t eaten” falsely would obligate one to bring a sacrifice.¹⁵³This is why that mishna could not include the case of swearing about a past event in the “pointless oath”, even though it actually is—the mishna means to list those pointless oaths that would not obligate one to bring a sacrifice, and a false oath about a past event, even though it is included in the category of pointless oaths, does obligate one to bring a sacrifice.]
Midrash Shmuel writes in the name of R. Yosef ibn Shoshan that our mishna mentions pointless oaths and not false oaths because even when the law requires an oath and the one swearing is telling the truth, such an oath is considered a pointless oath as far as the litigant is concerned because he knows what is true, and making a true oath of something that is already known is called a pointless oath. If so, our mishna would be following the opinion of those who argue with Rav Dimi and hold that “I have/haven’t eaten” goes in the category of false oaths, which are forbidden by “do not swear falsely in My name” (Leviticus 19:12).¹⁵⁴According to Midrash Shmuel, the mishna's warning is not that involvement in court cases will cause one to swear falsely. It is rather that even the legitimate oaths one makes in court have a dimension of pointlessness to them, and so our mishna is discussing piously refraining even from legitimate oaths as opposed to refraining from truly transgressing any prohibitions. If so, shav refers exclusively to these somewhat “pointless” oaths and not to any truly problematic ones, and cannot include false oaths. As such, it cannot be following the opinion of Rav Dimi, according to whom the word shav includes false oaths about past events; it must be following the opinion of those who argue and hold that the word shav simply means “pointless”, and can therefore be borrowed to describe these somewhat pointless oaths. Rambam follows this opinion in Hilchot Shevuot 1:3. Cf. Rav’s commentary on on 5:9.

כברת הארץ A KIBRATH OF LAND — Menachem ben Seruk explains the word כברת to have the meaning of כביר “much” and that the phrase means a great distance. A Midrashic explanation is: at the time when the ground was full of holes and was riddled like a sieve (כברה) (cf. Rashi on Genesis 48:7) — when there was plenty of ploughed ground; the winter was passed, but the dry season had not yet come. This, however, cannot be the literal sense of the verse, for in the case of Naaman we find (2 Kings 5:19) “So he departed from him כברת ארץ” (which cannot possibly have this meaning). I think that it is a name for a measure of land, the distance of a Parsa or more, just as you say (Isaiah 5:10) “acres (צמדי) of vineyard” and (33:19) “the parcel (חלקת) of field”: In the same way in reference to a man’s journey Scripture mentions the name of a measure — viz., a כברת ארץ, a כברה of land.

A distance. כִּבְרַת אֶרֶץ is the name of a land measure,¹²The distance of a mile.—Radak as in, “portions [צִמְדֵי] of vineyard,”¹³Yeshayahu 5:10. arpent, in O.F.