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Mar. 5th, 2019 10:25 amDaf 96
The Mishna discusses a machlokess between the Tanna Kamma and Rabbi Yehuda that has come up earlier, I think in the previous chapter, about the nature of the shiur of the gid hanasheh. The shiur is a major concept in Jewish law that for many actions to be considered as having taken place, there's a certain defined halakhically significant minimum amount. This can apply both to positive and negative mitzvot: On Passover at the seder, one is required to eat matzah at least as much as the shiur. Contrariwise, when it comes to forbidden foods, if one eats less than the shiur, they have not violated the negative mitzvah, or at least not enough to face human punishment- they can still be punished by God.
Commonly the shiur for foods in both positive and negative commandments in the kazayit, which literally means 'like an olive'. The rabbinical position of how much is a kazayit, however, is much larger than the olives one usually sees nowadays. People make charts of how much matzah is in a kazayit and it is a massive amount by the traditional view: https://www.torahcalc.com/pesach/. (Rabbi Slifkin's kazayit chart is simpler: https://www.biblicalnaturalhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MatzahMarorChart.pdf)
How does this apply to the gid hanasheh?
Both sides agree that if the gid hanasheh is larger than a kazayit, one transgresses and incurs lashes for eating only a part of the gid if the part they eat is at least a kazayit. And they both agree that if one eats part of a gid and it's less than a kazayit, one does not incur lashes.
But the Tanna Kamma says that if the entirety of a gid hanasheh is less than a kazayit, and one eats the whole thing, one is liable even though it was less than the shiur, because there's a separate kind of minimum that sometimes applies, "one complete thing". For example one is guilty of violating the prohibition on eating sheratzim for eating a single ant, even though it's smaller than an olive, because the ant is a complete unit of forbidden food.
Rabbi Yehuda, in contrast, says that the gid hanasheh is just a part of an animal and doesn't have independent life and status, so one must eat at least a kazayit worth to be liable for lashes.
The Mishna discusses a machlokess between the Tanna Kamma and Rabbi Yehuda that has come up earlier, I think in the previous chapter, about the nature of the shiur of the gid hanasheh. The shiur is a major concept in Jewish law that for many actions to be considered as having taken place, there's a certain defined halakhically significant minimum amount. This can apply both to positive and negative mitzvot: On Passover at the seder, one is required to eat matzah at least as much as the shiur. Contrariwise, when it comes to forbidden foods, if one eats less than the shiur, they have not violated the negative mitzvah, or at least not enough to face human punishment- they can still be punished by God.
Commonly the shiur for foods in both positive and negative commandments in the kazayit, which literally means 'like an olive'. The rabbinical position of how much is a kazayit, however, is much larger than the olives one usually sees nowadays. People make charts of how much matzah is in a kazayit and it is a massive amount by the traditional view: https://www.torahcalc.com/pesach/. (Rabbi Slifkin's kazayit chart is simpler: https://www.biblicalnaturalhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MatzahMarorChart.pdf)
How does this apply to the gid hanasheh?
Both sides agree that if the gid hanasheh is larger than a kazayit, one transgresses and incurs lashes for eating only a part of the gid if the part they eat is at least a kazayit. And they both agree that if one eats part of a gid and it's less than a kazayit, one does not incur lashes.
But the Tanna Kamma says that if the entirety of a gid hanasheh is less than a kazayit, and one eats the whole thing, one is liable even though it was less than the shiur, because there's a separate kind of minimum that sometimes applies, "one complete thing". For example one is guilty of violating the prohibition on eating sheratzim for eating a single ant, even though it's smaller than an olive, because the ant is a complete unit of forbidden food.
Rabbi Yehuda, in contrast, says that the gid hanasheh is just a part of an animal and doesn't have independent life and status, so one must eat at least a kazayit worth to be liable for lashes.