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Maseches Pesachim Daf 12
Dec. 3rd, 2020 01:01 pmDaf 12
A conspicuous lack of weasels on this page.
We're continuing on the timekeeping question of when the hour on 14 Nisan is when you burn chametz as opposed to when you stop eating. All seem to agree that you burn your chametz in the 6th hour of the day (i.e. the hour right before mid-day). Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda disagree about whether or not you can eat in the 5th hour. Rabbi Meir says yes, Rabbi Yehuda says you must stop eating chametz in the fourth hour.
By analyzing a case involving eidim who disagree in the time of an event they witnessed by one or two hours we seemed to think that this is the same disagreement- Rabbi Meir believes that people can identify the time fairly precisely, Rabbi Yehuda believes there's more inaccuracy in time determinations and we must therefore allow more leeway.
The Gemara spends a bunch of time trying to understand the exact parameters of the difference- essentially how much precision do Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda expect in somebody's timekeeping.
Abaye thought that Rabbi Meir thought that people knew essentially exactly what time it was, and Rabbi Yehuda thought people were off by up to half an hour. According to Abaye's theory, the reason Rabbi Meir allows an hour discrepancy with eidim is because if something happened at 1:59 and something else happened at 2:01, they would report different 'hours' but be essentially the same time. And according to Abaye's theory, the reason Rabbi Yehuda allows two hours off with eidim is because if one reported something at 2:59 they might really mean 3:29, and if the other witness reported something at 4:01 they might really mean 3:31, and those times were then essentially the same.
Rava thought Rabbi Meir thought that people were off by up to 'two hours less a bit' and he thought Rabbi Yehuda thought people were off by 'up to three hours less a bit', so Rava is understanding Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda as accounting for full hours and not just accounting for different rounding to the nearest hour.
Both of these explanations don't entirely satisfy with respect to Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda's disagrement about the time of stopping eating chametz, each requires some additional reasoning.
If you hold by Abaye then there doesn't entirely seem to be a good reason for Rabbi Meir to require you burn the chametz at the beginning of the sixth hour instead of the end of the sixth hour, so Abaye says this is because there's a difference between eidim and the people burning the chametz- in general you're not accepting witnesses even if their testimonies align unless they've been accepted as upstanding, reliable people, but everyone is obligated in burning chametz, even less reliable people, so both Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda have wider windows than they do for eidim.
But Rava says the reason for the wider window is instead to allow extra time for gathering wood and preparing to burn the chametz. Ravina objected that it's not actually required according to Rabbi Yehuda to burn the chametz, you can get rid of it in other ways in the sixth hour, so Rava instead said that it was because if it were a cloudy day you'd be even more uncertain about what time it was and so Rabbi Yehuda required the extra time gap.
This leads to an interesting baraisa which I feel certain I've seen in another masechet. Says the baraisa:
-The first hour of the day is when cannibals eat. Or possibly gluttons. Reasonably people can disagree.
- The second hour of the day is when bandits eat.
- The third hour of the day is when rich people eat.
- The four hour of the day is when all people eat.
- The fifth hour of the day is when workers eat.
- The sixth hour of the day is when Torah scholars eat.
There's some disagreement about the order of the last three but this seems to be the preferred ordering.
The idea is that I guess nobody normally ate breakfast, or maybe you ate in the morning but not a full meal. This is an agrarian society, when you wake up you go out and feed your herds and tend to your land and only when you've done your work do you eat. So the first significant meal of the day for normal people is post-work. If you're a crazy glutton you eat first thing in the morning because you can't control yourself. If you're a criminal glutton you eat second in the morning, because you have the lack of self-control but you were up late the night before sneaking around robbing people. If you don't have morning work to do you eat in the third hour. Otherwise you eat in the fourth hour, unless you had an extra long work-load and you eat in the fifth hour. And Torah scholars seem to be separated because they have transcended their physical needs to focus on learning Torah. But in the other place we learned this baraisa I recall an addition about how if the Torah scholars wait until the seventh hour to eat they've screwed up and get little benefit, because even Torah scholars need to eat.
It's a really interestingly different way to think about meals and food culture, making me wonder how ideas about mealtimes evolved over time.
Anyway, virtually nothing on this page had anything to do with Pesach, but why would you think that would happen just because it's called Maseches Pesachim?
A conspicuous lack of weasels on this page.
We're continuing on the timekeeping question of when the hour on 14 Nisan is when you burn chametz as opposed to when you stop eating. All seem to agree that you burn your chametz in the 6th hour of the day (i.e. the hour right before mid-day). Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda disagree about whether or not you can eat in the 5th hour. Rabbi Meir says yes, Rabbi Yehuda says you must stop eating chametz in the fourth hour.
By analyzing a case involving eidim who disagree in the time of an event they witnessed by one or two hours we seemed to think that this is the same disagreement- Rabbi Meir believes that people can identify the time fairly precisely, Rabbi Yehuda believes there's more inaccuracy in time determinations and we must therefore allow more leeway.
The Gemara spends a bunch of time trying to understand the exact parameters of the difference- essentially how much precision do Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda expect in somebody's timekeeping.
Abaye thought that Rabbi Meir thought that people knew essentially exactly what time it was, and Rabbi Yehuda thought people were off by up to half an hour. According to Abaye's theory, the reason Rabbi Meir allows an hour discrepancy with eidim is because if something happened at 1:59 and something else happened at 2:01, they would report different 'hours' but be essentially the same time. And according to Abaye's theory, the reason Rabbi Yehuda allows two hours off with eidim is because if one reported something at 2:59 they might really mean 3:29, and if the other witness reported something at 4:01 they might really mean 3:31, and those times were then essentially the same.
Rava thought Rabbi Meir thought that people were off by up to 'two hours less a bit' and he thought Rabbi Yehuda thought people were off by 'up to three hours less a bit', so Rava is understanding Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda as accounting for full hours and not just accounting for different rounding to the nearest hour.
Both of these explanations don't entirely satisfy with respect to Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda's disagrement about the time of stopping eating chametz, each requires some additional reasoning.
If you hold by Abaye then there doesn't entirely seem to be a good reason for Rabbi Meir to require you burn the chametz at the beginning of the sixth hour instead of the end of the sixth hour, so Abaye says this is because there's a difference between eidim and the people burning the chametz- in general you're not accepting witnesses even if their testimonies align unless they've been accepted as upstanding, reliable people, but everyone is obligated in burning chametz, even less reliable people, so both Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda have wider windows than they do for eidim.
But Rava says the reason for the wider window is instead to allow extra time for gathering wood and preparing to burn the chametz. Ravina objected that it's not actually required according to Rabbi Yehuda to burn the chametz, you can get rid of it in other ways in the sixth hour, so Rava instead said that it was because if it were a cloudy day you'd be even more uncertain about what time it was and so Rabbi Yehuda required the extra time gap.
This leads to an interesting baraisa which I feel certain I've seen in another masechet. Says the baraisa:
-The first hour of the day is when cannibals eat. Or possibly gluttons. Reasonably people can disagree.
- The second hour of the day is when bandits eat.
- The third hour of the day is when rich people eat.
- The four hour of the day is when all people eat.
- The fifth hour of the day is when workers eat.
- The sixth hour of the day is when Torah scholars eat.
There's some disagreement about the order of the last three but this seems to be the preferred ordering.
The idea is that I guess nobody normally ate breakfast, or maybe you ate in the morning but not a full meal. This is an agrarian society, when you wake up you go out and feed your herds and tend to your land and only when you've done your work do you eat. So the first significant meal of the day for normal people is post-work. If you're a crazy glutton you eat first thing in the morning because you can't control yourself. If you're a criminal glutton you eat second in the morning, because you have the lack of self-control but you were up late the night before sneaking around robbing people. If you don't have morning work to do you eat in the third hour. Otherwise you eat in the fourth hour, unless you had an extra long work-load and you eat in the fifth hour. And Torah scholars seem to be separated because they have transcended their physical needs to focus on learning Torah. But in the other place we learned this baraisa I recall an addition about how if the Torah scholars wait until the seventh hour to eat they've screwed up and get little benefit, because even Torah scholars need to eat.
It's a really interestingly different way to think about meals and food culture, making me wonder how ideas about mealtimes evolved over time.
Anyway, virtually nothing on this page had anything to do with Pesach, but why would you think that would happen just because it's called Maseches Pesachim?