Maseches Pesachim Daf 10
Dec. 1st, 2020 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretDaf 10
The Gemara got bored of weasels so it's started talking about mice.
I think for our purposes the difference between 'weasel' and 'mouse' is that since a weasel is bigger, we assume it's capable of eating a human shiur of whatever it takes, whereas a mouse may be able to move a shiur but it's not necessarily going to eat a shiur. So with a mouse we're reduced to only two scenarios: Either the mouse moved the chametz, or it didn't move it. We don't have to consider scenario three, where the mouse at the chametz. That's good because we're going into some extremely Seussian scenarios.
Like what if you have two houses and two mouses and two fishes, er, breads. One of the breads is matzah, the other is not-so. I'm sorry, I'll stop. Once I get to the top. One of the houses had already been searched for chametz, the other house had not been searched yet. One of the mouses took one of the breads and went into one of the houses, and one of the mouses took the other bread and went into the other house. But we don't know which mouse took which bread and went where. Do you have to re-search the house that had already been searched? No, says the Gemara, based on an analogous case involving consecrated and non-consecrated food that might or might not have been contaminated.
The Gemara objects that this only works in the case of tumah d'rabbanan, but then it saves itself by saying that bedika is d'rabbanan too, and the actual d'oraysa obligation is just to remove all the chametz in your home and declare it nullified, not to actually search your house for chametz. Which I think is surprising, but in that usual Gemara way where sometimes they cite Torah verses but they're just doing it as a remez.
They then cite a great case that's similar but has a different, weird outcome. There are two paths, one of which has a dead animal on it, and two people. One of the people walks one of the paths, one of the people walks the other path, neither is sure whether they walked the path that was contaminated but they're sure they didn't walk the same path as the other person. If one of these people goes to a Rabbi, says Rabbi Yehuda, and asks if they're tahor, the Rabbi will say yes because it's a safek and in a safek we're lenient. But if both of them go together to the same Rabbi, the ruling will be that they're both not tahor, because, um... somebody there has to be ruled not tahor, and we're not sure who so we just rule both. This is kind of weird probability shit that causes all those bar room arguments about the Monty Hall problem.
Another mouse case is this: Mouse goes in, mouse goes out, but we're not sure if it left chametz behind. You search and search and can't find any new chametz. Do you have to abandon the house for Pesach? They bring a similar case where Rabbi Meir and the Chachamim disagree. Case is where you know for sure that there's a dead body on the premises and you can't find it. Rabbi Meir says yes, until you find the body you have to treat the place as not tahor. The Chachamim say that if you search exhaustively, 'down to the virgin soil', you can declare that it's now tahor because somehow the body must be gone.
Next we discuss if you had chametz in one place in your house and you turn around later and it's in another corner. I think the case is where you've already done your search, and this is your chametz to destroy in the morning, and so the question is whether the fact that some chametz has been disturbed mysteriously means you need to re-search everything. They compare it to a case where you had an axe and the axe goes missing and the Chachamim say this means you need to assume that a ritually impure person came in and took it and therefore treat your house as not tahor, and Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says you can just assume some random tahor person took it and moved it. Or I dunno, maybe a poltergeist? Or maybe you just moved it and forgot.
Then we finish the page with a new Mishna, a machlokess between R' Yehuda HaNasi and the Rabbis about whether there's a second obligatory bedikas chametz in the morning of the 14th (position of Rebbi) or if it's just an optional second bedikas if you missed the time for doing the first (position of the Rabbis). Then the Tanna Kamma continues that if you miss both times you can search on chag itself, and can even do the search after chag during chol hamoed, because you still have an obligation to rid your home of leaven for the full seven days of Pesach.
And the Gemara says apparently Rabbi Yehuda said you either had to or could do three searches.
The Gemara got bored of weasels so it's started talking about mice.
I think for our purposes the difference between 'weasel' and 'mouse' is that since a weasel is bigger, we assume it's capable of eating a human shiur of whatever it takes, whereas a mouse may be able to move a shiur but it's not necessarily going to eat a shiur. So with a mouse we're reduced to only two scenarios: Either the mouse moved the chametz, or it didn't move it. We don't have to consider scenario three, where the mouse at the chametz. That's good because we're going into some extremely Seussian scenarios.
Like what if you have two houses and two mouses and two fishes, er, breads. One of the breads is matzah, the other is not-so. I'm sorry, I'll stop. Once I get to the top. One of the houses had already been searched for chametz, the other house had not been searched yet. One of the mouses took one of the breads and went into one of the houses, and one of the mouses took the other bread and went into the other house. But we don't know which mouse took which bread and went where. Do you have to re-search the house that had already been searched? No, says the Gemara, based on an analogous case involving consecrated and non-consecrated food that might or might not have been contaminated.
The Gemara objects that this only works in the case of tumah d'rabbanan, but then it saves itself by saying that bedika is d'rabbanan too, and the actual d'oraysa obligation is just to remove all the chametz in your home and declare it nullified, not to actually search your house for chametz. Which I think is surprising, but in that usual Gemara way where sometimes they cite Torah verses but they're just doing it as a remez.
They then cite a great case that's similar but has a different, weird outcome. There are two paths, one of which has a dead animal on it, and two people. One of the people walks one of the paths, one of the people walks the other path, neither is sure whether they walked the path that was contaminated but they're sure they didn't walk the same path as the other person. If one of these people goes to a Rabbi, says Rabbi Yehuda, and asks if they're tahor, the Rabbi will say yes because it's a safek and in a safek we're lenient. But if both of them go together to the same Rabbi, the ruling will be that they're both not tahor, because, um... somebody there has to be ruled not tahor, and we're not sure who so we just rule both. This is kind of weird probability shit that causes all those bar room arguments about the Monty Hall problem.
Another mouse case is this: Mouse goes in, mouse goes out, but we're not sure if it left chametz behind. You search and search and can't find any new chametz. Do you have to abandon the house for Pesach? They bring a similar case where Rabbi Meir and the Chachamim disagree. Case is where you know for sure that there's a dead body on the premises and you can't find it. Rabbi Meir says yes, until you find the body you have to treat the place as not tahor. The Chachamim say that if you search exhaustively, 'down to the virgin soil', you can declare that it's now tahor because somehow the body must be gone.
Next we discuss if you had chametz in one place in your house and you turn around later and it's in another corner. I think the case is where you've already done your search, and this is your chametz to destroy in the morning, and so the question is whether the fact that some chametz has been disturbed mysteriously means you need to re-search everything. They compare it to a case where you had an axe and the axe goes missing and the Chachamim say this means you need to assume that a ritually impure person came in and took it and therefore treat your house as not tahor, and Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says you can just assume some random tahor person took it and moved it. Or I dunno, maybe a poltergeist? Or maybe you just moved it and forgot.
Then we finish the page with a new Mishna, a machlokess between R' Yehuda HaNasi and the Rabbis about whether there's a second obligatory bedikas chametz in the morning of the 14th (position of Rebbi) or if it's just an optional second bedikas if you missed the time for doing the first (position of the Rabbis). Then the Tanna Kamma continues that if you miss both times you can search on chag itself, and can even do the search after chag during chol hamoed, because you still have an obligation to rid your home of leaven for the full seven days of Pesach.
And the Gemara says apparently Rabbi Yehuda said you either had to or could do three searches.
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Date: 2020-12-01 11:20 pm (UTC)