Welcome again to the continuation of our classes concerning the explanation of the arguments between the two schools of thought, בית שמאי and בית הלל, the school of שמאי, the school of הלל. Just to review that these are two schools of thought, two schools, two ישיבות, two great ישיבות that were at the time of the second Temple, and there are many cases we find, many laws, and many situations where we find that they argue in what the decision of the הלכה, the law should be. And seemingly, they are all different types of questions, different subjects, and the reasoning behind each one of them should be completely different. Nevertheless, we find one line of thought, one thread which goes through many, many of their decisions based on this one line of thought, even though they are completely different subjects from one end of the spectrum to the other. And we have brought many, many in the previous classes, now we will continue. And the point is that בית שמאי says we always follow the בכח, and בית הלל says we follow the בפועל, which means, not to belabor the point, because you've heard it so many times in the previous classes, but what it really means is בכח is potential, בפועל is actuality, that בית שמאי says that whenever there is a question which of the two is the more important one and which one should be the one that should play the most important role in the decision, בית שמאי says we look at the way the thing is in potential, and בית הלל says we look at it the way it is בפועל, in actuality. The next example that we will give is actually very close to the last example that we gave before. And that is a משנה. And again, a משנה is the sayings and the rulings of the תנאים. I'll repeat it again, there was a תקופה, a period in Jewish history that the sages, the rabbis, the חכמים were called תנאים, then there was a period where they were called אמוראים. And all the rulings of the תנאים are in the משניות, in the משנה, the rulings of the אמוראים is in the גמרא, in the תלמוד, which is actually an explanation of the משנה. So here we have in a משנה in a tractate called עדיות, the fifth chapter, the second משנה, it says like this: תורמין זיתים על שמן וענבים על יין. You're allowed to take תרומה olives on oil and grapes on wine, כדברי בית שמאי, that's the opinion of בית שמאי, ובית הלל אומרים, בית הלל say אין תורמין, you can't do that. And I'll explain what that means. As I mentioned in the previous class, there is a concept of תרומה. תרומה means that when your crop grows, you got to take off a certain amount and give that to the כהנים, give it to any כהן you want, any priest you want. And I explained last time, what is the reason behind תרומה, because the כהנים were these people who worked in the Holy Temple, they did not get a share in the Land of Israel, so they had no way of making a living. So basically, they were supported by the יידן, by all the other Jews. So that's what the תורה, the Bible says, that the Jews are obligated to give them their support, and the תורה says exactly what they're supposed to get. In other words, they were really the representatives of the יידן. When they worked in the Holy Temple, they represented all of us. So we have to pay them for doing our job, doing our service. So one of the things that we had to give them, there were many things we had to give, actually, just for the sake of knowledge, there were כ״ד מתנות כהונה, 24 things that we have to give, 24 types of מתנות, which means presents that we had to give the כהן. And between all of them, the כהן made a living and the כהן was able to survive and able, you know, to feed his family. Now this doesn't apply, most of them, I would believe almost all of them do not apply nowadays, it all applied in the time of the Holy Temple. There is actually one that still applies nowadays and it's constantly done, and that is the money that they get for פדיון הבן. פדיון הבן is that if a person has a firstborn, so you have to redeem him from the כהן, from the priest, and you have to give the כהן five שקלים, which means five coins made of silver, which is equivalent probably to five silver dollars, but real silver dollars, they're not the ones with the copper, but a real silver dollar, but anyway that comes out to a certain amount of money, that's still left now from the 24 מתנות כהונה, but otherwise there were 24 things. One of the things that was was תרומה. And like I said before, how much was the תרומה? You had to take off two percent. And to be more specific, and again, it's not important for our discussion, but just To know, to be more specific, it's unlike מעשר that we mentioned in the other class, which is actually a tenth, which is 10%, but תרומה has no real, real amount. But the חכמים, the sages, said, \"This is the amount you should give.\" If you're a stingy person, you could give one out of 60, 1/60th. If you are a a kind person, so then you could give you should give one out of 40. If you are an average person, you give one out of 50. Now, one out of 50 is 2%, and that's why last time I mentioned 2%, because the average it's 2%. So, you have to give תרומה. That's what we give תרומה, and it goes to the כהן, and the כהן has to eat it while he's טהור, not טמא. As I explained in the previous classes, the concept of טומאה, that there are certain things that make a person spiritually unclean, impure, and there are certain laws what he has things he has to do in order to become clean again, become טהור again. But as long as he's טמא, he can't eat the תרומה, because the תרומה has a certain קדושה, a certain holiness. But this is an obligation of every Jew, of everything that grows, you've got to take off 2%, an average of 2%, and give it to the כהן. Now, you cannot mix the kinds. Let's say you have to give 2%, 2% out of 100. So let's say you have 100 lb of of, let's say, wheat, and 100 lb of barley, and you want to mix them together, so now you have 200 lb. And you'll take off 100 you'll take off We have to take 2%, you'll take off 4 lb from the wheat, and that should already do the job for the whole 200 lb. You can't do that, because you can't mix kinds. You have to take off separately from the wheat, separately from the barley. And the same thing with the fruit: if you have olives, and you have grapes, so you have to take off 2% from the olives separately. You cannot take off 2% from the olives and the grapes mixed together. They have to be separate. That what That The words that we use to describe that is in Hebrew: אין תורמין ממין על שאינו מינו. You cannot take תרומה from one kind that should take care of the other kind of something that's not its own kind. Each kind has to be dealt with separately. You cannot mix the two. The question is here: can you mix wine with grapes? You have your food, you have your fruit. Part Part of it you squeezed, and you made into grape into wine, part of it is grapes. And now you have to take off 2% from everything. Must you take off 2% of whatever is wine, should be 2% wine, and then 2% separately of the grapes? Or can you mix it all together and take off 4% wine, and that will already take care of the whole thing? Or or 4% of the grapes, and that'll take care care of everything, and include the wine and the grapes together? Is it considered one kind, and therefore you could mix the two, or is it considered two kinds? And this is what the משנה says, and I'll read it again: תורמין זיתים על שמן, you are allowed to take תרומה of olives, and that should take care of the oil also, וענבים על יין, you can take the תרומה from the grapes, and that'll also go for the wine, כדברי בית שמאי. That's what the school of שמאי holds. ובית הלל אומרים, בית הלל say, אין תורמין. You cannot do that, because בית שמאי holds that they're considered one kind, and therefore, just like you could take off put all the grapes together and take off, and it'll go for all, you could do the same thing with mixing the wine and the grapes, and the same thing, the oil with the olives. And בית הלל says, \"No, we look at them as two separate kinds, and just like you cannot mix grapes and olives, you cannot mix grapes and wine. You cannot mix olives and oil.\" This is exactly like the previous argument that we said. If you remember the previous class, we gave the explanation on the argument concerning the person who steals. And the law is that when you steal something, you've got to give it back unless you don't have it anymore, then you pay the value. If you stole grapes, and you turned it into wine, so בית שמאי says that in this case, it's not considered that you don't have your thing, it's you have to give back the wine, even though when you stole, it was grapes. And בית הלל says, \"No, שינוי קונה. You do not have to give back the wine, because you didn't steal wine, so the grapes that you stole are not around, so you just have to pay the value.\" And I explained: what is the difference? בית שמאי says that we follow the potential, the בכח, and grapes has potential of wine. So Really when you stole the grapes, you stole the wine, because you look at the potential, the potential it's wine. And therefore you have to give back the wine and you cannot say, \"Well, the wine the grapes are not around, and I never stole wine.\" You stole wine! The potential of wine, and that's what counts. And בית הלל says no. We don't look at the potential, we look at actuality, and in actuality you stole grapes and not wine. Therefore, now that you turned it into wine, you don't have the grapes anymore and the wine you never stole, so you just got to pay back the money. The same thing here also. When we're talking about the two kinds, do we consider wine and grapes or oil and olives and oil as one kind or two kinds? So בית שמאי says, we look at the potential. So grapes is the potential of wine. So wine is part of the grapes, it's not like a separate thing. We look at it as if you have wine there. Olives is the potential of oil, so we look at it as if you have oil. So בית שמאי says, why can't shouldn't you be able to take תרומה and put them together and so like one kind and you take off one for all? And בית הלל says no, we look at the actuality, at the בפועל, and בפועל grapes is not wine and olives are not oil. So if they're not, when you have now grapes and you have oil, and you have wine, you have two separate things. And the דין is, the law is that you cannot mix the two. So here, too, you cannot mix the two. So here again we see another example where there's an argument of בית שמאי and בית הלל in another subject and it's all based on the same way of thinking: that בית הלל says we follow the בפועל and בית שמאי says we follow the בכח. Now we'll go to another case. In another subject. I cannot stress enough how we see all these different, different subjects and they're all based on the same way of thinking. And that is in the תלמוד גיטין, tractate גיטין, and it is פא עמוד א, which means page 81, the first side. The name of the tractate is גיטין. גיטין means divorces. This is a tractate that deals with all the laws of divorce. There is another tractate called קידושין, which deals with all the laws of marriage. And this is a tractate that deals with all the laws of גיטין, of divorce. This is in the section of the six sections that I mentioned in the beginning. There are six orders, called ששה סדרים, six sections. One of them is called נשים, all laws dealing with women: marriage, divorce. And then there are other tractates which deal with other things that have to do with marriage and divorce and with women. So גיטין is one of that, because we have the six, so I mentioned already, we had from נזיקין, which deals with monetary things, we had from טהרות, which deals with טומאה וטהרה, we had from זרעים, which deals with plants and things like that, now we're talking about נשים, a section in the in this a part in the section of called נשים, which deals with women. And this is the tractate גיטין. The משנה says like this: כתב לגרש את אשתו. If a person wrote a גט, a גט is the divorce document, in order to divorce his wife, ונמלך, and he changed his mind, and he didn't divorce her, בית שמאי אומרים, בית שמאי say, פוסלה מן הכהונה, she is now forbidden to marry a כהן, to marry a priest. ובית הלל אומרים, בית הלל say, I'm not going to read the whole thing because part of it is not so important, he says, לא פוסלה מן הכהונה, he did not make her forbidden to a כהן. And I'll explain. We know the law that a כהן, a priest, is not allowed to marry a divorcee. The כהנים, those that belong to that group, and let me call them an elite group, which are called כהנים, those who are כהנים are special. Unfortunately, I'm not a כהן, but the כהנים are special, and they have special laws. There are certain restrictions that they have that other people don't have, other Jews don't have. It's not like some people think, well, oh boy, they have more restrictions, they have a much harder life. The more restrictions that השם, God, gave us, that shows how much He loves us and how much He wants us to be so special. So He gave them even more restrictions. And there are one of there some of the restrictions, one of them is that you're not a כהן is not allowed to touch a dead body, come in contact with a dead body, not even allowed to be in one room under one roof with a dead body. Only a כהן. Other who are not כהנים are allowed. But the other law of a כהן is that he's not allowed to marry a divorcee. There are other things, a כהן cannot marry a a גיורת, a convert, a כהן cannot marry a convert. A כהן cannot marry a woman that ever had relations with a non-Jew, but the most famous one, the most familiar law is that a כהן cannot marry a divorcée. Now we know, if she is divorced, now he cannot marry a כהן, she cannot marry a כהן. Here we have a case where he didn't divorce her, he just wrote the גט, he wrote the divorce document, and she's not divorced till she actually gets it. There's a whole process in how you divorce a woman in Jewish law, and obviously every Jewish man who wants to divorce his wife must go through this process. Going to civil court and having a civil divorce does not count. She is still legally, I mean legally, Jewish legally, halachically, Torah legally, Bible legally, she is not divorced. She's still considered a married woman, and if a woman like this will go and marry someone else, or go have relations with somebody else, it's 100% considered that she, as a married woman, went to another man, and that's being unfaithful to her husband, even though her husband divorced her civilly, she's still considered married. So you have to have a גט, but it's only when she gets the גט, when she, so when she gets the גט, she's divorced. But as long as he didn't give her the גט, she's married to this first person, to the person, to her husband. Here is a case where the husband did not give her the גט, he did not divorce her yet. There has to be a process of divorce. There's a writing of the גט, with all the laws that pertain to writing the גט, the document, and then there are many laws that pertain to how you give it. And that's why you got to go through a Jewish court, which usually is headed, which is headed by a rabbi, and the whole process how she gets divorced. But he didn't do it. He just wrote the document, had the document written, but did not give it. So בית שמאי says, she is now forbidden to a כהן. If her husband, let's say, dies, so she's not a divorcée, she's a widow. A widow is allowed to marry a כהן. A high priest, which we don't have now, but in the time of the Temple when we had a high priest, he couldn't even marry a widow. A normal, regular, ordinary כהן could marry a widow. So if this woman, her husband would die, she's a widow, she could marry a כהן. Comes בית שמאי, says no, this husband had in mind, wrote a גט, had in mind to give her the גט, she already cannot marry a כהן. And בית הלל says no, what do you mean? As long as she's not divorced, she's not a divorcée, why can't she marry a כהן? So בית הלל says that she could marry, so therefore if her husband, if her husband died, so she could marry a marry a כהן. What is the basis of this argument? Part of the beginning of divorcing a woman, or let's use the right words here, the potential of divorcing a wife is writing the גט. That's how it works. You write the גט, and this is already part of what's going to happen when she gets divorced. In actuality, she's not divorced, 100% not divorced, but the potential is there. Comes בית שמאי, and בית שמאי says, we follow the potential stage, and therefore בית שמאי says we consider her to a certain degree, obviously she's not really divorced, she's not divorced at all, and she's not even a divorcée, but to a certain degree she is, enough that a כהן is not allowed to marry her, because potentially she has this concept of being divorced. And בית הלל says we don't follow the בכח, we follow the בפועל, and therefore in actuality she was not divorced, and therefore there is nothing to do with divorce, she's not a divorcée, and she could marry a כהן. So here we have another case in a complete different subject where we see that they argue in this subject whether, in this idea whether we follow the בכח or follow the בפועל. Then we will go to a third subject in this שיעור, in this lesson, also in a different subject, where we will see that בית שמאי and בית הלל argue whether we follow the בכח or follow the בפועל. And this is going to be in a tractate, a גמרא, called כריתות. כריתות דף ז עמוד ב. Tractate כריתות, seventh page, the second side. And this is part of the order of קדשים. I didn't even realize myself, we have everything from different, almost every order of the משניות. As I said, we had some from טהרות, one of the six is טהרות, deals with טומאה וטהרה, some of זרעים, what deals with plants, we had נזיקין, what deals with monetary questions, we had נשים, with women, and this is from קדשים. קדשים is the section in the משניות that deals with sacrifices in the Holy Temple, and many, many tractates concerning different types of sacrifices and different cases and who has to bring it and when you bring it and how you bring it and all kinds of different things. And this tractate כריתות is one of those in this section called קדשים. And I have to give an introduction to this law, and it's a complete, different subject altogether, and that is concerning a woman who gives birth to a child. We learn in the Bible, in חומש, פרשת the section פרשת the chap- in תזריע, it's called, it says if a woman gives birth to a child, besides the fact that she becomes טמא, again mentioning that this is one of the times when a person, a woman, is impure and there's a whole process she has to go through to purify herself, spiritually, obviously, but another thing is, she has to bring certain sacrifices when she's finished. If she has a boy, then after forty days from birth, she's obligated to bring certain sacrifices. It's interesting, no matter no matter where they lived in Israel, they would have to travel to ירושלים at one point, after the fortieth day, and bring these sacrifices. If she had a girl, then you bring the sacrifices after eighty days. But there are sacrifices you have to bring. These sacrifices are brought not only if there was a real birth, but if she miscarried. If she miscarried, it's the same thing. Only, obviously, if you miscarried something that can be considered a fetus, right in the beginning of conception, when it's not even a fetus, that doesn't count. But if it's already a fetus, you gotta bring a קרבן for that too. Now, what happens if a woman gave birth, and then before the eighty days were up, she she miscarried? And this miscarriage would require a קרבן. But she hadn't brought the קרבן for the first first birth yet. Actually, the time hasn't even come yet. Let's say after seventy-nine days, she miscarried again. She doesn't have to bring the sacrifices twice, because she didn't bring the sacrifice for the first birth yet, and the time to bring this hasn't come yet, because the time is first after eighty days, she only brings the sacrifice once. If she miscarries after the eighty days, let's say she miscarries on the eighty-third day, then she has to bring the sacrifices twice. If she already brought the sacrifice on the first birth, obviously, then she miscarries, she has to bring it again. But the law is, even if she didn't, she didn't manage to go to ירושלים, to Jerusalem, to bring the sacrifices for the first, it was the eighty-fifth day, let's say, the ninetieth, whatever it is, and she hasn't brought the sacrifices for the first yet, and she miscarried, she still has to bring twice. Because since the time has come when she was obligated to bring it, so any birth, or, in this case, any miscarriage that happens afterwards, she has to bring a separate sacrifice. Again, not only if she already not only if she already brought the sacrifice for the first birth, is she obligated now for the second birth again, but even if she didn't bring it yet, but she was already obligated to bring it, because the eighty days passed, so then when she miscarries now, she cannot just bring the first and say, \"Well, that takes care of both, because I brought it after the second one.\" No, because the second one came after the eighty days. That's the law, which there is no argument. That's the agreement between everybody. The question is, what happens if she miscarried on the eightieth day, in the morning? So here again, there is no argument. The eightieth day is already a day that she was able to bring the sacrifice, she should have brought it. So if she miscarries on the eightieth day, well, now you got to bring two, because when you're going to bring for the first, that will not take care of the second, because the second one came after the eightieth day came. The question is, what happened if she miscarried the night before? The eightieth No, what I said before the eightieth, I meant eighty-first, because the eightieth day is the first, and then the eighty-first day. What happens if she miscarried the night towards the eighty-first? If she miscarried on the eighty-first day, so then the eighty days passed, so now she was obligated to bring the sacrifice, so the second the miscarriage comes after the time, on the eighty-first. When I said before eightieth, I meant eighty-first. What happens if she miscarried the night after the eightieth, but it's not the day of the eighty-first yet? At night, one cannot bring a קרבן. You're not allowed to bring a sacrifice at night. You cannot bring a sacrifice at night. We learn it out from the פסוק, the תורה, verse says, ביום צותו say, during the day you could bring a sacrifice and during the night not. So, technically, she could not have brought the sacrifice that night, and she miscarried then. So, there's an argument between בית שמאי and בית הלל. המפלת אור לשמונים ואחד, if a woman miscarries the night towards the 81st, בית שמאי פוטרין מן הקרבן, בית שמאי says she doesn't have to bring two, ובית הלל מחייבין, בית הלל says yes. That's the argument itself. But then the the משנה continues and says, what happens if the 81st day was שבת? שבת you can't bring a sacrifice either. שבת in the בית המקדש, in the holy temple, they would bring sacrifices, but only קרבנות ציבור, which means the public sacrifices that brought that they brought for the whole community. But a private sacrifice you're not allowed to bring on שבת. So what happens if she miscarried on the 81st day already in the day, but it was שבת? So she also couldn't bring. So here, בית שמאי says בית בית הלל says, if you miscarried on שבת the 81st day, you have to bring another קרבן, you have to bring two, because it's already the 81st day. So בית שמאי says בית הלל says to בית שמאי, so the same thing should be if she miscarried the night of the 81st. The 80 days are up. It's only a technicality that you cannot bring the קרבן that night. So, actually, it already came the time when she was fit, ראויה it says, fit to bring her sacrifice. So just like if she miscarried on the 81st day you have to bring two, even if the 81st day happened to be on שבת, because on and שבת you cannot bring a קרבן, nevertheless, we consider it that it is considered the time that she was able to bring, so she has to bring two, so what is the difference why if she miscarried at night you don't have to bring two? That's what בית הלל says to בית שמאי. And בית שמאי says, \"No, you can't compare the two. שבת is different.\" And he says, \"Why is שבת different? Because שבת you could bring some sacrifices. So שבת is considered a day that you could bring sacrifices in theory. But at night, it's impossible. So therefore, בית שמאי says like this: If she miscarried the 81st day and it was שבת, you nevertheless have to bring two because it's considered a day that she could have brought, even though physically she couldn't. While if she miscarried the night of the 81st, that's considered that it's a time when she couldn't bring yet.\" Now, what is the difference according to בית שמאי between שבת and at night? שבת is a day that you cannot bring sacrifices. At night is a time you cannot bring sacrifices. So if שבת is the 81st, we say, \"Well, nevertheless, she brings two.\" So the night is also the night of the 81st, which is after the 80, should also be considered the same way. And that's exactly what בית הלל says, \"We compare שבת and the night.\" And בית שמאי says, \"We don't compare.\" The explanation is based בכח ובפועל. שבת is a day of sacrifices. The proof is that the public sacrifices they brought. The fact that you cannot bring a קרבן on שבת is only בפועל, actually you can't bring. Potentially, you could bring. It just in actuality you can't. At night, there is no such thing as sacrifice. So at night it's not even potential. So that's what בית שמאי and בית הלל argue about. בית שמאי says that we follow the potential. So בית שמאי says therefore like this: A time when there was a potential to bring a קרבן, we consider it as if you brought it, that it's the time already for the קרבן. So if she miscarried at the time of the 81st day, which was שבת, it's considered potentially a day of a קרבן. So it's like she would she would have miscarried on the 81st day if it wouldn't be שבת. Time of the קרבן, so if you miscarry when the time of the קרבן came already, you have to bring two. So here also, you have to bring two because potentially it was time of קרבן. At night, night is different, but night is not even potential. At night there's you can't bring a קרבן at all. So if at night it's not even potential, so therefore, at night it's considered that they she miscarried before the time came. While בית הלל say, \"We don't make a difference between שבת. They're both the same. We look only at the actuality. In actuality, שבת and the weekdays and שבת and at night are the same. At night you cannot bring a קרבן, שבת you cannot bring a קרבן. So if שבת you tell me that if she miscarried on שבת the 81st day where you cannot bring a קרבן, you say nevertheless she has to bring two, so the same thing will be at night that she has to bring two. But again, this is all based because בית הלל says we look at actuality, so you cannot make the difference between the שבת and the weekdays, and בית שמאי says you could. So here again, we have different arguments in different subjects, and they're all based on the same thing, and just in short to go through: one is concerning whether you could mix the wine and the grapes when it comes to תרומה, בית שמאי says you could and בית הלל says you can't because בית שמאי says we look at the potential, potential grapes are wine, the same thing, בית הלל says it's not; the case of writing a גט to your wife, whether she already is considered some kind of divorcee, בית שמאי says yes, בית הלל says not, בית שמאי says potentially it's already type of divorce, and בית הלל says we don't look at that; and the same thing here, when it comes to this קרבן, this sacrifice that you have to bring, בית שמאי says you look at the potential, so potential שבת is potential and at night not, while בית הלל says we look at the actuality and therefore they're both the same. So here again we see how different subjects are all connected to this line of thought, whether we follow the בכח or follow the בפועל.