Kiddushin

If one gives excessive tithes, his produce is made fit, but his tithes are unfit.1 But why; let us say: That which cannot be [done] consecutively cannot be [done] simultaneously?2 — Tithes are different, he replied, because it is possible in the case of half [grains]; for if one declares, ‘Let half of each grain be sanctified [as tithe], it is sanctified.3 But cattle tithes are impossible in halves,4 and also impossible consecutively;5 yet Rabbah said: If two [animals] came forth at the tenth, and he [their owner] proclaimed them both as ‘tenth’, the tenth and the eleventh are intermingled!6 — Cattle tithe is different, because it is valid in error. For we learnt: If the ninth was proclaimed ‘tenth’, the tenth, ‘ninth’, and the eleventh, ‘tenth’, all three are sanctified.7 But what of the thanksgiving-offering which can neither be in error nor consecutively,8 yet it was stated: If the thanksgiving-offering is slaughtered over eighty loaves, — Hezekiah said: Forty out of the eighty are sanctified; R. Johanan said: Not even forty out of the eighty are sanctified!9 — Was it not stated thereon: R. Joshua b. Levi10 said: All agree that if he declared: ‘Let forty out of the eighty be sanctified,’ they are sanctified; ‘forty are not to be sanctified unless eighty are sanctified,’ they are not sanctified? They differ only where no specific statement is made:11 one Master holds that his intention is [to arrange] for the risks;12 the other, that his intention is for a large offering.13 Now, why need Raba explain the Mishnah as Rabbah; let him deduce it from the fact that it cannot be followed by14 intercourse?15 — He [merely] explains it according to the view of Rami b. Hama.16 It was stated: Kiddushin which cannot be followed by intercourse, — Abaye says: It is valid kiddushin;17 Raba said: It is not valid kiddushin. Raba said: Bar Ahina explained it to me: When a man taketh a woman and has intercourse with her;18 [this teaches:] kiddushin19 that can be followed by intercourse is [valid] kiddushin; that which cannot be followed by intercourse is not [valid] kiddushin. We learnt: IF HE BETROTHS A WOMAN AND HER DAUGHTER OR A WOMAN AND HER SISTER SIMULTANEOUSLY, THEY ARE NOT BETROTHED. This implies, [if he betroths] one of a woman and her daughter or of a woman and her sister [without specifying which], she is betrothed: yet why, seeing that it is kiddushin which may not be followed by intercourse? Hence this refutes Raba! — Raba can answer you: Yet even on your view, consider the second clause: AND IT ONCE HAPPENED TO FIVE WOMEN, AMONGST WHOM WERE TWO SISTERS, THAT A MAN GATHERED A BASKET OF FIGS, WHICH WAS THEIRS, AND WHICH WAS OF THE SEVENTH YEAR, AND HE DECLARED, ‘BEHOLD, YE ARE ALL BETROTHED UNTO ME WITH THIS BASKET, AND ONE ACCEPTED IT ON BEHALF OF ALL: THE SAGES THEN RULED, THE SISTERS ARE NOT BETROTHED. Thus, it is only the sisters who are not betrothed, but the strangers are. Now how is it meant? Shall we say that he declared: ‘All of you’20 — it is a case of ‘you and the ass acquire’, and such does not acquire. 21 tenth) due. Actually. however, only half becomes tithe, while the other half remains ordinary, untithed produce (tebel), and the two are inextricably mixed up. No man may eat tebel, not even a priest or a Levite, and hence the whole tithe is forbidden until it is made fit by a further proportionate separation. when he separates the whole simultaneously, none of it is tithe, on Rabbah's principle: why then is the produce fit? measure shall be tithe. But one cannot betroth half a woman. he declares the tenth tithe and then the eleventh too, the second declaration is invalid. Why then is his simultaneous declaration valid? called ‘tenth’. — Hence, just as the eleventh is sanctified when it is designated ‘tenth’ in error, so are the tenth and the eleventh sanctified when designated simultaneously. But if one marries a second sister after the first in error, the second marriage is invalid; consequently they are invalid simultaneously. Men. 76a). Now, if the animal is sacrificed to sanctify certain loaves, which, however, are not really those intended, they are not sanctified. Again, if after forty loaves are sanctified another forty are declared holy, the declaration is invalid. Hence forty are sanctified. betrothed, and Raba says below that such kiddushin is invalid. because the second cannot, — metaphorically, ‘you and the ass acquire them’. Hence here too, since the sisters cannot acquire aught thereof as kiddushin, the others cannot either.