Megillah

You have fulfilled in our person, O our teacher, the words, and sending portions one to another.1 Rabbah sent to Mari b. Mar by Abaye a sackful of dates and a cupful of roasted ears of corn. Said Abaye to him: Mari will now say, ‘If a countryman becomes a king, he does not take his basket off his neck’.2 The other [Mari] sent him [Rabbah] back a sackful of ginger and a cup full of long-stalked pepper. Said Abaye: Now the Master [Rabbah] will say, I sent him sweet and he sends me bitter. Abaye said: When I went out of the Master's [Rabbah's] house, I was already full, but when I reached the other place3 they set before me sixty dishes of sixty different preparations, and I had sixty pieces from them. The last preparation was called pot-roast, and [I liked it so much that] I wanted to lick the dish after it. Said Abaye: This bears out the popular saying, The poor man is hungry and does not know it,4 or the other saying, There is always room for sweet things. Abaye b. Abin and R. Hananiah b. Abin used to exchange their meals with one another.5 Raba said: It is the duty of a man to mellow himself [with wine] on Purim until he cannot tell the difference between cursed be Haman’ and ‘blessed be Mordecai’.6 Rabbah and R. Zera joined together in a Purim feast. They became mellow, and Rabbah arose and cut R. Zera's throat.7 On the next day he prayed on his behalf and revived him. Next year he said, Will your honour come and we will have the Purim feast together. He replied: A miracle does not take place on every occasion. Raba said: If one eats his Purim feast on the night [of the fourteenth], he does not thereby fulfil his obligation. What is the reason? It is written, days of feasting and gladness.8 R. Ashi was sitting before R. Kahana. It grew late, and still the Rabbis did not arrive. He said to him, Why have not the Rabbis come? Perhaps they are busy with the Purim feast. He said to him: Could they not have had it last night? He replied: Is your honour not acquainted with the diction of Raba, ‘If one eats his Purim feast on the night [of the fourteenth], he does not thereby fulfil his obligation’? He said to him; Did Raba really say so? (He replied Yes).9 He then repeated it after him forty times, until he had safely stored it in his mind.10 MISHNAH. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FESTIVALS AND SABBATH SAVE ONLY IN THE MATTER OF [PREPARING] FOOD.11 GEMARA . We can infer from this that in the matter of preliminaries for preparing food12 they are on the same footing. The Mishnah then does not agree with R. Judah, as it has been taught: ‘There is no difference between festivals and Sabbath save in the matter of [preparing] food’. R. Judah, however, permits [on the festivals] the preliminaries for preparing food.12 What is the reason of the First Tanna? The Scripture says: [Save that which every man must eat], that only [shall be prepared]:13 that and not its preliminaries. R. Judah, on the other hand, stresses the word for you:14 for you, which means, for all your requirements. Why then does not the other also admit this, seeing that it is written, ‘for you’? — [This, he says, means], ‘for you’ and not for non-Jews; ‘for you’ and not for dogs. And [why does not] the other [adopt this view], seeing that it is written, ‘that only’? [He replies]: It is written, ‘that only’, and it is written, ‘for you’; we apply the one to preliminaries which can be attended to on the day before the festival, and the other to preliminaries which cannot be attended to on the day before the festival. MISHNAH. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SABBATH AND THE DAY OF ATONEMENT SAVE ONLY THAT THE DELIBERATE VIOLATION OF THE ONE IS PUNISHED BY A HUMAN COURT AND THE DELIBERATE VIOLATION OF THE OTHER BY KARETH.15 GEMARA. It is to be inferred from this that in respect of compensation16 they are on the same footing. Whose view does the Mishnah follow? — That of R. Nehunia b. ha-Kaneh, as it has been taught: R. Nehunia b. ha-Kaneh used to put the Day of Atonement on the same footing as Sabbath in respect of compensation: just as [one who deliberately breaks] Sabbath forfeits his life but is released from the obligation to make compensation,17 so [one who deliberately breaks] the Day of Atonement forfeits his life but is released from the obligation to make compensation. We have learnt elsewhere: If any who have incurred the penalty of kareth are flogged — they become quit of their kareth, as it says, Then thy brother should be dishonoured in thine eyes;18 once he has been flogged, he is like thy brother.19 So R. Hananiah b. Gamaliel. Said R. Johanan: The colleagues of R. Hananiah b. Gamaliel joined issue with him on this point. Raba said, They said in the school of Rab: We have [also] learnt [this]:20 There is no difference between the Day of Atonement and Sabbath save that he who breaks the one is punished by a human court, while he who breaks the other is punished with kareth. Now if [R. Hananiah's opinion] is correct, then both are punished by the human court?21 — R. Nahman replied: Whose view is this?22 That of R. Isaac, who said that lashes are never inflicted on those who have incurred kareth, as it has been taught: Those who have incurred kareth are included in the general statement.23 Why then is kareth specially mentioned in the case of [one who lies with] his sister?24 To show that she is punished with kareth and not with lashes.25 R. Ashi said: You may even say that it26 is the view of the Rabbis:27 in the case of the one [the breaker of Sabbath], the essential [punishment for] his presumption is inflicted by the human court, but in the case of the other, the essential punishment for his presumption consists in ‘being cut off’.28 mean that they sent their meals to one another and thereby fulfilled the obligation of ‘sending portions to one another’ (Maharsha).