פסחים 9:1 — Soncino English Talmud

MISHNAH. WE HAVE NO FEAR THAT A WEASEL MAY HAVE DRAGGED [LEAVEN] FROM ONE ROOM TO ANOTHER OR FROM ONE SPOT TO ANOTHER. FOR IF SO, [WE MUST ALSO FEAR] FROM COURT-YARD TO COURT-YARD AND FROM TOWN TO TOWN, [AND] THE MATTER IS ENDLESS. GEMARA. The reason is that we did not see it take [leaven]; but if we saw it take [it] we do fear, and it requires a [re-]search. yet why so; let us assume that it ate it? Did we not learn: The dwellings of heathens are unclean, and how long must he [the heathen] stay in a dwelling so that it should need searching? Forty days, even if he has no wife. But in every place where a weasel or a swine can enter no searching is required! — Said R. Zera, There is no difficulty: one treats of flesh, the other of bread: in the case of flesh it [the weasel] leaves nothing, [whereas in the case of bread it does leave [something] — Raba said: How compare! As for there, it is well: it is [a case of mere] ‘say’: say that there was [a burial there], say that there was not. And if you assume that there was, say that it [e.g., a weasel] ate it. But here that we see for certain that it has taken [leaven], who is to say that it ate it? Surely it is a doubt [on the one hand] and a certainty [on the other], and a doubt cannot negative a certainty. But cannot a doubt negative a certainty? Surely it was taught: If a haber dies and leaves a store-house full of produce [crops]. even if they are but one day old, they stand in the presumption of having been tithed. Now here these crops were certainly liable to tithe, and there is a doubt whether they have been tithed or not tithed, yet the doubt comes and negatives the certainty?-There it is one certainty against another certainty, as [we presume that] they have certainly been tithed, in accordance with R. Hanina of Hozae. For R. Hanina of Hozae said: There is a presumption concerning a haber that he does not let anything untithed pass out from under his hand. Alternatively: it is a doubt [on the one hand] and a doubt [on the other]; perhaps from the very beginning say that it was not liable to tithe, in accordance with R. Oshaia. For R. Oshaia said: one may practise an artifice with his produce and take it in its husks, so that his cattle may eat thereof and it be exempt from tithes. But cannot a doubt negative a certainty? Surely it was taught, R. Judah said: It once happened that the bondmaid of a certain oppressor in Rimon threw her premature-born child into a pit,^ᵃ^ᵇ^ᶜ^ᵈ^ᵉ^ᶠ^ᵍ^ʰ^ⁱ^ʲ^ᵏ^ˡ

^ᵃnote:I.e., after a room has been searched and cleared of leaven a weasel may have brought leaven into it from elsewhere.
^ᵇnote:Because they used to bury their premature births in their houses.
^ᶜnote:For a buried body, before a Jew may live there.
^ᵈnote:If a baby were thrown there these would eat it, Oh. XVIII, 7. — Thus the same should apply to leaven.
^ᵉnote:I.e., the presence there of a dead child is merely conjectured as a possibility.
^ᶠnote:V. Glos.
^ᵍnote:V. Supra 4b.
^ʰnote:A province of S. W. Persia, now known as Khuzestan; Obermeyer. pp. 204ff.
^ⁱnote:Lit., ‘unprepared’.
^ʲnote:Produce is not liable to tithes unless it is taken into the house through the front door when its work is completed, not through the roof or the backyard. If grain is brought in in its husks its work is not complete, as this is still to be separated, and it is not liable to tithe, and need not be tithed by Scriptural law; a human being may then make a light meal of it, while cattle may eat their fill. Thus there it may never have become liable to tithe at all. Though a human being may not make a meal of it, that is only a Rabbinical law and is certainly nullified here by the presumption that the haber had tithed it. But in its essence we see that it is doubt against doubt; the doubt whether it was liable to tithe at all offset by the doubt that it may have been tithed.
^ᵏnote:A powerful Jew (Rashi) who wielded his power oppressively.
^ˡnote:A town originally belonging to the tribe of Zebulun, on the north-east frontier (Josh. XIX, 13). It may correspond to the present Al-Rummanah, on the southern edge of the plain of Al-Battof, about ten kilometres north of Nazareth.