Pesachim

On Rab Judah's view there is no difficulty: When one is unclean through a reptile, the Divine Law relegated him [to the second Passover], for it is written, ‘If any man shall be unclean by reason of a dead body’: does this not refer [even] to one whose seventh day falls on the eve of Passover, yet even so the Divine Law said: Let him be relegated [to the second].1 Our Rabbis taught: If he was standing beyond Modi'im and is able to enter by horses and mules, you might think that he is culpable. Therefore it is stated: ‘and is not in a journey,’2 whereas this man was in a journey.3 If he was standing on the hither side of Modi'im, but could not enter on account of the camels and wagons which held him up,4 you might think that he is not culpable. Therefore It is stated, ‘and is not in a journey,’ and lo, he was not in a journey. 5 Raba said: The world is six thousand parasangs,6 and the thickness of the heaven [rakia’] is one thousand parasangs the first one [of these statements] is a tradition, while the other is [based on] reason. [Thus:] he agrees with Rabbah b. Bar Hanah's dictum in R. Johanan's name: What is an average man's journey in a day? Ten parasangs: from daybreak until the first sparklings of the rising sun five mils, and from sunset until the stars appear five mils: hence the thickness of the heaven is one sixth of the day[‘s journey].7 An objection is raised: Rab Judah said: The thickness of the sky is one tenth of the day's journey. The proof is this: what is an [average] man's journey in a day? Ten parasangs, and from daybreak until the rising sun four mils, [and] from sunset until the stars appear four mils,: hence the thickness of the sky is one tenth of the day[‘s journey].8 This is a refutation of Raba, and a refutation of ‘Ulla! It is a refutation.9 Shall we say that this is [also] a refutation of R. Johanan?-He can answer you: I spoke only of [an average man's journey] in a [complete] day, and it was the Rabbis10 who erred by calculating [the distance for] pre-dawn and after nightfall.11 Shall we say that this is a refutation of R. Hanina?12 — No: ‘and [the angels] hastened’13 is different —14 Come and hear: Egypt was four hundred parasangs square. Now Egypt is one sixtieth of Ethiopia [Cush], Ethiopia one sixtieth of the world, the world one sixtieth of the Garden, the Garden one sixtieth of Eden, Eden one sixtieth of the Gehenna: thus the whole world is like a pot lid [in relation] to Gehenna. This is [indeed] a refutation .15 Come and hear: Tanna debe Eliyahu16 [taught]: R. Nathan said: The whole of the inhabited world is situate under one star. The proof is that a man looks at a star, [and] when he goes eastward it is opposites [and when he goes] to the four corners of the world it is opposite him. This proves that the whole of the inhabited world is situate under one star. This is indeed a refutation.17 Come and hear: The Wain [‘Waggon’]18 is in the north and Scorpio is in the south, the whole of the inhabited world lies between the Wain and Scorpio, and the whole of the inhabited world represents but one hour of the day,19 for the sun enters [the space above] the inhabited world only for one hour in the day.20 The proof is that at the fifth [hour] the sun is in the east while at the seventh the sun is in the west: [during] half of the sixth and half of the seventh the sun stands overhead all people.21 This is [indeed] a refutation. Come and hear: For R. Johanan b. Zakkai said: What answer did the Bath Kol22 give that wicked man [Nebuchadnezzar] when he asserted, ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High’?23 A Bath Kol came forth and rebuked him: ‘Thou wicked man, son of a wicked man, regarded as the time during which the sun was passing through the sky, which was conceived as a solid vault stretched out above the earth. Hence it follows from Rabbah's dictum that since five mils can be walked in each of these two periods, while thirty mils can be walked during the day excluding these periods (ten parasangs=forty mils), the thickness of the sky is one sixth of the world's diameter. thirty. But in any case they disagree. certainly cannot be reconciled with the present statement. that one travels five mils in the period stated; though most people do indeed walk five mils by the time the sun is in the heavens, that is because they generally start a little before dawn; similarly in the evening they continue their journey a little after nightfall. X 60 x 60) whereas according to Raba, even if the 6000 is squared, we have only 36,000,000 sq. parasangs. Talmud Keth. 106a the Prophet Elijah recited this Midrash to R. ‘Anan, a Babylonian Amora of the third century. Scholars are agreed that the work in its present form received its final redaction in the tenth century C.E., though they are not agreed as to where it was written. V. Bacher, Monatsschrift, XXIII, 267f; idem in R.E.J. XX, 144-146; Friedmann, Introduction to his edition of Seder Eliyahu; v. Keth., Sonc. ed. p. 680, n. 2. Raba says, only one sixth. sky is infinitely larger than the earth.