זבחים 25:2 — Soncino English Talmud

[the blood of] the jugular veins run [straight] into the vessel. It was stated likewise: R. Assi said in R. Johanan's name: The jugular veins must see the air-space of the vessel. R. Assi asked R. Johanan: What if one was receiving, and the bottom of the bowl split before the blood reached the air-space? is [an object in] the air, where it will not eventually come to rest, regarded as at rest, or not? — Said he to him, We have learnt it: If a barrel lies beneath a spout, the water inside it and outside it is unfit; if one joined its mouth to the spout, the water inside it is fit, and the water outside it is unfit. How now! He asked him about [an object in] the air, where it will not eventually come to rest, and he answered him about [an object in] the air where it will eventually come to rest? — He asked him two [questions]: should you say that [an object in] the air where it will not eventually come to rest is not regarded as at rest, how about [an object in] the air where it will eventually come to rest? That is how R. Joseph recited it. R. Kahana recited it that he asked him about a barrel, and he answered him about a barrel. Rabbah recited it that he asked him about a barrel, and he solved [it] for him [from the case of] a bowl; [arguing thus,] do you not agree that in the case of the bowl, sprinkling [of blood] is unavoidable? We learnt elsewhere: If one places [there] one's hand or foot or vegetables leaves, in order that the water should flow into the barrel, it [the water] is unfit. [If one placed there] leaves of canes or leaves of nuts, it is fit. This is the general rule: [If the water is conducted into the barrel by means of] anything which can become unclean, it is unfit; [by means of] anything which cannot become unclean, it is fit. How do we know it? — Because R. Johanan said on the authority of R. Jose b. Abba: Scripture saith, Nevertheless a fountain or a cistern wherein is a gathering of water shall be clean: its existence must be [effected] through purity. R. Hiyya said in R. Johanan's name: This proves that the air-space of a vessel is as the vessel [itself]. Said R. Zera to R. Hiyya b. Abba: But perhaps It refers to a direct run [into the barrel]? — Fool! replied he: we learnt, ‘So that the water shall flow into the barrel.’ R. Hiyya b. Abba also said in R. Johanan's name: This Mishnah was taught on the testimony of R. Zadok. For we learnt: R. Zadok testified that running water which is assembled by means of nut leaves is fit. There was such a case in Ahaliyya, which was referred to the Sages in the Chamber of Hewn Stone, and they declared it fit. R. Zera said in the name of Rab: If [the priest] slits the [sacrificial] bullock's ear and then receives its blood, it is unfit, for it is said: And [the anointed priest] shall take of the blood of the bullock: [this implies:] the bullock as it was before. We have thus found [this law true of] sacrifices of higher sanctity; how do we know [it of] sacrifices of lower sanctity? — Said Raba, it was taught: Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: [this teaches] that it must be without a blemish and a year old when it is slaughtered. How do we know [that it must be likewise] at the receiving [of the blood], the carrying, and the sprinkling? Because it says, ‘it shall be’, [teaching that] at all its stages [as a sacrifice] it must be without blemish and a year old. Abaye raised an objection to him: R. Joshua said: [In the case of] all sacrifices prescribed in the Torah whereof as much as an olive of flesh or fat remained, [the priest] sprinkles the blood? — Relate this to [the provision that it must be] a year old. Yet is it possible for it to be a year old at the slaughtering, yet two years old at the carrying and sprinkling? — Said Raba: This proves that [even] hours disqualify in the case of sacrifices. R. Ammi said in R. Eleazar's name: [In the case of the animal] being within [the Temple court] while its legs were without, if he cut off its legs and then slaughtered it, it is fit; 28^ᵃ^ᵇ^ᶜ^ᵈ^ᵉ^ᶠ^ᵍ^ʰ^ⁱ^ʲ^ᵏ^ˡ^ᵐ^ⁿ^ᵒ^ᵖ^ᵠ^ʳ^ˢ^ᵗ^ᵘ^ᵛ^ʷ^ˣ^ʸ^ᶻ^ᵃᵃ^ᵃᵇ

^ᵃnote:Lit. ‘must place the jugular veins’.
^ᵇnote:I.e., they must be directly over the receiving vessel, so that the blood pours straight into it.
^ᶜnote:Here the blood is over the air-space of the receiving vessel. Yet it will not remain in the vessel when it falls into it. Do we nevertheless regard that blood as though it had actually been caught in the vessel and then spilled, in which case it can be collected and is fit, or as though it had poured from the animal's throat on to the ground, so that it is unfit?
^ᵈnote:This treats of the water which was mixed with the ashes of the red heifer for lustration:this had to be ‘living’ (i.e., running) water, v. Num. XIX, 17: And for the unclean they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the purification from sin, and running (lit., ‘living’) water shall be put thereto in a vessel. In the present case water is running down a spout or channel, and below that spout, and at some distance from it, lies a barrel, which was not placed there in order to receive the water. If one now takes a vessel and holds it within the air-space of the barrel, or above the mouth of the barrel (‘outside’) and catches that water, it is unfit. Because had it been permitted to come to rest in the barrel it would have ceased to be running water; and so now too it lacks that status. Again, if the mouth of the barrel is flush with the spout, and one holds the vessel inside its air-space, the water thus gathered is unfit. If however one holds the vessel immediately beneath the spout, the water thus collected is fit, because it never entered the air-space within the barrel. (In general, in order for the water to be fit it must be collected directly as it runs in a service vessel specially placed there for that purpose.) — From this passage we see that once an object enters the air-space it is regarded as at rest.
^ᵉnote:The water would normally enter the barrel and remain there.
^ᶠnote:And he solved for him the latter question.
^ᵍnote:Viz., this very law that has just been stated, of which he was ignorant.
^ʰnote:Some of the blood must spout through the air into the bowl. Now if an object in the air is not regarded as already at rest, then the blood has entered the bowl and not directly from the animal's throat but from the air, and should be unfit.
^ⁱnote:Water was running down from a hillside, and one placed his hand etc. in order to direct it into a barrel, which had been placed there for the purpose of collecting the water. The water so collected is unfit for lustration; v. Parah VI, 4.
^ʲnote:A person's hand can become unclean; similarly vegetable leaves, if they are edible.
^ᵏnote:Lev. XI, 36.
^ˡnote:Water must be collected for ritual cleansing purposes through an object which is itself clean, i.e., which cannot become unclean.
^ᵐnote:When the water flows over the hand, it does not fall directly into the barrel but first spreads out over the air-space above it. If that airspace were not as the barrel itself, the water would be regarded as falling from the air into the barrel, not from the hand, and so would be fit.
^ⁿnote:The Hebrew’ does not imply to fall directly into it.
^ᵒnote:V. ‘Ed. Sonc. ed. pp. IX and XI.
^ᵖnote:Horowitz, Palestine, p. 22, identifies it with Bait Ilu, near Jerusalem.
^ᵠnote:In the inner court of the Temple, where the great Sanhedrim sat. V. also J.E. XII, 576.
^ʳnote:So Bek. 39b. Cur. edd. Rabbi.
^ˢnote:From the throat, in the usual way. He slit the ear immediately after slaughtering it, so that between the slaughtering and the reception of the blood it was a blemished animal.
^ᵗnote:Lev. IV, 5.
^ᵘnote:It must be in the same state when the priest receives the blood as it was before, viz unblemished.
^ᵛnote:Such as the sin-offering, to which this text refers.
^ʷnote:Ex. XII, 5. This refers to the Passover-offering, which was a sacrifice of lower sanctity.
^ˣnote:By the time of sprinkling, the rest having been lost or defiled. There can be no greater blemish than this.
^ʸnote:At all its stages as a sacrifice it must be a year old, but it need not be without a blemish at all its stages.
^ᶻnote:I.e., more than a year old.
^ᵃᵃnote:The age of a sacrifice is calculated exactly from the moment of birth, and even the least excess (‘hours’ means any short period, even minutes) disqualifies the animal. Thus it may reach the age limit at the moment of slaughtering and exceed it a moment afterwards.
^ᵃᵇnote:If the blood of a sacrifice passes without the Temple court before it is sprinkled, it is unfit. In this case, if one cut off the legs first, the blood that passed out (sc. that contained in the legs) did not mingle with that which remained within.