Tractate Shevuot Archives | My Jewish Learning

Shevuot 49

Rachel Scheinerman — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 02:50:35 +0000

On today’s daf, the last in Tractate Shevuot, we read the entirety of its final and tiniest chapter. It is a quintessentially rabbinic discussion of oath taking, a beautifully self-contained microcosm of the tractate as a whole.

The mishnah begins by delineating four arrangements in which one person has possession of property belonging to another:

1. The unpaid caretaker — who volunteers to take care of another’s property

2. The borrower — who makes use of another’s property for free

3. The paid caretaker — who is paid to take care of another’s property

4. The renter — who pays to use another’s property

Two of these (the borrower and the renter) benefit from the arrangement, either because they are paid or because they get to use the property. The other two do not. In two of these arrangement (paid caretaker and renter) money changes hands — but in opposite directions. In the other two, no money changes hands.

What happens when someone in one of these arrangements loses the property they are in possession of and the owner comes to collect? It depends, says the mishnah, on the arrangement:

The unpaid caretaker takes an oath for everything (and pays nothing).

The borrower pays for everything.

The paid caretaker and a renter are the same: They take an oath concerning an injured animal, and concerning a captured one, and concerning a dead animal (and then do not have to pay). But they must pay if the deposit cannot be returned due to loss or theft.

The unpaid caretaker and the borrower are the clearest cases. The unpaid caretaker entered an arrangement that had no benefit to himself, so he assumes the least burden — he takes an oath and is not obligated to pay for the lost item. In the case of a borrower, the original owner entered an agreement that had no clear benefit, so it is she who assumes the least burden — the borrower has no option to take an oath, and must pay for the missing property.

But the cases of the paid caretaker and renter are different because in those cases both sides benefit from the arrangement. And in those cases, the answer is more complicated — it depends on what exactly happened to the missing property.

The mishnah goes on to address an even more complicated case, in which someone gives a false oath. For instance, perhaps the ox they were guarding was stolen, but they swore it died. The mishnah explores many scenarios to determine liability for this kind of false oath, and then concludes this winding discussion with a general principle:

Anyone who takes an oath to be lenient with himself is liable; if he takes an oath to be stringent with himself, he is exempt.

Sometimes, tractates soar to lyrical conclusions. This one doesn’t. The Gemara picks up the discussion by asking who posited the four types of temporary possession arrangements with which the mishnah began, then asks if in fact three categories make more sense than four, interrogates in the mishnah and rules on which rabbi’s interpretation is correct. Then the tractate stops. So let’s circle back to the principle in the mishnah about oaths. If someone takes a false oath in a way that benefits himself, he is liable. But if he takes a false oath that causes him to assume more responsibility, then he is exempt. And this underlines the primary purpose of oaths — to prevent us from harming others.

The system of oath-taking is a complicated balancing act, one that depends on people to speak honestly but is devised precisely because they don’t always. It’s a system for a highly imperfect world, but one that is not broken beyond repair. As we close the page on this chapter, may we continue to see our world in this way, and continue the holy work of its repair.

Read all of Shevuot 49 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 19, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 49 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 48

Rachel Scheinerman — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 01:23:28 +0000

As we have seen, defendants are usually the ones required to take an oath when their accuser has no proof of wrongdoing. But sometimes it is the claimant who takes the oath. The lengthy mishnah at the beginning of this chapter listed a number of scenarios in which this can happen. In all cases, regardless of who takes the oath, there is a clear accusation. But this is apparently not so in the mishnah’s last and most exceptional case:

And these people are sometimes required to take an oath that they do not owe anything even when there is no explicit claim: Partners, sharecroppers, stewards, a woman who does business from home, and the member of the household appointed to manage the household’s affairs. In a case where one of these people said to the other: “What is your claim against me?” If the other replied: “It is simply my wish that you take an oath to me that you have not taken anything of mine,” the former is liable to take that oath.

This is a list of people who are, in some way, managing someone else’s property: one partner handles another’s wares, a sharecropper works another person’s land, etc. This arrangement makes taking the other person’s property, whether through theft or accident, easy and convenient. According to the mishnah, the second party can ask the first to swear an oath that they have not stolen anything — even in the absence of a specific claim against the first. It seems that we’re either more suspicious that they might try and purposefully steal from the person whose property they manage or, more generously, we’re worried about mistakes.

The Gemara, commenting on this clause, is incredulous:

Is that to say that we are dealing with fools?!

The Gemara is incredulous that people would take an oath when there is no claim against them. How could this possibly be obligatory? And if it’s not obligatory, why would anyone agree to do it? To resolve this issue, the Gemara amends the mishnah slightly:

This is what the mishnah is saying: And these people take an oath without it being in response to a definite claim but only to an uncertain claim: Partners, sharecroppers, etc.

If the other partner, or the owner of the sharecropper’s field, or the person whose money a steward is managing, etc., has noreason to believe the other took their money, they cannot be made to take an oath apropos of nothing. However (and this is what distinguishes these cases from others), if the claimant believes they may have taken property, the other party can be made to take an oath denying it. This distinguishes this case from others in which the claimant is far more certain they have been robbed.

The Gemara asks an intuitive follow-up question:

And what is different about these people listed in the mishnah? It is because they tend to grant themselves permission to take for themselves from the property for which they are responsible.

These specific people — those who manage others’ property — have much more access and therefore it is simply easier to take from the other party, either with intention or through mistake.

In general, throughout Tractate Shevuot, we’ve seen the rabbis balancing a considerable tension: On the one hand, many oaths are only taken because two parties make contradictory claims, and it seems that one of them is lying. Therefore, oaths are a mechanism to deal with people who are not entirely trustworthy. On the other hand, the rabbis don’t assume that most Jews are regularly cheating and stealing from their fellows. In fact, if we assumed as much, most people would be rendered unfit to take an oath and the whole system would collapse! The rabbis walk a fine line, knowing that people do sometimes cheat and lie, but also not assuming most are unapologetic thieves.

In the cases listed above, where a person is putting in considerable effort managing another person’s property, the rabbis suggest that such a person might, to translate literally, “teach for themselves a permission about it.” They might think that, in exchange for the work they’re providing, it isn’t unreasonable to keep some quantity of the property. In their mind, this isn’t full-on theft, but a justifiable appropriation of (additional) compensation for their labor. Since the rabbis, according to the Gemara, believe such a self-justification would be common in these cases, and therefore the likelihood of them having taken property is higher than in most scenarios, they obligate an oath even when the claimant is uncertain.

Read all of Shevuot 47 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 17, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 48 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 47

Ben Harris — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 14:25:49 +0000

Normally, when evidence is lacking, it is the defendant in a case that takes an oath. But there are exceptions. We learned on Shevuot 41 that, in the case where the defendant is known to be unethical and therefore not trustworthy, the court can allow the claimant to take the oath and then collect what is owed. But what if both defendant and claimant were known to be unethical? The mishnah on Shevuot 45 offers us two opinions on this case.

If both were suspect, the oath returned to its place. This is the statement of Rabbi Yosei. Rabbi Meir says: They divide it.

Rabbi Meir’s position is relatively straightforward: If one unscrupulous person claims to have deposited an item with another unscrupulous person, and the second person doesn’t have it, the court assesses the value of the item, and requires the defendant to pay half that value to the claimant.

Rabbi Yosei’s position, however, is a lot more obscure. What does it mean that an oath returns to its place? Where is an oath’s place? Rabbi Ami offers two answers.

To where did it return? Rabbi Ami said that our sages in Babylonia say: The oath returned to Sinai. Our sages in the land of Israel said: The oath returned to the one who was liable to take it.

Rav Pappa said: Our sages in Babylonia are Rav and Shmuel; our sages in the land of Israel refers to Rabbi Abba.

Let’s look at these two opinions in reverse order. The authority from the land of Israel (whom Rav Pappa identifies as Rabbi Abba) reason as follows: The oath was originally meant to be imposed on the defendant. If the court doesn’t think the defendant is trustworthy, they can transfer the responsibility to the claimant. But if both are untrustworthy, then the oath defaults back to the defendant. I picture oaths traveling like a boomerang or an elastic band — if there is nothing to catch them as they extend out, they snap back to the one originally obligated.

The Babylonian sages (whom Rav Pappa identifies as Rav and Shmuel) insist that an oath’s original home is not with any claimant. In fact, if there is no party to the suit able to take the oath, it “snaps” all the way back to Sinai. Rashi explains that Sinai here is a reference to the biblical commandment not to steal. The rabbinic court cannot trust an oath when both parties are known to be dishonest, but God knows the truth. According to Rashi, we therefore trust heaven to engineer a situation in which the guilty party suffers a financial loss and the innocent party is repaid. In this case, our boomerang snaps back to its original home, the experience of God’s self-revelation at Sinai. It is God’s imposition of law and ethics that ultimately shapes how we should live in the world.

This is not the first time we’ve seen the rabbis hold that what human courts cannot solve is ultimately set right by heaven. But it’s an uncomfortable notion, especially since even a casual glance at the world (or a cursory reading of the Book of Job) shows that not everyone gets their just deserts — at least not in this lifetime. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the debate continues among both medieval and early modern commentators, with different Jewish thinkers concluding that, in the case where both parties are unethical, the defendant pays, no one pays or the two scoundrels split the difference. Who is right? Perhaps this too must revert to Sinai, the ultimate home of Jewish law. Only God knows.

Read all of Shevuot 47 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 17, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 47 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 46

Rachel Scheinerman — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 05:26:03 +0000

On today’s daf, Rabbi Yirmeya bar Abba shares the following.

The sages sent the following message to Shmuel from the study hall of Rav: Our teacher, instruct us with regard to the case where the craftsman says: “You fixed two coins as my payment;” and the other (the employer) says: “I fixed only one coin as your payment.” Who takes an oath?

Shmuel told them: In that case, the employer shall take an oath to support his claim and the craftsman shall lose the difference.

Narratives like this one preserve the earliest evidence of the responsa literature which became the dominant form of rabbinic legal writing in Babylonia during the centuries that followed the closing to the Talmud. As Jewish communities spread out throughout the Mediterranean world, many did not have a local rabbinic authority. When a question of Jewish law or practice arose, they would send it to the head of an academy in Babylonia who would write back with an answer.

According to talmudic tradition, Rav and Shmuel had a lot in common. Both were born in Babylonia, both went to study with Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in Israel, and both returned to their homeland and established themselves as heads of talmudic academies: Rav in the town of Sura and Shmuel in the Nehardea. While from time to time the Talmud cites a matter about which they agree, this is the exception and not the rule.

The disagreements of Rav and Shmuel appear throughout the Talmud.
That the students in the study hall of Rav would send a question to Shmuel raises an eyebrow for two reasons. First, why did they have to send out their question at all? Couldn’t they have asked Rav, in whose academy they were studying? And second, given that Rav and Shmuel were known for their legal disagreements, why would the students of Rav turn to Shmuel for his opinion? Wouldn’t they reasonably expect their teacher to disagree with whatever answer was received?

Rabbi Yirmeya bar Abba doesn’t address either of these questions, he merely reports that it was sent and the reply that received. The Talmud is silent on these matters as well. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz resolves the first question by suggesting that this incident occurred after the death of Rav, when he was no longer present to answer the questions of those who studied in his beit midrash. But even if Rabbi Steinsaltz is correct, we might wonder: Why did Rav’s students turn to his rival, the one with whom he spent a lifetime disagreeing?

This question may not be the right one. In a lecture that Elie Wiesel gave in memory of Saul Lieberman, one of the great talmudists of the 20th century and Weisel’s friend and teacher, Weisel offers a different perspective on how we might understand the teaching of Rabbi Yirmeya bar Abba that appears on today’s daf, and the relationship between Rav and Shmuel as a whole:

Rav and Shmuel. Whoever studied Talmud is familiar with their voices, with their lessons, with their arguments, as well as with their different lifestyles. Now “Rav and Shmuel,” why not “Rav against Shmuel “instead?

Ideological adversaries, Rav and Shmuel rarely agreed on matters relating either to halacha, the law, or to aggadah, the legend. Yet they showed affection and respect to one another. Consequently, they remain inseparable in our collective memory. When Rav offers an opinion we are eager to hear Shmuel’s too. One completes the other, one is enriched by the other. Together they belong to the enchanting and colorful symphony of the Talmud.

It is easy for us to perceive Rav and Shmuel as rivals. After all, the Talmud consistently juxtaposes their views. But as Weisel reminds us, disagreement does not have to imply disgust. Perhaps the students of Rav turned to Shmuel because they witnessed first hand how Rav had done the same repeatedly during his lifetime. Perhaps they understood that Shmuel was their teacher too, even if his school held different legal positions than their own.

Read all of Shevuot 46 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 16, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 46 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 45

Rachel Scheinerman — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 03:51:14 +0000

On yesterday’s daf, the beginning of a very long mishnah that continues most of the way down the first side of today’s daf stated that oaths required by Torah can exempt people from payment. By contrast, oaths instituted by the rabbis can compel a party to hand over property. The mishnah goes on to list a number of scenarios in which this can happen, including: a hired worker who sues his employer for unpaid wages (and then takes an oath and receives them), a victim of theft who sues the robber (and then takes an oath and recovers their stolen goods), someone who seeks compensation from another who injured them (who takes an oath and receives damages) and: “a storekeeper relying on his ledger.”

On today’s daf, the mishnah provides examples in each category. There are many variants on the storekeeper example. Today, we’ll explore a few.

If one said to a storekeeper: “Give me produce valued at a dinar,” and he gave him the produce, and later the storekeeper said to him: “Give me that dinar you owe me,” and the customer said to him: “I gave it to you, and you put it in your wallet,” the customer shall take an oath that he gave him the dinar.

At first blush, this is not a good example of the principle stated in the mishnah. After all, a straightforward reading of these lines suggests the customer takes an oath and then is exempted from payment for the produce. But this means the oath doesn’t lead to money or goods changing hands. Commentators step in to explain: The storekeeper didn’t hand the produce directly to the customer, but placed it in the public domain, then demanded payment. Only once the customer swears an oath that they paid for that produce may they take possession of it. Thus, through a rabbinically-mandated oath, the customer acquires something.

Here’s the reverse example:

If, after he gave the storekeeper the money, the customer said to him: “Give me the produce,” and the storekeeper said to him: “I gave it to you and you transported it to your house,” the storekeeper shall take an oath that he has already filled the order, and he is exempt from supplying the produce.

Again, commentators explain, we can make sense of this if we imagine the produce was temporarily in the public domain for the duration of the transaction and subsequent dispute. Here, there’s no question that the storekeeper received money. But when the buyer tries to collect the produce from the public domain, the storekeeper stops them and says they have already collected other produce for that payment. The storekeeper can swear that this is true and then recover the produce from the public domain.

Further examples in the mishnah explore when, instead of trading money for produce, a person trades money for money (of a different denomination). In this setting, coins are like any other kind of item for sale, and the mishnah provides examples similar to those above, in which one party claims not to have received what they were owed. The one who is accused utters a rabbinic oath and recovers what is rightfully theirs from the public domain.

At this point, Rabbi Yehuda jumps in with a comment:

It is not a money changer’s way to give even an issar until he receives a dinar.

We know from the New Testament and other sources that money changers — who made their living exchanging currencies — were often disliked. This is perhaps why Rabbi Yehuda somewhat acerbically remarks that a money changer would never hand over coins before receiving their payment. And therefore, the example in which a money changer gives a customer coins before receiving payment (and then must sue for that payment) is utterly implausible.

Rabbi Yehuda doesn’t carry the day: The Mishneh Torah holds like the anonymous Gemara and states: “If the money-changer admits to having sold the coins and he has not taken the dinar, the purchaser must support his claim by taking an oath while holding a sacred object and may then take the coins.” Indeed, the medieval codes agree across the board and follow what we examined above. Although money-changers may have been viewed with suspicion by the populace, that ultimately did not color the law which was enforced across all different sorts of storekeepers, whatever their wares.

Read all of Shevuot 45 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 15, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 45 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 44

Rachel Scheinerman — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 01:48:48 +0000

Today we start the seventh chapter of Tractate Shevuot. This chapter continues the discussion we’ve been having about oaths and, in particular, the finer details of biblically and rabbinically mandated oaths. The mishnah that opens our chapter states:

All those who take an oath by the Torah take an oath and do not pay.

By taking a biblically mandated oath, a defendant can exempt themselves from paying someone else what they claim they owe. Next, the mishnah points out a key difference with rabbinically mandated oaths.

And these take an oath (mandated by the rabbis and not the Torah) and receive: A hired worker; and one who was robbed; and one who was injured; and one whose opponent is suspect with regard to the oath. And a storekeeper relying on his ledger.

Rabbinic oaths can not only exempt you from payment but can compel others to give you things. The mishnah lists some examples of one who can take a rabbinically mandated oath, and then explains each in depth over the course of the next two pages. Let’s look at one example:

The hired worker — how? One says to his employer: “Give me my wages that are in your possession.” He says: “I gave.” And that one says: “I have not received” – he takes an oath and he receives.

An employee alleges that she has not yet been paid, but her employer insists that she has. In a world before paystubs and records of electronic bank transfers, how can the court decide who is right? The court requires that the employee take an oath that they did not receive their payment, and then obligates the employer to pay it.

Rabbi Yehuda says: Not unless there is partial admission. How so? He said to him: “Give me my wages, 50 dinars, which are in your possession.” And he says: “You have received one golden dinar.”

Rabbi Yehuda limits the power of the employee to collect compensation by insisting that the employee’s oath is only legally effective if the employer has admitted to a partial repayment. Since the employer has admitted in court that they owe the employee money, the court can impose full payment on the basis of the employee’s oath. Rabbi Yehuda seems to be concerned that someone will lie about having even been an employee, and demand payment from someone with whom they never had a financial relationship at all.

Interestingly, halakhic decisors including Maimonides and the Shulchan Aruch follow the first opinion of the mishnah. Why? We will learn tomorrow that an employer likely has many workers, and some of the details of their individual contracts can fall through the cracks. But the employee only has one salary, and it’s her whole livelihood. Given the heightened stakes, we can trust that the employee has the fuller understanding of the details of what she is owed. It’s not enough to know the details of a particular legal case, or how oaths are meant to work — we have to understand the real stakes of each case for the people involved.

Read all of Shevuot 44 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 14, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 44 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 43

Rachel Scheinerman — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 01:19:22 +0000

If you have ever had a mortgage or made car payments, you’ve borrowed money using collateral (your house or car, respectively) which the lender can repossess if you fall behind on payments. In these modern examples, the collateral is usually in possession of the borrower. A mishnah on today’s daf explores what happens when the collateral is instead in the hands of the lender — who then loses it. Here’s the first part of the mishnah:

In the case of one who lends money to another on the basis of collateral, and the collateral was lost while in the possession of the creditor, and the creditor says to the debtor: “I lent you a sela on the basis of collateral that was worth a shekel (i.e., a half-sela). Therefore, you owe me a shekel.” And the debtor says: “That is not the case. Rather, you lent me a sela on the basis of that collateral worth a sela, so I owe you nothing.” In this case, the debtor is exempt.

The borrower and lender do not contest that the creditor had possession of the collateral, but they do contest what the (now lost) collateral was worth. While the borrower asserts it covers the entire loan, the lender claims it covers only half. Since the collateral has since been lost, its value can’t be ascertained in court. In this case, according to the mishnah, the court believes the borrower. No oaths are taken, no money changes hands.

The second case is slightly different:

There is a case of a creditor who claims: “I lent you a sela on the basis of that collateral and it was worth a shekel.” And the other individual, the debtor, says: “That is not the case; rather, you lent me a sela on the basis of collateral that was worth three dinars (i.e., three-quarters of a sela).” In this case, the debtor is liable to take an oath, due to the fact that he responded to the claim of the creditor with a partial admission.

This is a similar case to the first except that in this case the borrower says that the collateral was worth only three dinars (3/4 of the debt). Because he admits to owing something, the borrower is required to take an oath that the sum is accurate and then repays the final dinar that is owed.

The third and fourth cases brought by the mishnah are the inverse, with the borrower making a claim because the lost collateral was, he contends, worth more than the loan itself. In the third case, the borrower asserts that the lost collateral was worth twice the loan (and therefore, he is owed money), but the lender says they were equivalent. In this case, the lender is exempt, just as the borrower above is exempt, and no money changes hands. The reasoning is similar: The lender claims he owes no money, so he is not required to take an oath or pay. If he had admitted to owing something, then the legal answer would have been different, as it is in the fourth case of the mishnah.

In the fourth case, the borrower again claims that the collateral he provided was worth twice the amount of the loan, but the lender says it was worth 125% (the loan is a sela and the lender says the collateral is worth five dinars). In this case, the lender has to take an oath before the court due to the admission that he does owe something. Once he takes the oath, he then pays what is owed.

As in other cases, we see that there is a general principle that if someone claims they owe nothing, they are not required to take an oath. Presumably, they would not be so bold as to baldly deny any debt in court if they in fact owed the other party money. However, if they admit to some debt, then they take an oath as to the exact amount and pay up.

The mishnah concludes with a different general principle:

And who takes the oath? The one in whose possession the deposit had been located (i.e. the creditor) who took collateral from the debtor. The sages instituted this provision lest one party take an oath and the other party produce the deposit and prove the oath false.

At the end of the day, the mishnah summarizes, the person who swears must be the lender, not the borrower, because they are the one who was last in possession of the collateral. The mishnah explains the reasoning: If the borrower took the oath, and then the lender later recovered the lost collateral, and it turned out to be worth a different amount than the borrower swore, then the borrower would be found guilty of making a false oath — and thereby breaking one of the Ten Commandments. For that reason, since the lender was the one who most recently had possession of the collateral, and would be most likely to recover it if lost, the lender has the burden of taking the oath.

But this principle, frustratingly, does not seem to match the pattern we identified in the mishnah, in which the person accused of owing money to the other party — be it the borrower or the lender — assumes the burden of taking the oath. This becomes the first problem the Gemara tackles — ultimately curtailing the reach of this general principle based on the examples in the mishnah. The more practical solution, undoubtedly, is to make sure that everyone agrees on the value of the collateral before entering into a loan agreement.

Read all of Shevuot 43 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 13, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 43 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 42

Rachel Scheinerman — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 04:23:36 +0000

In September 1999, a robotic probe launched by NASA to study the climate on Mars fell out of orbit and burned up in the Martian atmosphere. It was later discovered that the crash was caused by a mismatch between two onboard measurement systems, one of which used metric units and the other U.S. customary units. This simple error is estimated to have cost NASA hundreds of millions of dollars (U.S. dollars, to be precise).

Rabbis, like rocket scientists and math teachers, appreciate the value of specifying units of measure. A mishnah on today’s daf teaches:

One takes an oath only concerning an item that is defined by size, by weight, or by number. How so? If the claimant says: “I transferred to you a house full of produce,” or: “I transferred to you a pouch full of money,” and the other person says: “I do not know how much you gave me, but what you left in my possession you may take,” and the amount in the house or pouch at that time is less than that claimed by the claimant, the defendant is exempt from taking an oath, as the amounts in the claim and the admission are undefined.

Unless both parties are able to specify the amount of produce or money with recognized units — of which “pouchfull” is not one — the conditions that mandate the recitation of an oath are not met and an oath is not administered.

This mishnah is not, however, opposed to using newly invented units of measure.

If this party says that the house was full up to the ledge, and that party says that it was full up only to the window, the defendant is liable to take an oath.

If one cannot identify the quantity in broadly recognized units (for the rabbis, this would have been logs, kavs, se’ahs, etc.), then identifying it as filling the house to the point of a ledge or window is specific enough to require an oath. Even though these are not universal units of measurement, they are the basis for precise measurement — provided we have access to the house.

We know why NASA cares about units of measurement, but why does the Talmud in this situation? When the parties do not identify the exact quantity of what is owed, there is a greater possibility that the ensuing oath will be false — not due to intentional dishonesty, but rather because of the lack of specificity in the language. The rabbis are concerned about leading someone into making an accidentally false oath, because the infraction — violating one of the Ten Commandments — is so severe. Requiring all measures to be given in standard or at least specified units is one way to mitigate this risk.

The rabbis believed that, ultimately, the truth of an oath is not measured by the judges in rabbinic courts, but by God, whose name is invoked in each and every oath. The consequences of uttering a false oath are far more dire than losing a point on a math test or even an expensive satellite. To protect the defendant from incurring a divine punishment due to their lack of specificity, the rabbis exempt them, if they cannot provide the units, from having to take an oath at all.

Read all of Shevuot 42 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 12, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 42 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 41

Rachel Scheinerman — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:37:49 +0000

In specific cases, taking an oath is biblically mandated. In other cases, the rabbis require an oath, even if the Torah doesn’t. On today’s daf, the rabbis tease out the differences between a biblically-mandated oath (shevuah de-oraita) and a rabbinically-mandated oath (shevuah de-rabbanan). As we’ll see, the Talmud identifies a number of differences with practical implications for those who borrow and those who lend. Here is the first:

Between them is the transfer of an oath. By Torah law, we do not transfer the oath; by rabbinic law, we do transfer the oath.

The Talmud imagines a situation where the defendant, who has been accused of failure to repay, is required to take an oath and refuses, insisting that the claimant take an oath instead. We can imagine the defendant saying something like: If you want your money back, swear that you left it with me, and if not, you don’t have the right to take it.

Biblically-mandated oaths cannot be transferred in this manner; but oaths required by the rabbis can be. That’s a helpful difference between the two, but it turns out that not all rabbis agree that this is the difference between biblical and rabbinic oaths.

And according to Mar bar Rav Ashi, who says that we transfer an oath by Torah law as well, what is there between by Torah law and by rabbinic law? The difference between them is entering their property: With regard to oaths taken by Torah law, we enter his property, and with regard to oaths taken by rabbinic law, we do not enter his property.

If someone refuses to pay back what they owe, and also refuses to take an oath that it was stolen or lost, can the court go into their home and seize the property (or items of equivalent value)? According to the Talmud, Mar bar Rav Ashi thinks that the court is only authorized to enter private property and seize goods if the oath was biblically-mandated. But not every rabbi agrees with this either:

And according to Rabbi Yosei, who says that even with regard to an oath by rabbinic law, we enter their property, what is the difference between bibically- and rabbinically-mandated oaths? Between them is where the one opposing is suspected with regard to oaths. With regard to an oath mandated by Torah law, if the one opposing is suspected with regard to oaths, we transfer the oath and impose it on the other. With regard to an oath mandated by rabbinic law, it is by rabbinic ordinance, and we do not institute ordinance upon ordinance.

According to the Talmud, Rabbi Yosei thinks the difference between these oaths is that, in the case of a biblically-mandated oath, if the defendant is known to be dishonest, the court can allow the claimant to take an oath that they left their object with the defendant, and they then have the right to take it back. But since some oaths are themselves rabbinically-mandated, and transferring oaths is a rabbinic innovation, in the case of a rabbinically-mandated oath, we don’t stack rabbinic innovation onto rabbinic innovation — that’s too much of a house of cards for the rabbis.

The debate over differences between oaths continues for most of the daf. It’s not terribly practically for us — most of whom are never going to take an oath about whether someone deposited goods with us in a rabbinic court. But this discussion reminds us that, for the rabbis as much as for our own lives, what the law says matters. And in some cases, the source of the law matters just as much as the content.

Read all of Shevuot 41 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 11, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 41 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 40

aspeck — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 20:51:56 +0000

The mishnah at the beginning of this chapter stated that if a person admits to part of a monetary claim, they are required to take an oath denying the remainder of the claim. However, if a person fully denies a monetary claim, they are exempt from swearing the oath. There are exceptions, but this is the general rule. Today’s Gemara, troubled by this ruling, modifies it:

The mishnah teaches that if the claimant said: “I have one 100 dinars in your possession,” and the defendant responded: “Nothing of yours is in my possession,” he is exempt from swearing an oath.

Rav Nahman says: The court administers an oath of inducement to him.

What is the reason? There is a presumption that one does not make a claim unless he has a valid case against the other party.

While on a Torah level a person cannot be obligated in an oath when denying the entire claim against them, Rav Nahman rules that we nonetheless apply an oath of inducement to the defendant. Presumably Rav Nahman, who worked as a judge, felt this was good jurisprudence; if a person can avoid liability both for paying and for taking an oath denying they owe money, what’s to stop people from brazenly denying their creditors’ claims? Since we assume most people aren’t going to the trouble of dragging someone to court unless they have some legitimate reason, Rav Nahman institutes at least a rabbinic-level consequence for denying a debt.

But the Gemara swiftly makes the opposite case:

On the contrary; there is a presumption that a person does not exhibit insolence by lying in the presence of his creditor.

The primary rationale for the Torah-level ruling that one who completely denies a claim is exempt from swearing is that people are generally not so brazen as to completely deny owing any money to a person who not only knows for certain they’re lying, but in fact did them a kindness by lending them money! (Without interest, if they’re a fellow Jew, making it even more likely to be an altruistic gesture.) Given that we presume most people are not chutzpadik enough to make such a denial, why should we require this defendant to swear even a rabbinic-level oath?

The Gemara answers this concern by suggesting that perhaps this person’s denial is not pure impudence:

He may be temporarily avoiding paying him. He rationalizes doing so by saying to himself: I am avoiding him only until the time that I have enough money, and then I will repay him.

Perhaps the defendant simply doesn’t have the money at this moment to pay back their loan, and doesn’t want to go further in debt; therefore, they’re rationalizing to themselves that this is only a temporary measure, and they will eventually pay back their creditor. People might not be so brazen as to completely deny owing a debt in order to avoid payment altogether, but someone might do so in order to buy themselves time to gather the funds.

The Gemara supports this notion:

Know that denial of a debt is not considered an outright lie, as Rav Idi bar Avin says that Rav Hisda says: One who denies a claim with regard to a loan is fit to bear witness even if his denial is proven untrue. But one who denies a claim with regard to a deposit and is proven to be lying is disqualified from bearing witness.

Even if a person is proven to have lied about a debt — i.e., witnesses later come and clarify that they do owe the money — that person is not invalidated from future testimony, because we don’t consider them to be in the general category of someone who is chashud al mamona, suspect with regard to monetary matters. We assume they’re not trying to steal from the creditor, only buying time to pay back their debt. But this same logic seemingly cannot apply to a person with whom money or objects were deposited; if you gave me a gold watch for safekeeping and I later deny having ever received it, there is no good reason I shouldn’t have the watch available and ready to return! Therefore, if I’m proven to have falsely denied having this deposit, the assumption is that I’m merely trying to steal from the person who deposited the object with me.

This is an excellent example of a tension that exists within a lot of Seder Nezikin: The rabbis simultaneously want to account for and protect against potential trickery, deception and theft, while also assuming that most people being brought to court are not wicked thieves. If we can imagine a charitable reason a person might be denying a claim, we don’t default to assuming they have baldly malicious intent; but in the absence of a compelling justification, such as in the case of a deposit, we are forced to assume the defendant is attempting theft.

So just how much benefit of the doubt do we give? Some but not all. Ultimately, Jewish law follows Rav Nahman: Even in cases where a Torah-level oath is not required, the court administers a rabbinic-level oath. While a rabbinic oath holds less weight, it will still hopefully deter people from lying in court.

Read all of Shevuot 40 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 10, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 40 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 39

Rachel Scheinerman — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 00:37:59 +0000

We’ve been discussing oaths people must take in court — for instance, that they do not owe someone else money. On today’s daf, the Talmud instructs the court to impress upon the oath-taker the seriousness of their words and the consequences of swearing falsely:

Before he takes the oath, the judges say to him: “Be aware that the entire world trembled when the Holy One, Blessed be God, said at Mount Sinai: You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless one who takes God’s name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7)

This is the beginning of what turns out to be an extensive speech designed to put the fear of God into the oath-taker. The following is also among the warnings issued:

And when the judges administer the oath to him, they say to him: “Be aware that we administer an oath to you not according to your understanding, but according to the understanding of the Omnipresent and according to the understanding of the court.” Why does the court need to say this to him? It is due to the reed in Rava’s court.

The first warning was clear: At Mount Sinai, God forbade all from swearing false oaths. This warning is a less straightforward. It asserts that the court, and God, will be the final arbiter of the meaning of the oath the person is about to make. But shouldn’t the meaning of any oath in this context be relatively clear? Why would we need an arbiter at all?

This particular warning, the Talmud asserts, was a late addition to the speech, included because of something that happened in Rava’s court: an incident involving a reed. But it doesn’t explain further.
The episode of the reed in Rava’s court is referred to a handful of times in the Talmud, but the details are not provided. It is an event that the Talmud assumes we know. Luckily for us, some early commentators, including Rashi, seem to know of it.

One time, in Rava’s court, a debtor, who claimed to have returned a loan, in fact hid the money that he owed within a reed. When he was called upon to swear that the money had been returned, the clever debtor asked the creditor to hold the reed for him while the oath was administered. After swearing that the money had been returned, the debtor took back the reed with the hidden money. When the debtor’s subterfuge came to light, he stood by his oath. After all, at the time that he swore the funds had been returned, the creditor was in fact holding the money.

While that creditor in Rava’s court may have stumbled on a legal loophole, he was obviously underhanded. To prevent similar trickery in future, the rabbis thereafter required the court to add an additional admonishment to all those who take oaths: It is not the oath-taker who determines the meaning and truthfulness of their oath, but rather it is the judges — both human and divine — who make that determination. Because just as the meaning of a verse, beraita, or rabbinic teaching is open to debate, so too might be the meaning of even a simple oath.

Read all of Shevuot 39 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 9, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 39 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 38

Rachel Scheinerman — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 03:32:26 +0000

Our sages debated and formulated distinctly rabbinic principles for interpretation. Yesterday, we discussed two of those principles: ribui umiyut (“amplifications and restrictions”) and klal uprat (“generalization and details”). We saw that the former was more closely associated with Rabbi Akiva’s school, while the latter was favored by Rabbi Ishmael.

Today, we encounter the words klal and prat used a bit differently, though they continue to mean “generalization” and “details” or, perhaps better in this context, “specification.” Today, they mark two distinct interpretive tendencies. This is a bit abstract, stay with us.

Interpreting text according to the rabbinic principle of klal, generalization, held awesome potential. Those who used this lens considered that words can and perhaps should be understood in the broadest terms — opening up a host of hitherto unseen meanings. On the other hand, the modest guidance of prat demands of those who follow this method a highly sensitive analysis of words, urging the reader to refrain from imagining that the written word speaks to subjects that simply aren’t there. A kind of interpretive yin and yang, these two tendencies pull in opposite directions, expanding and limiting the meaning of the written word. Both had a hold on certain sages of antiquity.

A beraita on today’s daf explicitly marks two interpretations as coming from the klal camp and the prat camp respectively. The rabbis are discussing a case in the mishnah in which someone is accused of withholding a deposit and takes an oath that they do not have it — five times. The question is: If they do in fact have the deposit, are they liable for one or five counts of swearing a false oath? Here is what the beraita says:

According to a klal reading: He is only liable for one transgression. According to a prat reading: He is liable for one transgression for each and every one of the multiple lenders to whom the borrower has lied. — These are the words of Rabbi Meir.

Rabbi Yehudah says: One who says explicitly and falsely in an oath, “Not for you do I have anything to return, nor for you do I have anything to return, nor for you do I have anything to return, etc.” is liable for one transgression for each and every one of the multiple lenders to whom the borrower has lied.

Rabbi Meir gives two different answers, and states that one’s understanding of this law depends on one’s general orientation — klal or prat. For Rabbi Meir, the more expansive school of klal (generalization) calculated that one false oath — no matter how many people were addressed in the moment — could yield no more than exactly one sin. The prat (specification) reading, he argued, is that the oath-taker is liable multiple times, one for each instance of lying about the deposit. Following this teaching from Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda gives a statement which seems to accord with the second interpretation — the prat reading that the oath-taker is liable multiple times.

The Gemara records that a few amoraim were confused by this exchange. Our sages hated redundancy and suspected that anything said twice (or even just slightly altered) within our canon must have happened for some specific — usually moralistic or legalistic — reason. Rabbi Yehuda seems to be repeating one of the positions stated by Rabbi Meir — so what is he adding to the conversation?

Rav Yehudah said that Shmuel said: What Rabbi Meir calls klal is what Rabbi Yehudah calls prat. What Rabbi Yehudah calls klal is what Rabbi Meir calls prat.

Note that Rav Yehudah (an amora quoted in the Gemara) is not the same as Rabbi Yehudah (a tanna quoted in our beraita). To Rav Yehudah, it seemed plausible that the beraita quoted Rabbi Yehudah side-by-side with Rabbi Meir because Rabbi Yehudah disagreed over what the prat and klal schools taught. More specifically, he disagreed about which legal ruling was klal and which was prat.

It would be rational for the school that tried to amass the greatest possible number of implications by a single text — the klal party — to find the most possible number of sins committed within a single false oath. Instead, the beraita recalls Rabbi Meir suggesting that only the prat readers would have sought a higher count of transgressions. To Rav Yehudah, an amora, it felt clear that Rabbi Yehudah disagreed over how a prat reader would interpret such a false oath.

This is a fascinating window into the complexities of rabbinic interpretive methods: Different philosophies of interpretation did not necessarily yield predictable results— so much so that there may be confusion about which method of interpretation yields which reading.

The debate continues down our daf. Further below, Rabbi Yohanan even suggests that both teachings from Rabbi Meir represented the prat school!

By the flip of the page, the Talmud has moved past the ambiguities posed by the interpretive postures of klal and prat. As we dive back into the messy world of parsing false oaths and their consequences, we take with us the lesson from this exchange — that serious interpretation is neither rote or mechanical.

Read all of Shevuot 38 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 8, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 38 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 37

Rachel Scheinerman — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 01:26:58 +0000

On today’s daf, we encounter the following beraita:

In the case of one who robbed another of a field and then a river flooded it, he is liable to provide the owner with a different field — this is the statement of Rabbi Eliezer.

And the rabbis say: He can say to the owner: That which is yours is before you.

If one person steals another’s field, and then the field floods, should the thief return that field in its soggy state? Or must the thief hand over a different field equal in value to the original one at the time of theft — before the flooding depreciated its value? Rabbi Eliezer says the latter; his colleagues say the former.

This pair of conclusions is interesting — and you may have an immediate instinct for which answer feels correct — but perhaps more compelling is the reasoning through which each derives their conclusion. The Gemara continues:

With regard to what do they disagree? Rabbi Eliezer interprets Leviticus 5:21–25 according to the hermeneutical principle of ribui umiyut, amplifications and restrictions. The rabbis interpret them according to the hermeneutical principle of klal uprat, generalizations and details.

Ribui umiyut and klal uprat are both rabbinic techniques of biblical interpretation. Both are ways of reading texts that begin by stating a general principle, followed by specific examples of that principle. That is exactly how Leviticus 5:21–25, the source of this debate, is structured:

When a person sins and commits a trespass against God — by dealing deceitfully with another in the matter of a deposit or a pledge, or through robbery, or by defrauding another, or by finding something lost and lying about it; if they swear falsely regarding any one of the various things that a person may do and sin thereby … they shall repay the principal amount and add a fifth part to it.

The general (and potentially extremely broad) statement is: “When a person sins and commits a trespass against God.” The specific examples that follow are more focused. They include stealing a deposit or pledge, lying about finding a stolen object and swearing a false oath of deposit.This is a common rhetorical structure in the Torah. When the rabbis encounter it, there is frequently a concern about how it should be interpreted. Are the specific cases merely examples of the larger principle, which might encompass many more things? Or are they the sum total of what the larger principle entails? In other words: Do those specific examples limit the scope of interpretation? Or do they broaden it?

According to the principle of ribui umiyut, the examples that follow the general rule are just that — examples. The general category may encompass much more, and unless the situation at hand is completely at odds with the examples, the general rule holds. According to the principle of klal uprat, the opposite is true: The examples are seen as more than just an illustration of the general point; they limit the scope of the generality to things that are similar or even identical to the specific examples.

Because Rabbi Eliezer looks at the text through the lens of ribui umiyut, he interprets the law as applying to thefts of a wide range of items — which includes land. As a result, the rules on repayment plus a penalty apply to a theft of land. This is why the person who stole a field that flooded must repay with a better field.

The rabbis use klal uprat to reach the opposite conclusion. Under klal uprat, the rule applies only to things similarto the specific examples. As a result, the rule on compensation doesn’t apply to land, so the thief simply has to return what was stolen, even in its now depreciated state.

Given that these interpretive technique apply in similar textual situations, how do we know which one governs? Why did Rabbi Eliezer choose ribui umiyut while his colleagues chose klal uprat? The difference has to do with one’s teachers. In the tannaitic era, there were two great and competing schools of biblical interpretation — one headed by Rabbi Akiva, and one by Rabbi Ishmael. Ribui umiyut is more closely associated with Rabbi Akiva’s school of thought, while klal uprat is embraced by the school of Rabbi Ishmael.

Ultimately, the medieval codes side with the rabbis. But as today’s daf shows, the outcome of textual interpretation may depend on the technique you use more than the underlying text itself.

Read all of Shevuot 37 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 7, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 37 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 36

Rachel Scheinerman — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 00:57:54 +0000

In the ancient world, entering a bath house — where one might spend several hours in dark, enclosed spaces, completely nude and otherwise defenseless — came with obvious risks. For that reason, the rabbis recommend that one should offer the following prayer for protection (Berakhot 60a) before entering:

May it be Your will, O Lord my God, that you save me from this and similar matters, and do not let ruin or iniquity befall me, and if ruin or iniquity does befall me, let my death be atonement for all of my transgressions.

While agreeing that a prayer for protection is in order, Abaye suggests dropping the final two phrases because:

One should not open their mouth to Satan.

In other words: Don’t invite disaster upon yourself by articulating something that devastating. This anxiety is also found on today’s daf:

The mishnah states: One who curses himself or another employing any of these names or appellations of God violates a prohibition. If one says “The Lord God shall strike you,” and likewise if one says: “God shall strike you if you do not come to testify,” that is a curse that is written in the Torah.

Rav Kahana sat before Rav Yehuda, and he sat and stated the mishnah verbatim as we learned it. Rav Yehuda said to him: Employ a euphemism.

The mishnah provides examples of biblical language that one might use to curse another and cajole them into testifying. This behavior is prohibited, as one is not allowed to invoke the name of God as part of a curse. Even hearing this mishnah spoken aloud in the house of study makes Rav Yehuda uncomfortable. He instructs Rav Kahana to adjust the text by using a euphemism. The Gemara goes on to explain that Rav Yehuda suggests employing the third person (“God shall strike him”) instead of the second (“God shall strike you”), so as not to invite disaster on one’s teacher or colleagues who could be the “you” about whom the text is referring.

The Gemara relates that Rav Kahana, on some later date, passed on this advice, this time with respect to a verse in Torah:

A certain one of the sages sat before Rav Kahana, and he sat and said the verse: “God will likewise break you forever; He will take you up and pluck you from the tent, and uproot you from the land of the living.” (Psalms 52:7) Rav Kahana said to him: Employ a euphemism.

In the first example Rav Kahana is studying a mishnah, a rabbinic text, and in the second the unnamed student is studying the Bible. Not only do the rabbis suggest amending a rabbinic text, they are even inclined to adjust a word of a biblical verse to avoid inviting disaster to befall others. This is remarkable given their fidelity to the precise text of the Hebrew Scriptures.

A theme of Tractate Shevuot, and arguably many other talmudic tractates, is that words truly matter and that they hold enormous power. When we formulate an oath, we are bound by our words — by God and by our fellow humans. On today’s daf, we are reminded that the mere recitation of a mishnah or biblical verse can be dangerous to others. In such cases, not only is there license but even the explicit suggestion to use a euphemism instead.

A modern reader might be tempted to dismiss these texts for their superstitiousness. Yet, the taboo against speaking terrible things aloud is alive and well in our day too. Just as we can be prone to imagine the worst possible outcomes, we also tend to shy away from vocalizing them. Following this practice might not actually make us safer, yet it seems to be in our nature to feel that way nonetheless.

Read all of Shevuot 36 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 6, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 36 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 35

Rachel Scheinerman — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 03:04:46 +0000

The Torah forbids taking God’s name in vain — but which name(s)? On today’s daf, many different appellations for the divine are discussed with the goal of delineating those that are official names of God.

Adonai (along with a shortened form, just the first two letters: aleph dalet), Elohim, El, God’s four-letter proper name yod-hey-vav-hey (and a shortened version that consists of just the first two letters), Shaddai and Tzeva’ot are all incontrovertibly deemed divine names. Adjectives used to describe God — great, mighty, awesome, compassionate, slow to anger, etc. — present a more complicated case. The Gemara determines that when incorporated into descriptive phrases — He Who is Great, The One Who is Slow to Anger, etc. — these are also divine names that should not be taken in vain and should also not be erased.

There are also names of God that are more obscure and, in some cases, surprising. For instance, toward the bottom of today’s daf, we read:

All mentions of the name Solomon that are stated in the Song of Songs, such as: “The song of songs that is Solomon’s” (Song of Songs 1:1), are not references to King Solomon. Rather, they are sacred names, meaning the One for Whom Peace is His.

Solomon — the name of one of Israel’s greatest kings and subsequently many Jewish children — turns out to be a name of God! In Hebrew, Solomon is shlomo, a shortened form of the expression shalom shelo, which translates to “his peace.” The rabbis understand this as shorthand for the One for Whom Peace is His.

A literal reading of Song of Songs suggests that King Solomon is its author, and therefore, the erotic poem it comprises chronicles his explicit relationship with a lover. By reading the name Solomon not as the human king of Israel but instead as the divine King, the rabbis radically transform the meaning of this biblical book. Rather than a sensual love poem, the entire work becomes an allegory for the love between God and the Jewish people.

The inclusion of Song of Songs in the biblical canon was itself the subject of significant debate by the rabbis. In a discussion recorded in Mishnah Yadayim 3:5, the sages argued whether Song of Songs should be considered sacred at all. In that discussion, Rabbi Akiva, whose opinion became the halakhah, is its champion, declaring:

For the whole world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the writings are holy but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.

These two teachings — that “Solomon” refers to the Divine, and that the Song of Songs is a divinely inspired work — make more sense when compared to each other. Song of Songs is the “holy of holies” when viewed as the most enthusiastic sustained declaration of divine love. And that reading makes most sense if we replace Solomon with God.

Although the original concern on today’s daf was taking God’s name in vain and determining which names are in danger of being misused, the discussion morphs into another possible misuse of the divine name: erasing it. Therefore, the rabbis state, any of the names mentioned on today’s daf should not be erased. This is the reason why to this day, Jews store sacred texts with the divine name in a genizah, rather than simply trash or destroy them. This is also why some people refrain from writing out the name of God, even in English, substituting a dash (G-d) or an exclamation point (G!d). The rabbis didn’t necessarily agree that translations of the divine name “count” as holy, but those who choose to follow this practice are placing one more fence around the Torah and one more layer of protection against the name (or, rather, names) that hold so much power.

Read all of Shevuot 35 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 5, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 35 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 34

Rachel Scheinerman — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 00:30:42 +0000

Today’s discussion will make more sense if you read yesterday’s piece. There, we discussed why the rabbis limit liability for those who refuse to testify to monetary (not criminal) cases. Several explanations were given on yesterday’s daf, including one from Rabbi Yosei HaGelili who noted the phrase in Leviticus 5:1, “seen or learned,” means that a person who knows about a matter without having witnessed it directly or a person who witnessed something but does not have full knowledge of what they saw are both required to testify if called to do so. But this kind of limited knowledge is only actionable in a monetary case — hence the conclusion that witnesses who refuse to testify are liable for a sacrifice only in monetary cases.

In response to hearing this teaching, Rav Pappa asks Abaye if it is safe to say that Rabbi Yosei HaGelili agrees with Rabbi Aha, who says the following:

If there is a rutting male camel that is rampaging among other camels and then a camel was found killed at its side, it is evident that the rampaging camel killed it.

This is also a monetary case, but there’s an element of violence involved, since one person’s camel killed another person’s camel (and now owes the latter compensation). Rabbi Aha’s statement does not refer to the oath of testimony, but it does suggest that we need witnesses who saw the rampaging camel attack and kill another in order to hold its owner accountable for the damage. Rabbi Aha says that testimony about the attack and the proximity of the camel corpse to the ill-behaved camel is sufficient.

If we are willing to consider that Rabbi Yosei HaGelili agrees with Rav Aha, asks the Gemara, we should also consider if he concurs with the Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach, who said:

I will not see the consolation of Israel if I did not see one who was running after another into a ruin, and I ran after him and found a sword in his hand and blood dripping from the sword, and the slain person convulsing. I said to him: “Wicked one, who killed this person? It was either me or you, as there is no one else here. But what can I do, as your blood is not given to my control and I have no jurisdiction to execute you, as the Torah says: On the basis of two witnesses or three witnesses shall he that is to die be put to death. (Deuteronomy 17:6) — and there are no witnesses here. Rather, the Omnipresent will exact retribution from you.”

Shimon ben Shetach does not witness the actual killing, though the circumstantial evidence — from the fleeing victim to the dripping sword — is overwhelming. He further admits that his testimony is not sufficient to condemn the killer in a human court because he is the lone witness, and two witnesses are required to reach conviction. Had a second person been present to corroborate his testimony, one can infer that Shimon ben Shetach believes that their joint testimony would be sufficient to convict, even though his information is partial since he didn’t see the actual slaying.

Rabbi Yosei HaGelili’s original statement is about the obligation of a witness with partial information to testify. What the Gemara is pursuing here is whether he also thinks that such testimony is enough to convict in monetary cases and, if so, in capital cases as well.

As it turns out, this conversation is an academic one, with little to no impact on the law. This is because the Torah and the later legal commentaries are clear: Direct evidence is necessary to convict in both monetary and capital cases; nonetheless, witnesses have an obligation to testify, whether they saw something, know something, or both. But it’s hard to remove that mental image of the dripping sword and the notion that Shimon ben Shetach could not get justice for the murder victim — at least not from a human court.

Read all of Shevuot 34 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 4, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 34 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 33

Rachel Scheinerman — Sat, 31 May 2025 14:01:32 +0000

Countless thrillers and mysteries feature a reluctant witness — often because they fear the dangerous defendant and their minions. We are in the midst of a discussion of just such a problem: witnesses who refuse to testify. Reserving judgment for those who may have witnessed a gruesome crime and be reluctant to testify, Talmud holds the view that, in monetary disputes, a witness who refuses to testify has transgressed.

The source of this ruling is Leviticus 5:1: “… a person who is able to testify as having either seen or learned of the matter but doesn’t testify is subject to punishment.” Using a gezerah shavah based on the word “or,” the rabbis connect this to accusations of false testimony regarding, “a deposit or a pledge, or through robbery, or by defrauding another, or by finding something lost and lying about it” (Leviticus 5:21) and conclude that both are limited to monetary matters.

But some rabbis offer alternate derivations. Let’s consider one:

Rabbi Yosei HaGelili cites a different proof and says: The verse states with regard to an oath of testimony: “a person who is able to testify as having either seen or learned of the matter…” (Leviticus 5:1). It is with regard to testimony that is founded on sight without knowledge of the matter, or by means of knowledge of the matter without sight that the verse is speaking.

Rabbi Yosei homes in on the word “or,” but for a different reason: He notes that the text speaks of cases where the person eithersaw or knew, but not both. What kinds of situations are we talking about? The Gemara explains:

Sight without knowledge, how so? It is a case where the creditor claims: “I counted 100 dinars for you before so-and-so and so-and-so,” and the debtor responds: “Let so-and-so and so-and-so come and testify.” This is a case of sight without knowledge.

In this scenario, the potential witnesses lack context: They ostensibly watched the plaintiff count out money, but they were unaware that the money being counted was for a loan — perhaps they assumed it was for payment on a debt the plaintiff owed to the defendant. In this case, the witnesses saw, but didn’t know.

And the flipside:

Knowledge without sight, how so? It is a case where the creditor claims: “You admitted to owing me 100 dinars before so-and-so and so-and-so,” and the debtor replied: “Let so-and-so and so-and-so come and testify.” This is a case of knowledge of the debt without sight.

Here, the witnesses’ testimony is based on having heard the debtor’s admission that they owed the money in question. They may not have seen the transaction take place, but they know about it from the debtor’s own mouth.

How, then, do we know that this provision applies only to monetary claims? Well, we know that the standard for testimony in non-financial cases is higher and that both seeing and understanding is required. If, according to Rabbi Yosei, either seeing or knowing is sufficient for a person to serve as a witness, then we must be talking about financial cases.

Being reluctant to testify can always incur consequences for the litigants, of course, but only in monetary cases does it incur serious consequences for the witness. Those who don’t come forward because they fear a violent criminal are cut some slack.

Read all of Shevuot 33 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 2, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 33 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 32

Rachel Scheinerman — Sat, 31 May 2025 13:59:30 +0000

Today’s daf continues to discuss oaths of testimony. The concern is this: If an eyewitness is asked to give testimony in court and instead swears an oath that they have no knowledge of the incident in question, they can be held liable. Withholding vital information from the court could cost a litigant dearly, and is therefore a serious matter.

In most cases, two witnesses are needed for their testimony to be admitted to court. It is therefore an open question whether a single witness who refuses to testify can be held liable. To show that they indeed can, the rabbis analyze a case with only one witness that was tried before Rabbi Ami:

There was a certain man who snatched a silver ingot from another. The one from whom it was taken came before Rabbi Ami while Rabbi Abba was sitting before him, and he brought one witness who testified that the defendant indeed snatched it from him. The one who snatched it said to him: “Yes, it is true that I snatched it, but I merely snatched that which was mine.”

This is an interesting dilemma. As soon as the single witness testifies that the accused indeed snatched the silver ingot, the defendant admits that he grabbed it — but only because it was rightfully his! Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Abba deliberate:

Rabbi Ami said: How should a judge rule in this case? If we say that the judge should require him to pay, it could be argued that there are not two witnesses to the robbery. If we say that the judge should rule him exempt from payment, it could be argued that a witness saw him snatch the ingot. If we say that the alleged robber should take an oath that he did not snatch the ingot, one could point out that he admitted to snatching it. Therefore, his halakhic status is like that of a robber, who is disqualified from taking an oath.

Rabbi Abba said to him: He is one who is obligated to take an oath but is unable to take an oath, and anyone who is obligated to take an oath but is unable to take an oath is liable to pay.

Rabbi Ami is stumped by this case. The testimony of a single witness is not enough to make a defendant pay, but it is enough to obligate them to take an oath that they did not steal what they have been accused of taking. Ordinarily, in this case, the judge would administer an oath to the accused who would then be released from the obligation to pay. But this case is particularly complex. As Rashi explains, the snatcher cannot take an oath defending himself, because when a defendant is obligated to take an oath on the basis of one witness’s testimony, the oath they must take is one contradicting the statement of the witness. But in this case, the snatcher affirms exactly what the witness saw — he did, in fact, seize the silver ingot. But he claims to merely have taken back what was rightfully his. Rashi clarifies that when we say this person’s halakhic status is “like a robber,” it’s not that we believe one witness’ testimony is sufficient to consider the snatcher a robber; rather, it means that just like a robber is unable to take any oath, so too the snatcher in this case is unable to take an oath, because he admits to the witness’ testimony.

Therefore, it seems we can neither obligate him to pay, nor to swear. Rabbi Ami is at a loss. Rabbi Abba suggests a solution: He should employ the principle, “from the fact that one cannot take an oath they must pay.” Elsewhere, the Gemara states that if a person becomes obligated in an oath but are also disqualified from actually taking the oath (which can happen for a variety of reasons), we shift the burden onto the claimant. The claimant subsequently takes an oath that what they’re saying is true, and the defendant must pay.

From the perspective of our daf, the upshot of this complicated case is this: A single witness can in fact make a defendant pay. If, in the case above, the lone witness had taken a false oath denying that they knew any relevant testimony, they would have cost the claimant. Therefore, had the lone witness taken this false oath, they would have been liable to bring a sacrifice.

Read all of Shevuot 32 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 2, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 32 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 31

Rachel Scheinerman — Sat, 31 May 2025 13:56:45 +0000

In 1976, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Estelle v. Williams that a defendant has the right to wear civilian garb, rather than an orange jump suit, at trial. After all, if you look like a criminal, the jury is more likely to find you guilty of committing a crime. In making this decision, the Supreme Court recognized that, whether intentional or not, people judge each other based on their appearance. And their ruling was meant to visually uphold the idea that defendants are innocent until proven guilty.

The rabbis of the Talmud also knew that we make implicit judgments about each other’s appearances all the time. On today’s daf, they too work to minimize the impact of those judgments in court. The rabbis start with the assumption that both parties to a court case should be dressed in clothing of a similar class. What they want to know is which biblical verse is the source for that practice.

From where do we learn that if two came to judgment, one dressed in rags and one dressed in a garment worth 10,000 dinars, they say to him: Dress like the poor person or dress him like yourself? From the verse that states: “Distance yourself from a false matter.” (Exodus 23:7)

We learned in Tractate Sanhedrin that rabbinic courts don’t have trials by a jury of one’s peers. Instead, judgments are made by a panel of judges, with the number of judges depending on the kind of case. So in its concern about visual appearance, the Talmud is not simply acknowledging that everyday people might be swayed by visual appearance, but is more boldly acknowledging that learned rabbinic judges may be implicitly biased against those of lower socio-economic status. And that implicit bias may lead them to make the wrong decision, which would create the “false matter” prohibited by the verse.

That acknowledgement leads the rabbis to place an additional responsibility on the richer of the two parties: to either dress himself down, or dress his rival up.

Admittedly, this responsibility seems a little unfair to me. After all, if the court wants all parties to be dressed alike, shouldn’t it be the court’s responsibility to provide clothing to both parties? But perhaps this teaching is meant to recognize that with greater wealth comes greater responsibility.

The rabbis’ discussion of court fashion ends with an account of what this looked like in practice:

When individuals would come before Rava bar Rav Huna, he would say to them: Remove your fine shoes and descend for judgment.

Rava bar Rav Huna, an important talmudic sage, would require the wealthier party to remove the signs of his wealth. He didn’t even give the man a choice about whether to keep his fancy shoes and buy the other party a matching pair. Rather, in his court, everyone was required to appear in humble dress.

You might think that the more famous and respected a sage, the more we can trust that they will not be biased. But this story reminds us that simply isn’t true. The best we can do is be aware of our biases and take measures to compensate for them.

Read all of Shevuot 31 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 1, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 31 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Shevuot 30

Rachel Scheinerman — Fri, 30 May 2025 01:30:05 +0000

In Tractate Makkot, we frequently had occasion to discuss Deuteronomy 19:16–19, a passage that prescribes a unique punishment for those who testify falsely against others: They suffer the punishment the accused would have experienced if they were found guilty. In that passage, the Torah states: “… the two parties to the dispute shall stand before God …” We might have assumed this should be understood metaphorically, but on today’s daf the rabbis cite a beraita that suggests it is applied literally:

“Then the two parties shall stand” — this indicates that there is a mitzvah for the litigants to stand during the court proceedings.

Rabbi Yehuda said: I heard that if the judges wished to seat both of the litigants, they may seat them. What, then, is prohibited for the judges? They must ensure that there will not be a situation where one litigant is standing and one litigant is sitting, or a situation where one litigant says everything that he needs to say and the judge says to the other litigant: “Curtail your statement.”

At first, the sages read Deuteronomy literally and declare the Torah obligates litigants to stand during court proceedings. But Rabbi Yehuda has a different take. For him, the two parties are meant to be on an equal physically footing, though not necessarily actually standing. Similarly, just as neither is given a physical advantage, the litigants must both be allotted enough time to present their case to the fullest.
While it appears, at first glance, that Rabbi Yehuda holds a minority opinion, the Gemara cites a second beraita that tenders the same ruling (as a majority opinion), deriving it from a different verse from the Torah: “But in righteousness shall you judge your colleague.” (Leviticus 19:15)

Having mentioned Leviticus 19:15, the Gemara proceeds to cite a second tradition about this verse:

“But in righteousness shall you judge your colleague,” teaches that you should judge another favorably.

Rav Yosef teaches: With regard to one who is with you in Torah and in mitzvot, try to judge him favorably.

Who, exactly, is this colleague (amit, in Hebrew) that is judged in righteousness? We might have supposed it meant any fellow human being, as the anonymous voice here suggests, but Rav Yosef reads the word colleague more narrowly, teaching that judges should reserve this benefit for those who measure up in their Torah observance. This takes us swiftly from an assertion of radical egalitarianism in the court to explicit favoritism — all on the basis of a single word. The Gemara responds to this stunning reversal with a story:

Rav Ulla, son of Rav Ilai, had a trial pending before Rav Nahman. Rav Yosef sent a message to Rav Nahman: Ulla our friend is a colleague in Torah and mitzvot.

Rav Nahman said: For what purpose did he send this message to me? Does he expect me to grant him preferential treatment? Every judgment must be undertaken with righteousness.

Rav Nahman then said: Rav Yosef sent me the message to ensure I would begin with Rav Ulla’s dispute.

Rav Yosef, who taught above that the righteousness of judgment dictated by Leviticus 19:15 applies only to those who are steeped in Torah and mitzvot, advocates for Rav Ulla who meets these standards. Rav Nahman, the judge set to hear Rav Ulla’s case, is initially troubled: Judges must treat all who come before them equally, so how could Rav Yosef ask him to show preference to Rav Ulla? Rav Nahman eventually reasons out the answer: He can give Rav Ulla preference in scheduling and put his case first on the docket. This will convenience Rav Ulla, but won’t bias the outcome of his case. In this way, Rav Nahman squares Rav Yosef’s uncomfortable assertion that those who are more committed to Torah and mitzvot get preference in a court of law.

For Rav Nahman, and apparently for the Gemara, preferential scheduling does not appear to violate the core principle that litigants should be treated equally in court. Maimonides agrees, and also advises scheduling cases involving orphans before those involving widows, who themselves are permitted to precede Torah scholars, whose cases are heard before everyone else.

Read all of Shevuot 30 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on May 31, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Shevuot 30 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.