Arachin 14a

ערכין י״ד ע״א

Arakhin 14a

Learn Arachin 14a step by step: Aramaic beside English, every question, answer and proof colour-coded.

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Topic

Why the ערכין משנה uses only Jewish examples, and how a consecrated field with trees is redeemed (רב הונא vs. רב נחמן)

Overview

The amud opens by finishing the question of why the earlier משנה gave only Jewish examples. One answer is that it quietly teaches the ban on saying 'how beautiful is this gentile' and prefers to stay within one nation. Another answer is that its later clause, שדה אחוזה, only applies to Jews. Then a new משנה teaches that a שדה אחוזה is redeemed at a fixed 50 shekels per בית זרע חומר שעורים, whether the land is poor or excellent, while a שדה מקנה is redeemed at its real value. רבי אליעזר disagrees: both fields use the fixed price, and only the שדה אחוזה adds a חומש. In the גמרא, רב הונא rules that trees in a consecrated field are redeemed at their value and the land separately, because a person consecrates generously. רב נחמן challenges him three times, from the משנה and from two ברייתות. The גמרא answers the last challenge by saying that ברייתא follows רבי שמעון, who holds a consecrator gives stingily. It then questions that answer, because רבי שמעון follows the time of פדיון, and it brings a ברייתא about a son who bought his father's field to prove this. The discussion continues on the next amud.

Opening lines

The steps (23)

1. ResolutionThe משנה avoids praising a gentile's beauty
2. ChallengeThen use a beautiful Jew and an ugly gentile
3. ResolutionThe משנה stays within one nation
4. ChallengeBut the משנה compares כהנים and ישראלים
5. Resolutionכהנים and ישראלים are one nation
6. ResolutionSecond answer: the later clause about an ancestral field
7. StatementThe fixed redemption price for an inherited field
8. Statementרבי אליעזר: both fields have the fixed price, only the fifth is different
9. Statementרב הונא: trees and land are redeemed separately
10. Challengeרב נחמן challenges from the orchards in the משנה
11. Resolutionרב הונא: the משנה means land fit for orchards
12. ChallengeA ברייתא includes tree fields in the fixed price
13. ResolutionPay for the trees first, then the land
14. ChallengeThree trees bring the land and the trees between them
15. ChallengeThe second half of the ברייתא: trees first, then land
16. ChallengeWhy the first half cannot also mean two payments
17. ResolutionThe ברייתא follows רבי שמעון: a consecrator gives stingily
18. ProofThe source for רבי שמעון's stingy-eye view
19. ChallengeTesting the רבי שמעון answer against the second half
20. ChallengeIf this follows רבי שמעון, the trees should be redeemed together with the land
21. ProofA ברייתא about a son who bought his father's field and consecrated it
22. ProofHow the פסוק is read, and who holds this view
23. Statementרבי מאיר reads the פסוק as being about a different order of events