Gemara Clarity

Menachos 48b

מנחות מ״ח ע״ב

Menachot 48b

Learn Menachos 48b step by step: Aramaic beside English, every question, answer and proof colour-coded.

Open Menachos 48b in Gemara Clarity

Topic

Whether one may 'sin' to gain elsewhere, and how offerings slaughtered improperly are judged by comparison to other offerings (כבשי עצרת, אשם, שלמים)

Overview

The amud opens at the end of a quoted case about תרומה wine about to spill into impure ordinary wine. רבי יהושע allows making the תרומה impure by hand. The גמרא rejects this as proof that one may 'sin' in one matter to gain in another, because that wine was going to become impure anyway. רב יצחק then teaches that the two כבשי עצרת slaughtered not according to their מצוה are invalid and burned. רב נחמן explains the reason. רב יצחק compares them to a חטאת, while the school of לוי learns obligatory שלמים from voluntary שלמים and calls them valid. A ברייתא about wrong-age offerings challenges רב יצחק, and the גמרא answers that it follows the school of לוי. Then לוי's own ruling that a two-year-old אשם is invalid is tested. The answer is that he compares שלמים only to שלמים. רב שימי בר אשי adds that a flawed case can be learned only from another flawed case, and the amud ends with a ברייתא about an offering that left the עזרה that seems to challenge this rule.

Opening lines

תֵּרֵד וְתִטַּמֵּא,

Let it go down and become impure,

וְאַל יְטַמְּאֶנָּה בַּיָּד,

but he should not make it impure by hand,

וְרַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אוֹמֵר:

and Rabbi Yehoshua says:

אַף יְטַמְּאֶנָּה בַּיָּד.

he may even make it impure by hand.

The steps (13)

  1. ProofThe end of the תרומה wine case: may one make it impure directly?
  2. RejectionRejection: the wine was going to become impure anyway
  3. Statementרב יצחק's ברייתא: שבועות sheep slaughtered improperly are invalid and burned
  4. Statementרב נחמן explains: comparison to חטאת versus comparison to voluntary שלמים
  5. ProofLevi's teaching about a nazirite's peace offerings
  6. ChallengeObjection begins: wrong-age guilt offering versus wrong-age burnt offerings
  7. ChallengeThe general rule: obligatory burnt offerings follow voluntary ones
  8. ResolutionThe ברייתא follows the school of לוי
  9. Challengeלוי disqualifies a two-year-old אשם, but a שלמים can be two years old
  10. Resolutionלוי compares שלמים only to שלמים
  11. ChallengeWhy not learn one אשם from another אשם?
  12. ResolutionYou may compare flawed to flawed, but not flawed to proper
  13. ChallengeA ברייתא that seems to learn flawed from proper