Page:New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud (Rodkinson) Volume 6.pdf/183

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TRACT HAGIGA (HOLOCAUST).
7

ple). But of an uncircumcised, wherefrom is it deduced? This is in accordance with R. Aqiba, who makes an uncircumcised equal to an unclean one, as we have learned in the following Boraitha: R. Aqiba said: It is written [Lev. xxii. 4]: "Any man whatsoever of the seed of Aaron." "Any man"—it could be written "a man." Why "any man," to include that "the uncircumcised shall be equal to the unclean ones"?

The rabbis taught: R. Johanan b. Dahabai said in the name of R. Jehudah: A man blind in one eye is exempt from the holocaust, because it is written [Deut. xvi. 16]: "Shall appear,"[1] as if one comes to see, it is with both eyes; so if he appears, he must be with both eyes. R. Huna, when he came to the verse above cited, used to weep and say: That a slave whose master exhorts him to come to see him should be debarred from seeing him, as it is written [Is. i. 12]: "When you come to appear in my presence, who had required this at your hands to tread my courts?" Also when he came to the following verse [Deut. xxvii. 7]: "And thou shalt slay peace-offerings, and eat there." A slave who is invited to eat from his master's table, shall be debarred from seeing him, as it is written [Is. i. 1]: "Or what serveth me the multitude of your sacrifices?" R. Elazar, when he came to this verse [Gen. xlv. 3]: "And his brothers could not answer him, because they were terrified at his presence," he wept and said: If one is thus terrified when a human being has recognized his guilt, how much the more will it be before the Holy One, blessed be He.

Also when he came to the verse [1 Sam. xxviii. 15]: "And Samuel said to Saul: Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?" If Samuel, the upright, was afraid of the judgment, so much the more must we be afraid of it. How shall this be understood? It is written [ibid. 12]: "And the woman said unto Saul: Divine beings have I seen ascending (Olim) out of the earth." Olim is plural. (Who were they?) It was Samuel and Moses, because Samuel was afraid. Perhaps he was asked to the judgment, and he had gone to Moses and asked him to testify, that he (Samuel) had done all that was written in his Law. R. Ammi, when he came to the following verse, used to cry [Lam. iii. 29]: "That he put his mouth in the dust, perhaps there still is hope." He said: After so much had been done,


  1. The Hebrew expression is יֵרָאֶה which means "shall be seen"; the same letters with following punctuation יִרְאֶה would be "shall see," hence the analogy.