Episode Details

Today's daf is sponsored by Sara Averick and Jose Rosenfeld in loving memory of Sara's brother, Moshe David ben Naftali Yosef Halevi v'Leah. "שהעמיד תלמידים הרבה"

We learn from the red heifer that an item that can be potentially redeemed is considered as if it is redeemed for certain issues, such as being considered edible to become susceptible to impurity of food. To explain a contradiction between how the Gemara understood Rabbi Shimon's position in our Mishna and a different statement of Rabbi Shimon that a non-valid slaughter is not considered slaughtering, Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish offered different answers in Bava Kamma 76. Why did each one not hold like the other? Rabbi Yochanan preferred to explain that the animals were unblemished. Reish Lakish's answer was based on an approach he held that if one is not liable for stealing and selling a particular animal, one would not be liable for stealing and slaughtering it (derived by juxtaposition in the verse between slaughtering and selling), and therefore preferred an interpretation that the animal was blemished, as it could be sold. Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish elsewhere disagree on exactly this issue in the opposite case - can one be liable for selling a treifa according to Rabbi Shimon who holds that one would not be liable for slaughtering a treifa? Rabbi Yochanan raises a difficulty with Reish Lakish from a braita which remains somewhat unresolved. The braita that Rabbi Yochanan quoted against Reish Lakish mentioned a case of stealing and slaughtering an animal that is a mixed breed (born from two different types of animals). They raise a question against that case - since the verse regarding the four/five payment mentions the word "sheep" and that word is known to be meant to limit the law to only animals that are not mixed breeds. Why in this case are mixed breeds included?