The Talmud, by Joseph Barclay, [1878], at sacred-texts.com
The Talmud, by Joseph Barclay, [1878], at sacred-texts.com
1. These cause transgression during passover: the Babylonian cuthack, 2 and the Median beer, and the Edomite vinegar, and the Egyptian zithum, 3 and the purifying dough
of the dyer, 1 and the clarifying grain of the cooks, and the paste of the bookbinders. Rabbi Eleazar said, "even the cosmetics of women." This is the rule. All kinds of grain whatever may cause transgression during the passover. These are negative commands, and they are not visited by cutting off.
2. "Dough in a split of a kneading trough?" "If there be the size of an olive in a single place one is bound to clear it out." Less than this is worthless from its minuteness. And so is it with the question of uncleanness. Particularity causes division. "But if one wish it to remain?" "It is reckoned as the trough." "Dough dried up?" 2 "If it be like that which can become leavened it is forbidden."
3. "How do persons separate the dough-offering when it becomes unclean on a holiday?" Rabbi Eleazar said, "you cannot call it a dough-offering till it be baked." Rabbi Judah, the son of Bethira, said, "you must put it in cold water." Said R. Joshua, "it is not leaven so as to transgress the negative command 'It shall not be seen nor found,' 3 but it must be separated and left till the evening. But if it become leavened it is leavened."
4. Rabban Gamaliel said, "three women may knead at once, and bake in one oven, each after the other." But the Sages say, "three women may be busied with the dough, one kneads, and one prepares, and one bakes." Rabbi Akiba said, "all women, and all wood, and all ovens, are not alike." This is the rule. "If it ferment it must be smoothed down with cold water."
5. Dough which begins to leaven must be burned, but he who eats it is free. When it begins to crack it must be burned, and he who eats it must be cut off. "What is leavening?" "Like the horns of locusts." "Cracking?" "When the cracks intermingle." The words of R. Judah. But the Sages say, "if either of them be eaten, the eater must be cut off." "And what is leavening?" "All which
changed its appearance, as when a man's hairs stand on end through fright."
6. "If the fourteenth day of Nisan happened on the Sabbath?" "They must clear off all the leaven before the Sabbath begins." The words of R. Meier. But the Sages say, "in the proper season." Rabbi Eleazar, the son of Zaduk, said, "the heave-offering before the Sabbath, and ordinary things in the proper season."
7. "If one went to kill his passover, or circumcise his son, or to eat the marriage-feast in the house of his father-in-law, and he remembered that there was leaven in his house?" "If he can he must return and clear it out, and return to his duties. He must return and clear it away. But if not, he can esteem it as nothing in his heart." "(If one went) to save a person from the militia, or from a river, or from robbers, or from burning, or from the fall of buildings?" "He may esteem it as nothing in his heart." "But if he is reposing at his ease?" "He must return off-hand."
8. And so also when one went forth from Jerusalem and remembered that he had holy flesh in his hand. If he passed Zophim 1 he must burn it on the spot. But if not he must return and burn it in front of the temple with the wood of the altar. "And for how much flesh or leaven must men return?" Rabbi Meier said, "both of them the size of an egg." Rabbi Judah said, "both the size of an olive." But the Sages say, "Holy flesh the size of an olive, and leaven the size of an egg."
98:2 Fragments of chickens and dough left to ferment.
98:3 A compound of barley, wild saffron, and salt, one-third of each.
99:1 A dough or unripe grain lid put over the liquid to absorb the dregs from the foam of fermentation.
99:2 Lit. "deaf." That is, dough which does not rise, or that sounds dull when it is struck.
99:3 Exod. xi. 19.
100:1 An eminence from which there was a clear view of the temple.