AN
ERUV MAY BE PREPARED FOR A NAZIRITE WITH WINE. . .
But not everyone agrees:
Our
Mishnah does not represent the view of Beth Shammai. For it was taught: Beth
Shammai ruled: No eruv may be prepared for a nazirite with wine or for an
Israelite with terumah and
Beth Hillel ruled: An eruv may be prepared for a nazirite with wine or
for an Israelite with terumah.
Umm, ok. So here we have
classic Hillel v Shammai giving exactly opposite rulings. Since wine is
forbidden to nazirites and trumah to Israelites (it is a gift to the
priests) it cannot be the meal set it in the eruv for each respectively.
But let’s let them argue it out:
Said Beth Hillel to Beth Shammai,’Do you
not admit that
an eruv may be prepared for an adult in connection with the Day of
Atonement’?
Oh – nice, Hillel!
Everyone fasts on Yom Kippur – but you can still lay out a meal for an eruv.
That’s because there a minors who can eat the meal. So as long as someone can
eat, even if not the person who laid out the meal, it is valid. According to
Hillel. What do you say, Shammai?
‘Indeed
[we do admit]’, [Beth Shammai] replied.
Spring the trap, Hillel:
‘As’,
[Beth Hillel] said to them, ‘an eruv may be prepared for an adult in connection
with the Day of Atonement, so may an eruv be prepared for a nazirite
with wine or for an Israelite with terumah’.
Score! But, don’t call
the game yet. Shammai has a shot left:
And
Beth Shammai?
—
There [Day of Atonement] a meal is available that is fit [for consumption]
while it is yet day
but
here no meal is
available that is fit [for consumption] while it is yet day.
Ok, got me Shammai. The eruv
is obviously prepared before Yom Kippur begins, and the meal is valid at that
moment. But for a nazerite, the wine would never be valid (as long as he is in
his nazerite vows) and an Israelite can never eat priestly terumah.
Both have valid reasons.
But the game gets called for Hillel – because Hillel always wins!
It’s kind of like
playing an exhibition game against the Harlem Globetrotters. . .
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