Learn Gemara Keywords

Hello Everyone,

I am writing to welcome you to this series of classes on “Keywords in the Gemarah.”

Along with the Tanakh, the Gemarah forms the essence of Judaism. Every Jew ought to have at least a passing familiarity with the Gemarah. But the Gemarah is a challenging text. It is written in Aramaic and the text has no punctuation marks.

In my lifetime (which began in 1958) there have been two monumental projects whose purpose was to make the Gemarah more approachable. The first project was that of the late Rav Adin Even Yisrael-Steinsaltz zt”l. Rav Steinsaltz took it upon himself to publish a punctuated edition of the entire Babylonian Talmud accompanied by a translation of the text into spoken Hebrew. The second project was undertaken by the ArtScroll publishing company. Their project was to both translate  the text of the Talmud into English and to print an anthology of the major commentaries adjacent to each page of text. It follows that the translation of a single page of the Talmud may end up being six pages long in the ArtScroll edition. It is worth pointing out that Rav Steinsaltz’s Hebrew commentary has been translated into English and is published by the Koren publishing company. Similarly, the ArtScroll edition of the Talmud has been translated into Hebrew.

The Aramaic text of the Gemarah is remarkably terse. In any translation, be it the translation found in the Koren or ArtScroll edition of the Talmud,  a single line of Aramaic text may be three lines long in English. I truly believe that there is a beauty in the Aramaic text of the Talmud which does not appear in even the best translations. There is a musical rhythm in the Aramaic text.

The text of the Gemarah does lack punctuation marks. The text is very abrupt and the syntax is not at all like that of spoken English ( or Hebrew, or Spanish or any other language that I know of). But the Gemarah is remarkable in that it presents legal theories with such brevity.

My hope for this course is that by knowing how the Gemarah uses certain key words and phrases as punctuation marks. Some phrases indicate  that a question is being asked. Some phrases are prefaces to answers. These key words and phrases are the keys that unlock the discussions that take place on each page of the Talmud.

So please write to me whenever you have ideas or suggestions for these sessions. Since I do not know you personally, I do not know what level of skills each member of the class possesses.

My email address is [email protected]

I look forward to meeting with you tomorrow.

Stuart Fischman

Hello Everyone,

Today we will continue with our study of page 31a in the tractate Bava Kama. If you are new to these sessions you can find the pages that we will be studying posted on this web-page.

I look forward to meeting with you.

Stuart Fischman

Hello Everyone,

In our first two meetings we studied a  passage of the Talmud in which a legal theory is analyzed. Specifically it is the theory of liability regarding pedestrians who trip and fall in a public thoroughfare. The text relates competing theories of liability and how the proponents of the the two two theories explain several Mishnayot.

Today (and possibly next week as well) we will study a different sort of text. We will see how the sages of the Talmud derive halachot from the words of the Torah. In this page of the Gemarah we see two opinions as to how many walls must a sukkah have-either three or four. The vocabulary of this text, the language of the give-and-take , is different from the language of the “legalistic” text which have discussed over the previous two weeks.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will study a new passage from the Gemarah. In this passage/suggyah we will see how the Gemarah goes back and forth in its analysis of a Mishnah.

Hello Everyone,

We have learned over the past few weeks  how the Gemarah functions as a commentary to the Mishnah.

Today we will see a suggyah  in which the Gemarah interprets a Mishnah by inserting a word into the Mishnah.

Hello Everyone,

Today we  study a different type of confusing Gemarah. In today’s suggyah we will se how two different Amoraim interpret a Mishnah which presents the opinions of different Tannaim.

I would like to make a request. Several members of the shiur have asked me to post a list of the “key words” that I hope will be taught in the shiur. On the shiur’s webpage ( which you are looking at right now), towards the bottom, you will find a section titled “Handouts.” The handouts include three versions of each day’s text. They are a scan of the Gemarah from a printed “standard Vilnah Shas,” a copy of the page from the Sefaria site, and finally a Word doc of the page. ON the Word doc of the page you will see that while most of the text is in a black, 12 point Narkisim font, some words are 14 point and bold faced and some are in a colored font. These words ( bold faced or colored) are the new words that I hope to teach. They are the “key words.” And it is those words that I try to repeat over and over during each class.

So if you can, please print the Word doc before the class and as we go along you can write down the definitions of these “key words.”

Thanks for participating in the shiurim and keep on sending me your comments and suggestions.

Hello Everyone,

Today I hope to complete the suggyah that we began last week. We will see how the Amoraim reach their conclusions להלכה .

I ask again that you all print the pages of type-written text of the Gemarah. As we go through he Gemarah  you will be able to circle and otherwise highlight the “key words and phrases” of the Gemarah and so strengthen your vocabulary skills.

I look forward to meeting with you this evening.

Hello Everyone,

Today is our final session on “keywords in the Gemara.” We will study a suggyah in masechet Pesachim  which explores some of the fundamental ideas in kashrut.

I really enjoyed this course and I hope that all of you enjoyed it as well.

Hello Everyone,

So I am happy to be able to say that we squeezed one more session into this series of classes, “Learn Gemara Keywords.”

Until now we have been studying suggyaot that dealt with issues in Halacha.  My goal in choosing the various suggyaot was to show how the dialogue within a given suggyah is constructed in such a fashion that a Halachic concept is clarified.

Today we will study a suggyah of Agad’tah- a suggyah that tells a story. Passages of  Agad’tah are popularized in translations and anthologies with titles like “Legends of the Talmud.” Agad’tah presents the student with a challenges  which are different from Halachic passages. In the Halachic passages of the Gemarah the vocabulary is usually not very difficult and , at least superficially, it is easy to follow the dialogue which is a debate about a particular concept.

In the Agad’tah the vocabulary is often more difficult and it can be very difficult to understand the story and the lesson which it is conveying.

Today we will study a relatively simple suggyah from masechet Megillah which deals with Haman’s dealings with Achashveirosh.

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the second session of Learning Key Words and Phrases of the Gemara. To those of you who are returning to the class, I say “Welcome back!” To new members of the class I say “Welcome!”

These sessions will be structured along the lines of the previous sessions. I will post on the webpage of the class two  versions of the Gemara. One version will be a scan of the Gemara’s traditional printing (which is the edition of the Gemara published by the Romm family printers in Vilna, at the end of the 19th century-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romm_publishing_house). The other version will be a Word document of the text. In the Word document you will see that I used different sized and colored fonts to point out the significant words in the text.

The goal of these classes is to introduce to you how the Gemara “works.” In other words we will learn how to identify what issue the Gemara wishes to analyze and how to follow the Gemara’s  analysis .

I look forward to meeting with you tomorrow.

Stuart Fischman

PS- If anyone has ideas or questions please feel free to contact me at <[email protected]>

Hello Everyone

Today I plan on continuing the Gemarah that we started last week.

Hello Everyone,

Hi

Today we will study a passage from masechet Gittin which addresses the question when may we assume that person is still alive.

Hello Everyone,

Until now we have studied passages from the Gemarah which dealt with Halachic issues. These passages are discussions which revolve around points of logic which are actually easy to follow once one understands the vocabulary and syntax of the Gemarah. And this is actually the point of this series of sessions; to teach the vocabulary and syntax of the Gemarah.

Today we will study a different sort of passage from the Gemarah. We will study one of the Gemarah’s stories about the giving of the Torah (since this week is Shavuot I thought that this would be appropriate). The stories that the Gemarah tells are just so strikingly different from the Halachic passages of the Gemarah that it is seems impossible that  they appear in the same text and are taught by the same scholars. But they are there and they challenge us. The stories are there, but what are they are teaching us?

So today we will read one short story and the interpretation given by the great Rav Kook zt”l in his commentary titled עין איה.

I hope that I will do justice  בעזרת השם  both to the  Gemarah and to Rav Kook.

Hello Everyone,

It is a sort of common idea that the Gemarah is a commentary to the Mishnah. This is true to the extent that the discussion in the Gemarah is more or less attached, or based upon, the Mishnah. But until now we have not studied a passage from the Gemarah which actually explains the Mishnah. This evening we will study such a passage.

The Mishnah is from masechet Shabbat and states two laws regarding the removal objects from one’s home to the street. Such an action would be a violation of one of the 39 forbidden labors on Shabbat.

For a beginning student this Mishnah and Gemarah are somewhat challenging. This is especially so for people living in Israel or other areas where there are “eruvs” which make the question of “removal” irrelevant.

So I hope that I will do a good job of explaining the concepts which underlie this Gemarah and that we will enjoy studying this passage.

In addition to the Gemarah printed as a Word doc I am including some illustrated Mishnayot. The explanation for the illustrations are in Hebrew but I think that the illustrations will help us during the class.

Hello Everyone,

Today I hope to complete the suggyah  that we began last week.

I am posting the pages from last week to make them easier to locate.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will study one of the fundamental concepts of the Halacha. This is the concept of “ברירה” which can be translated (awkwardly) as “retroactive clarification.”

I hope that by the end of today’s session some of you may have better translations than mine:-)

Hello Everyone,

Last week we began studying one of the most important keywords in the Gemarah, the word “ברירה” We studied it in the context of a suggyah in the second chapter of masechet Gittin. We will continue studying this passage today.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will study the very first Gemarah that I was taught (sincerely if not effectively) in sixth grade . It is the opening suggyah to the third chapter of Bava Metziah.

I hope that today’s class will be more entertaining than my lessons back when we were bombing Hanoi.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will study a suggyah from Bava Metziah. The suggyah  explores the  the enforceability of a particular clause in a contract. This clause is known as “asmachtah.”

The Halachic literature surrounding the “asmachtah clause” is very large and it is not our goal to study the many opinions  which surround this topic. Rather , we will limit ourselves to Rashi’s commentary on the suggyah and see how the Amoraim debate the validity of the clause.

Hello Everyone

In today’s class we will study one of the fundamental suggyaot of Hilchot Shabbat. Specifically we will study the suggyah which deals with setting devices on Friday afternoon which operate into Shabbat.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will study a very short suggyah which is based on a legal principle- “כל דאלים גבר”

I don’t want to be mysterious, but I would prefer to explain the concept during the class as opposed to translating it.

So I look forward to meeting with you this evening.

Hello Everyone,
For the Jewish people everywhere, this past week has been a horror. I have no doubt that everyone, whether they live here in Israel or they live abroad , has felt the horror of the attack by the terrorists of Hamas on our people .
For myself, the greatest source of consolation has been to study Torah, despite the difficulty that I find in concentrating on what I am trying to study. When I prepared today’s class I thought of this verse from Tehilim:
תהלים פרק קיט פסוק צב, צב
(צב) לוּלֵי תוֹרָתְךָ שַׁעֲשֻׁעָי אָז אָבַדְתִּי בְעָנְיִי:
For those of you who are new to this class here is the introduction that I wrote when the class began in January:

I am writing to welcome you to this series of classes on “Keywords in the Gemarah.”
Along with the Tanakh, the Gemarah forms the essence of Judaism. Every Jew ought to have at least a passing familiarity with the Gemarah. But the Gemarah is a challenging text. It is written in Aramaic and the text has no punctuation marks.
In my lifetime (which began in 1958) there have been two monumental projects whose purpose was to make the Gemarah more approachable. The first project was that of the late Rav Adin Even Yisrael-Steinsaltz zt”l. Rav Steinsaltz took it upon himself to publish a punctuated edition of the entire Babylonian Talmud accompanied by a translation of the text into spoken Hebrew. The second project was undertaken by the ArtScroll publishing company. Their project was to both translate the text of the Talmud into English and to print an anthology of the major commentaries adjacent to each page of text. It follows that the translation of a single page of the Talmud may end up being six pages long in the ArtScroll edition. It is worth pointing out that Rav Steinsaltz’s Hebrew commentary has been translated into English and is published by the Koren publishing company. Similarly, the ArtScroll edition of the Talmud has been translated into Hebrew.
The Aramaic text of the Gemarah is remarkably terse. In any translation, be it the translation found in the Koren or ArtScroll edition of the Talmud, a single line of Aramaic text may be three lines long in English. I truly believe that there is a beauty in the Aramaic text of the Talmud which does not appear in even the best translations. There is a musical rhythm in the Aramaic text.
The text of the Gemarah does lack punctuation marks. The text is very abrupt and the syntax is not at all like that of spoken English ( or Hebrew, or Spanish or any other language that I know of). But the Gemarah is remarkable in that it presents legal theories with such brevity.
My hope for this course is that by knowing how the Gemarah uses certain key words and phrases as punctuation marks. Some phrases indicate that a question is being asked. Some phrases are prefaces to answers. These key words and phrases are the keys that unlock the discussions that take place on each page of the Talmud.
So please write to me whenever you have ideas or suggestions for these sessions. Since I do not know you personally, I do not know what level of skills each member of the class possesses.
My email address is [email protected]
I look forward to meeting with you tomorrow.
Stuart Fischman

Hello Everyone
This evening we will continue in masechet Pesachim and study the suggyah about making kitchen utensils כשר לפסח

Hello Everyone,

Today we will study a suggyah from masechet Pesachim which discusses the permissibility of roasting kosher and non-kosher together in the same oven.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will begin studying the third chapter of the tractate Bava Kama, titled :Hameiniach.

This chapter deals with the responsibility of people for damages caused either  by the negligent disposal of their property or by their careless conveyance of their property.

Hello Everyone,

Last week we began to study the third chapter of masechet Bava Kama- המניח. This Gemarah deals with the responsibility of people for hazards that they create in public spaces.

Hello Everyone,

Over the past few weeks we have studied  passages from Bava Kama which deal with responsibility for objects left in the street.

Today we will begin the study responsibility  collisions  between people walking and running in the street.

Hello Everyone,

Chanukah is coming so today we will study the suggyaot of the Chanukah laws.

Hello Everyone

Welcome back to  our classes on “Key Words in the Gemara.” We will start with the ninth chapter of Bava Kama which deals with concepts of ownership. To be more specific it deals with the subject of how a thief acquires ownership in the stolen object.

I look forward to meeting with you this evening.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will continue with our study of the suggyah in Bava Kama which deals with change and permanence in the identification of objects.

Hello Everyone

Today we will continue with the suggyah (discussion) in the Gemarah regarding the loss of legal status of an object when the object is physically changed.

Hello Everyone

This evening we will continue the discussion regarding the subject of shinnui  ( the change made in a stolen object ).

And I again wish to welcome new members to this class and I am confident that you will be able to follow the class.

Hello Everyone

Today we will be starting a new suggyah in Bava Kama (page 95a) . This will be a good opportunity for new members of the group.

Hello Everyone,

At the conclusion of last week’s session I realized that the suggyah was a bit more complicated than usual. So today we will review the suggyah on 95a, and to make things easier I prepared flow charts to help us follow the Gemarah’s discussion.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will continue with the suggyah of “שינוי-change” in Bava Kama. We will hopefully reach the end of this suggyah today, so if anyone has a suggestion for a new suggyah to study together please let me know.

Hello Everyone

Today we will hopefully start a new Mishnah. With a new Mishnah we will see new ideas, so if you are thinking about joining our class this will be a very good opportunity to do so.

Hello Everyone

Today we will go on in the Gemarah and learn about the compensation owed by a thief for using stolen property.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will continue our study of Bava Kama. This suggyah covers subjects as diverse the prohibition of collecting interest on a debt and liability for burning someone’s promissory note.

I look forward to meeting with you this evening

Hello Everyone,

Over the past few months we have been studying the ninth chapter of masechet Bava Kama. The Gemarah analyzes, as I have mentioned more than once, the question known to philosophy students as “The Ship of Theseus.” How many changes can be made in an object until the ship loses its original identity . This question is not a mere mental exercise of the Sages. We have learned all sorts of cases in which a thief  is permitted to keep a stolen object whose value had increased and make cash restitution to the victim of the theft.  The thief may keep the stolen object when the stolen object had changed ( for example, a lamb grows up to be a sheep) because the object currently in the possession of the thief is no longer the object which was stolen.

The subject of change is one that fascinates me. So today, instead of studying a new suggyah in the Gemarah we will see how the Poskim rule in cases of change. I look forward to studying these rulings with you.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will move on to a new subject in Bava Kama. Until now we have discussed the halachot governing stolen property. Today we will begin a discussion regarding the responsibility of a craftsperson who failed to  deliver the promised object.

Hello Everyone

Today we will continue with the discussion regarding the ownership of an object prepared by an artisan from raw materials provided by the client. Does the artisan have any ownership right in the object (and he essentially sells it back to the client)? Or does the artisan return the object the client in exchange for wages?

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to a new series of sessions on “Key Words in the Gemarah.” In this series we will be studying the tenth chapter of the tractate Bava Kama. This chapter deals with the responsibility  of people who come into possession of stolen property to return the property to the victim of the theft.

I will post the text of the passage for the day’s meeting on the class webpage as Word doc with key phrases highlighted and an explanation of the passage. I will also post a scan of the passage taken from the “classic” page as it appears in a “classic” volume of the Gemarah.

I look forward to meeting with you this evening and I hope that the class will be enjoyable and informative.

If you have questions, comments or suggestions ( which I always wish to hear since feedback and constructive criticism always help) please write to me at [email protected]

Yours,

Stuart Fischman

Hello  Everyone,

Today we will continue our study of the tenth chapter of Bava Kama, which deals with theories of acquisition.

Hello Everyone,

Today we  will continue with the discussion regarding the responsibility of heirs to return stolen property.

Hello Everyone

Today we will continue to study the tenth chapter of Bava Kama . We will discuss the difference between heirs to stolen property  and heirs to borrowed property.

Hello Everyone

Today we will go on in the suggyah in Bava Kama which discusses how claims can be filed against orphans.

Hello Everyone

Today we will continue with the Gemarah in Bava Kama. In this passage the Gemarah discusses under what circumstances the court may hear testimony when one of the parties is not present.

Hello Everyone,

In last week’s session we studied the suggyah which discussed instances in which testimony may be heard when one of the parties is not present in court. The suggyah mentions in passing that one party to the case may insist that the case be heard before the High Court ( being the High Court located in Israel).

At the end of the session there was a unanimous vote in favor of our discussing this subject in greater detail. So in deference to this vote  we will study today this particular Halacha instead of going ahead in Bava Kama.

Hello Everyone,

Today we return to Bava Kama and a discussion of how debts are collected by the courts.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will continue our study of the Gemarah in Bava Kama which deals with the procedure that the court follows when it acts to seize property from debtors. This passage from the Gemarah incidentally deals with the laws of Lashon Hara, in that the court officer is permitted to report that the debtor refuses to appear before the court.

`Hello Everyone

Today we will study two different suggyaot in Bava Kama. First, we will conclude the Gemarah which deals with the collection of debts via the court system.

Next we will begin the study of one of the most challenging suggyaot in the entire Talmud, the discussion of theft from a non-Jew.

Hello Everyone

Today is our last session before the summer break. We will continue the study of the Gemarah in Bava Kama which deals with taxation and theft.

I ask that new members please print the pages that I posted here which is the text of the Gemarah in a punctuated Word doc. It will help you to follow the discussion during the session.

Hello Everyone,

I am writing to welcome you to this series of classes on “Keywords in the Gemarah.”

Along with the Tanakh, the Gemarah forms the essence of Judaism. Every Jew ought to have at least a passing familiarity with the Gemarah. But the Gemarah is a challenging text. It is written in Aramaic and the text has no punctuation marks.

In my lifetime (which began in 1958) there have been two monumental projects whose purpose was to make the Gemarah more approachable. The first project was that of the late Rav Adin Even Yisrael-Steinsaltz zt”l. Rav Steinsaltz took it upon himself to publish a punctuated edition of the entire Babylonian Talmud accompanied by a translation of the text into spoken Hebrew. The second project was undertaken by the ArtScroll publishing company. Their project was to both translate  the text of the Talmud into English and to print an anthology of the major commentaries adjacent to each page of text. It follows that the translation of a single page of the Talmud may end up being six pages long in the ArtScroll edition. It is worth pointing out that Rav Steinsaltz’s Hebrew commentary has been translated into English and is published by the Koren publishing company. Similarly, the ArtScroll edition of the Talmud has been translated into Hebrew.

The Aramaic text of the Gemarah is remarkably terse. In any translation, be it the translation found in the Koren or ArtScroll edition of the Talmud,  a single line of Aramaic text may be three lines long in English. I truly believe that there is a beauty in the Aramaic text of the Talmud which does not appear in even the best translations. There is a musical rhythm in the Aramaic text.

The text of the Gemarah does lack punctuation marks. The text is very abrupt and the syntax is not at all like that of spoken English ( or Hebrew, or Spanish or any other language that I know of). But the Gemarah is remarkable in that it presents legal theories with such brevity.

My hope is that by participating in these classes people will learn how to identify the “key words and phrases” of the Gemarah. These key words and phrases  serve the purpose of punctuation marks. Some phrases indicate  that a question is being asked. Some phrases are prefaces to answers. These key words and phrases are the keys that unlock the discussions that take place on each page of the Talmud.

I began the study of the Gemarah when I was in the sixth grade. Since then, the Vietnam War ended and the Iron Curtain came down. But I have loved to study the Gemarah all through these historical events. Unravelling these unpunctuated pages is both challenging and rewarding and I hope that a bit of my enthusiasm will reach all of you.

So please write to me whenever you have ideas or suggestions for these sessions. Since I do not know you personally, I do not know what level of skills each member of the class possesses.

My email address is [email protected]

I look forward to meeting with you tomorrow.

Stuart Fischman

Hello Everyone,

In tomorrow’s class we will proceed in our study of the first chapter of the tractate Bava Metziah. We will see how the Gemarah parses the language of the Mishnah in its attempt to understand the language used by the Mishnah in presenting the case of two people claiming ownership of a single object.

Hello Everyone,

Last week we concluded the first section of the Gemarah’s analysis of our Mishnah. The Gemarah, based on its careful reading of the Mishnah, concluded that the Mishnah presents two cases of people arguing over the ownership of an object. One case is two people arguing that each one found a lost (ownerless) objects. The second case is two  people arguing over was the first to pay an object that put up for sale.

Today we will see the second section of the Gemarah’s analysis of the Mishnah. Our Mishnah is anonymous. The Mishnah does attribute its law to a particular Tannah. These anonymous Mishnayot are known as סתם משניות. These Mishnayot are understood to present a sort of consensus  of the community of scholars called  רבנן. The Gemarah precedes to determine which scholars do not agree with the ruling of the Mishnah. Today we will see this process of exclusion.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will see more examples of the Gemarah examining which Tannaim might or might not agree with the ruling of our Mishnah. We will review the opinion of  סומכוס whose opinion was the last one which we saw last week.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will finish the discussion of the Gemarah which addresses the question of which, if any, Tannah disagrees with our Mishnah.

Next, we will see how the Gemarah compares our Mishnah (in which there are no witnesses ) to a case in which witnesses contradict the testimony of one of the litigants.

I look forward to meeting with you this evening.

Hello Everyone,

For the past few weeks we have been studying together the chapter   שנים אוחזין. This chapter deals with disputes between two parties regarding the ownership of an object which they both claim to be exclusively theirs. The Gemarah presents several examples of such disputes and the various proposals for resolving these disputes.

The Gemarah that we studied seems rather abstract. Can there really be, in the real world, something to which two people have a claim?

Two years ago a baby was born in the Asuta hospital in Israel via IVF. Tragically and inexcusably  a fertilized egg was implanted into the wrong mother. Two women then claimed the baby; the genetic mother and the woman who carried the baby to term.

So this evening we will see a survey essay written on this case and we will see how the very learned author thinks the case ought to be resolved.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will study a a suggyah in Bava Metziah pages 3b-4a. The suggyah is rather complicated and we will focus on how to navigate the through the pages.

Hello Everyone,

Since this week is Chanukah and we will not be meeting next week I figure that it will be a good thing to learn a bit about this holiday. We will study what Rav Kook zt”l wrote about Chanukah. Rav Kook’s ideas are remarkable for their originality ,

Hello Everyone

I hope that everyone was able to enjoy the Chanukah holiday. I realize that  we did not meet last week      ( because of the Chanukah break)  and the week before Chanukah we learned about Chanukah and did not study the Gemarah in  שנים אוחזין. Therefore today we will start with a little review of the enigmatic  the ruling of  רבי חייא.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will see a new attempt by the Gemarah to understand the basis for a ruling given by Rabbi Chiyah.  This new attempt involves the word “הילך”- “here- it is yours.”  When a claim is made against someone, and the defendant replies by saying “הילך” is this an admission that there is an obligation and now it is being discharged? Or perhaps by saying הילך  the defendant is saying that the object in question was never used and no obligation ever existed?

Much has been written about  הילך, but today we will see it it and talk about it and then hopefully move on in the Gemarah.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will continue with last week’s discussion of the word “הילך” and its implications.

Hello Everyone,

After what may seem to have a been a very long journey today we will see how the Gemarah concluded the analysis of the statement made by Rabbi Chiyah.

Hello Everyone,

We began our study ofשנים אוחזין  on November 4, 2024 ( according to my laptop). That means that we have spent three months studying the Gemarah which analyzes from every conceivable angle the the case of the opening Mishnah. What are the claims supporting each person who claims ownership of a single garment.

Today we will go on to the next discussion in the Gemarah, which is a discussion of the rule set down by the Mishnah. The situation of the Mishnah is two people each claiming that she or he are is the sole owner of the object. The Mishnah gives a rule, that in this situation each claimant must swear that she owns not less than one-half of the object. Then the object is divided equally between the two claimants.

The Gemarah wonders about the  oath established in our Mishnah. What is the reason for swearing that one owns no less than half of an object?

That is  our suggyah.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will study the Gemarah which deals with credibility. Our Mishnah imposes an oath both of the claimants to the garment in question. The Gemarah wonders why we accept the oath of people suspected of theft. This is a very fair question and the Gemarah goes to some length to understand this practice.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will begin the suggyah of Rabbi Zeirah. The Mishnah’s case is one object held by two people. Rabbi Zeirah asks what would be the ruling when on person grabs an object while standing before us. The Gemarah immediately asks if Rabbi Zeirah’s question does not involve some other details. Otherwise, it would seem obvious that the person who grabbed the object must return it.

Hello Everyone,

The theme of the Gemarah which we have been studying for the past few months is ownership. How should a court decide a case when two parties claim ownership of the same object. One of the prerogatives of an owner is that she may dispose of her property as she sees fit to do.  Today we will see if a person may donate property to the Temple when her ownership is challenged in court.

Hello Everyone,

Today we will continue to study to he suggyah which examines the status of “potential” owners. That is to say, we examine the capacity of persons who assert potentially valid claims to ownership to make changes in the property, such as donating the property to charity.

Hello Everyone,

Today the calendar works out well with our study of שנים אוחזין. We will today complete the discussion regarding contesting claims of ownership, and today is our last class on “Gemara Key Words” before Purim.

Hello Everyone,

I am happy to invite to one more class on Key Words in the Gemara. Today we will start a new subject. Until now the Gemara dealt with cases in which two people claim ownership of an object. Today we will study a case of two people who claim ownership of a promissory note.