Beitza 10 a, b

Finishing their commentary on yesterday's Mishna, the rabbis comment on Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai.  There may be other arguments where Shammai was lenient and Hillel was stringent.  The rabbis list a number of these cases while arguing about their relevance given differences (muktze, etc.).  Rabbi Yochanan is the Sage who is said to believe that their opinions might be reversed.

A new Mishna tells us about preparing fledgling doves from their dovecoats.  Beit Shammai says that we should shake the birds while it is still day.  Beit Hillel says that shaking is not necessary; we can prepare the doves by standing and selecting them the day before.  We learn in a note by Steinsaltz that the first pair of birds are watched to understand the value of those eggs.  Doves will lay eggs in pairs throughout the year.  

The rabbis speak about removing a corpse from a home.  To avoid imparting ritual impurity to the home, the corpse can be removed through a window.  If the corpse is removed through one door, it is as if all doors have been made impure for the house is like a tent if it has many doors.  Beit Hillel says that all of these entrances are pure retroactively.  In turn, if we handle many pairs of doves to see if they are suitable to us, then we are touching things that should not be touched because they are muktze and should not be moved.  Notable is that the rabbis believe that choosing doves in advance will promote joy for we will happily take what we chose rather than looking for perfect doves on the day itself and perhaps not even celebrating.


We are introduced to a new Mishna about the doves.  If after we have chosen doves our doves are obviously not there: the colour is missing, we are prohibited from taking another dove.  We are told about other restrictions including number of birds and location of birds.  The idea is that we are not to take birds that are not designated.  In addition, we can only move the birds that were designated as bird that will leave the dovecoat.

The rabbis discuss this Mishna at some length.  They look at similarities/differences between fledglings and money that is found and combined with tithed money.  They note that fledglings hop on their own - this allows the rabbis to change their comparison.  Perhaps the money is contained in discreet pouches.  But that doesn't quite work, either.  So what if the fledgelings were tied together, and the pouches were tied together?  But fledgelings can break free of that bond; similarly pouches that rely on worn leather can break apart, too.

So much of today's daf seems to be a caveat.  The rabbis are talking about how we choose the pair of doves for ritual slaughter on Shabbat.  But they are also talking about how they come to that decision - which are the most important considerations, the tools (like analogy) that we should use to create logical arguments.  And every word of this text is sacred.  But only if we believe that the Talmud offers us the ability to know ourselves and our world better.