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Arakhin 32 for kids: Inside the City Wall

ערכין ל״ב

🏰 Which places count as part of a walled city? The daf looks at fields, houses built into walls, and cities with walls from Joshua’s time. It also asks why people counted Jubilee Years when Jubilee laws were not in effect.

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Stories from Arakhin 32

Words to know

Rashi and Tosafot on Arakhin 32 in simple English

Rashi on Arakhin 32a, in English Tab translation (14)
  1. Not in his presence — as when the buyer was hiding. Because the payment was both made in his absence and against his will, Hillel needed to enact an ordinance.
  2. He enacted what was necessary — even if the buyer had been present but refused the money, Hillel would have needed to enact that payment against his will counts as giving.
  3. House — as the verse says, “Then the house that is in the city shall stand” (Leviticus 25:30).
  4. Towers — structures fixed to the ground.
  5. The verse says “house” — and the other structures listed above resemble houses.
  6. A sand bed — the dispute concerns land unfit for planting. Rabbi Meir does not include actual fields, since the verse says “house.” Rather, he includes a quarry and a sand bed: like houses, they are not used for planting and can provide building materials—stones from the quarry and sand from the sand bed. Rabbi Yehuda considers them like fields.
  7. And it is taught — this supports the preceding explanation.
  8. According to the plain meaning of the verse — Rahab’s house was in the wall, yet the verse says she lived “on the wall,” meaning in the walled city.
  9. Whose roofs form its wall — the city had no separate surrounding wall; instead, its closely adjoining houses formed a wall.
  10. Three courtyards — each containing two houses are enough for a place to be called a city.
  11. Katzra — the name of a small town outside Tzippori.
  12. Shor iger — a city whose roofs form its wall.
  13. Lo a wall — the word is written so that it can mean either “not” or “to it.” Thus, even if the city has no wall now but had one before, its houses can become the buyer’s permanent property.
  14. What is he saying? — Are Gamla and Gedod the only walled cities in the Galilee and across the Jordan, respectively?
Tosafot on Arakhin 32a, in English Tab translation (4)
  1. Since Hillel had to institute that giving against the recipient’s will counts as giving — Why is proof needed that it ordinarily does not? Surely no one must accept an unwanted gift. And how could Rav Pappa disagree? The answer is that everyone agrees about an ordinary gift that the giver has no need to give. They disagree about a gift the giver needs to give, such as the two hundred dinars a woman must give her husband to fulfill a condition of her divorce, or the payment in our mishna. But when the giver owes the recipient something, as with a debt or a deposit, giving it back against the recipient’s will certainly counts. Thus, the teaching that a loan or deposit received in a settled place need not be returned in the wilderness implies that it may be returned in a settled place even against the recipient’s will. But another mishna says that if a man makes divorce conditional on his wife giving him his cloak and the cloak is lost, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says she may give him its value. That seems to apply even against his will: the Rabbis disagree and insist on the cloak itself, and the Gemara asks whether their ruling might differ if he expressly waived the condition. If he willingly accepted the money, why would that be any less effective than waiving it? Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel thus seems to hold that giving against the recipient’s will counts, contrary to Rava. For Rava, however, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel’s ruling concerns payment the husband accepts willingly; even then, the Rabbis require the cloak itself. The Gemara’s question about waiver does not follow Rava, who holds that, according to the Rabbis, even an express waiver would not help. One might also ask: If Rava holds that payment against the buyer’s will does not count even when he is present, why did buyers hide? They could simply refuse the money and keep the house after twelve months. The answer is that a buyer present in town would be embarrassed to refuse the seller face-to-face. Finally, how can Rava infer anything about payment in the buyer’s presence from Hillel’s ordinance, which addressed payment in his absence, as Rav Pappa objects? If unwilling payment in his presence counted, Hillel could have had someone else receive the money on the buyer’s behalf; there would have been no need to institute depositing it in the Temple chamber. Rav Pappa rejects that reasoning.
  2. A quarry and a sand bed — Rashi explains that one takes stones from the first and sand from the second. Rashbam explains that one obtains glassmaking material from the first, and understands the second term as a pool for fish.
  3. A city that has a wall — Rashi explains that the Hebrew is written in a form suggesting both ‘that has a wall’ and ‘that has no wall’: it has no wall now but had one earlier. In accurate copies of the Torah, however, it is written with an alef, meaning ‘not,’ and read with a vav, meaning ‘has.’
  4. What does this mean? — Are Gamla and Gedod the only walled cities in the Galilee and east of the Jordan, respectively? Why is this question not also asked about the mishna? Because the baraita is more specific: it explicitly identifies Gamla as being in the Galilee and Gedod as being east of the Jordan.
Rashi on Arakhin 32b, in English Tab translation (24)
  1. Until Gamla — All the towns of the Galilee as far as Gamla had been walled since the days of Joshua.
  2. Rava said — This tanna comes to explain the mishna: the Gamla it lists as walled since Joshua’s days is Gamla in the Galilee.
  3. To exclude — A Gamla in Transjordan or Judea was not walled since Joshua’s days. The same distinction applies to Gedod. The mention of Chadid, Ono, and Jerusalem in Judea excludes towns with those names in the Galilee or Transjordan; they were not walled since Joshua’s days.
  4. The others that have no namesakes — For other towns listed in the mishna, such as Katzra and Yodfat, no towns elsewhere share their names. The baraita therefore did not need to say which region they are in.
  5. Ten matters — These are explained in Bava Kamma, in the chapter “Meruba”; this is one of them.
  6. A house does not become the buyer’s permanently — The verse says, “to its buyer throughout his generations.” This view holds that Jerusalem was not divided among the tribes, so who could convey ownership of a house there?
  7. Did Rav Yosef not say, and so on — Rav Yosef said this in tractate Makkot, in the chapter “These Are the Exiles.”
  8. These — The cities listed in our mishna.
  9. And they sanctified them — Tractate Shevuot explains that the sanctification involves two thanksgiving offerings, song, and a court walking in procession, with the two offerings behind them, and so on.
  10. Were nullified — The land’s sanctity no longer applied to them, so the laws of walled cities did not apply to them.
  11. When the land’s sanctity was nullified — At the destruction of the First Temple.
  12. The initial consecration — The consecration performed by Joshua.
  13. But you said — Later in this discussion, you say they did not need to sanctify the cities. The baraita concludes, “And not only these, but any city for which you have a tradition,” and so on, because the initial consecration was effective both then and for the future.
  14. One of them — The baraita saying that the consecration remained effective for the future was taught by Rabbi Elazar bar Yosei. He likewise says that even if a city has no wall now and lies in ruins, its sanctity has not ceased.
  15. Rather, it compares their arrival in Ezra’s days, and so on — “They had not done so” does not refer to sukkot. It means that since Joshua’s days they had not done what they did now: sanctify the land.
  16. They counted Sabbatical Years — They began counting Sabbatical Years and became obligated in tithes.
  17. And the Lord your God will bring you, and so on — The verse speaks of their return from exile, as the preceding verse says, “The Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you.”
  18. And the other view — It maintains that “they had not done so” does refer to sukkot, but not to actual booths. Rather, Ezra prayed for the evil inclination toward idolatry to be handed over to them, as stated in Sanhedrin.
  19. And the merit protected them — Ezra’s merit protected them.
  20. Like a sukkah — They had not accomplished this in Joshua’s days. That is why the verse singles out Joshua and refers to him in a disparaging way.
  21. For everywhere else it is written ‘Yehoshua,’ but here ‘Yeshua’ — Joshua should have prayed about this matter. Moses, by contrast, did not pray, and so on.
  22. You inherited it — You retain its original sanctity and need not sanctify it again.
  23. After the tribe of Reuben was exiled — In the days of Sennacherib.
  24. They counted Jubilee Years to establish Sabbatical Years — The Jubilee laws themselves did not apply: slaves were not freed and sold fields did not revert to their owners. But the Sabbatical Year laws did apply, including the cancellation of debts and the cessation of sowing and harvesting. They therefore had to count Jubilee Years so that Sabbatical Years would fall at the proper times. After seven Sabbatical cycles, they left the fiftieth year out of the next cycle because it was designated as a Jubilee Year, and began counting again the following year. Without counting Jubilee Years, they would have included the fiftieth year in the next Sabbatical cycle, shifting the Sabbatical Years from their proper times.
Tosafot on Arakhin 32b, in English Tab translation (3)
  1. There were two Jerusalems here too — But even Rava seems to need two places called Jerusalem. One can answer that Rava needs a second Jerusalem only in another region, whereas Rav Ashi must say that both were in Judea.
  2. And they sanctified the walled cities — This concerns the sale of houses in walled cities and sending people with leprosy outside the city. Only in cities walled since Joshua’s time must such people be sent beyond the wall; this does not apply to other towns. Stones affected by leprosy, however, must be taken outside a town even if it was not walled in Joshua’s time. The Sifra teaches: ‘Them outside the city’—but a person need not be sent outside every city, only outside walled cities. How do we know this, since the verse about a person with leprosy does not mention a walled city? Rabbeinu Yitzchak says we connect the verse about that person, ‘Outside the camp shall be his dwelling,’ with the phrase ‘a dwelling house in a walled city.’ Rashi explains here that they sanctified a city with two thanksgiving offerings and song, with the court walking ahead of the offerings, as described in Shevuot. In Shevuot, however, Rashi says he found this procedure for sanctifying Jerusalem’s walls when the city and Temple courtyards were enlarged, but he did not know how other towns were sanctified.
  3. They counted Jubilee years to sanctify Sabbatical years — This seems to contradict a baraita in the Jerusalem Talmud, cited by Rashi in Gittin. It reads ‘This is the matter of release: release’ as referring to both the Jubilee and the Sabbatical year: when the Jubilee is observed, the Sabbatical year is observed; when it is not, the Sabbatical year is not. Here, though, they counted Jubilee years only in order to sanctify Sabbatical years. Rashi explains in Gittin that the practice described in Arakhin was by rabbinic enactment, but the Sifra does not seem to support that reading. Rashi also suggests that the sources reflect a dispute among tannaim. The Jerusalem Talmud’s teaching follows Rabbi’s view. Rabbeinu Tam adds that a baraita cited in Gittin reads ‘This is the matter of release: release’ as referring instead to the release of land and the release of debts. The other Sages disagree with Rabbi: they derive from ‘seven sabbaths of years’ that the Sabbatical year applies even without the Jubilee, and from ‘they shall be for you forty-nine years’ that the Jubilee applies even without the Sabbatical year. The discussion here follows those Sages. Still, the Sifra can be reconciled even with Rabbi: its statement that the Sabbatical year applies without the Jubilee may mean that people sinfully failed to observe the Jubilee. Similarly, a baraita in Rosh Hashanah says that, according to Rabbi Yehuda, a year is a Jubilee even if land was not returned and the shofar was not sounded, but not if slaves were not freed. Rabbi Yosei says it is a Jubilee even if land was not returned and slaves were not freed, but not if the shofar was not sounded.

Sources

Kid summary and story cards written by Tab from the William Davidson Edition English (Sefaria, CC BY-NC 4.0).

Tab translation (machine-assisted) of Rashi and Tosafot, from the Vilna Edition Hebrew (public domain) on Sefaria. May contain mistakes.

In the app, the Gemara text comes from Sefaria (William Davidson Edition, CC BY-NC 4.0; Hebrew/Aramaic Vilna Edition). Rashi and Tosafot Hebrew: Vilna Edition (public domain) via Sefaria.

Also spelled: Arachin, Erchin 32.