Kids Daf Quest

Daf Yomi for kids · Talmud Bavli · Masechet Arakhin

Arakhin 7 for kids: Who Pays, and How Much?

ערכין ז׳

🪙 This daf asks when heirs must pay for damage and what may be done on Shabbat to try to save a baby. It also asks how much someone pays after making a valuation vow.

Daf Yomi day:

📖 Open Arakhin 7a in Daf QuestOpen Arakhin 7b in Daf Quest

In the app: the Gemara with Rashi and Tosafot, the printed page, games made from this daf, play coins and treasure chests.

Stories from Arakhin 7

Words to know

Rashi and Tosafot on Arakhin 7 in simple English

Rashi on Arakhin 7a, in English Tab translation (29)
  1. Does this imply that the first tanna holds…? — This is a question expressing disbelief.
  2. And killed him — The ox killed the pit digger.
  3. Exempt — The owner of the ox is exempt.
  4. The heirs must pay — This shows that an obligation imposed by the Torah is like a debt recorded in a document. It challenges the explanation that Rabbi Yosi and the first tanna of the mishna disagree about liability for damage, since one anonymous ruling would then contradict another. Some direct this challenge against Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar, but I find that puzzling: he is a tanna and may disagree.
  5. When he had stood trial — Before he died, the court ruled that he must pay. His creditor may therefore collect from his heirs, since a court ruling makes the debt like one recorded in a document.
  6. But does Ḥagga not teach that he died and the ox buried him? — The ox buried him in the pit by knocking a clod of earth down with him; nevertheless, the heirs must pay.
  7. And the ruling — The statement that the heirs must pay concerns a case where judges sat at the mouth of the pit and immediately ruled that the digger must pay.
  8. They sprinkle for him — They sprinkle the blood of his sin offering or guilt offering on his behalf. Until he is executed, it is not treated as an offering whose owner has died.
  9. He sinned — He sinned unintentionally while being taken to execution, such as by eating forbidden fat that he mistook for permitted fat.
  10. They do not attend to him — They do not arrange for him to set aside and sacrifice an offering.
  11. Because they do not prolong his judgment — Waiting to execute him until the offering is slaughtered and its blood sprinkled would prolong his judgment.
  12. The first clause too — It says that if he sinned earlier, they sprinkle the blood for him. That would mean waiting until the offering is slaughtered and its blood sprinkled.
  13. The mishna: They do not wait for her to give birth — They execute her together with her fetus, for they are one body.
  14. She sat on the birthing chair — Before her sentence was finalized.
  15. They wait for her to give birth — Once the fetus has moved from its place, it is a separate body.
  16. One may benefit from her hair — The Gemara explains the reason.
  17. It is forbidden to benefit from it — As we learn from the verse, ‘The owner of the ox shall be clean’: he is left with no right to benefit from any of its property.
  18. To include the fetus — At first, the Gemara assumes this is derived from ‘both of them,’ since the verse could have said ‘they shall die,’ which already implies at least two people.
  19. Both of them is extra for interpretation — The words ‘both of them’ are available to teach another law.
  20. Both must be alike — Both the adulterer and the adulteress must be liable to punishment. If one is a minor and the other an adult, the adult is not executed. The Gemara answers that the law concerning the fetus is derived from ‘also.’
  21. To prevent disfigurement — If the fetus were alive, it might emerge after its mother’s death, disfiguring her.
  22. Inherits — If he inherits property on the day he is born and dies that same day, he passes it on to his paternal relatives.
  23. And Rav Sheshet said — This statement about inheriting and passing on an inheritance cannot concern his father’s property: even if the baby had never been born, the father’s other relatives would inherit it if he had no children.
  24. Rather, he inherits his mother’s property — If she dies that day, he inherits her property even if he too dies that day, and passes it on to his paternal half brothers, who are not her sons. Without him, her own relatives would inherit it. We do not treat him as a stillborn who cannot inherit.
  25. But a fetus — If a pregnant woman dies, the fetus’s relatives do not inherit her property through the fetus, because the fetus dies first.
  26. And he answers, “That applies” — the fetus dies first when its mother dies on her own.
  27. And we ask, “Does it die first when she dies?” — There was an incident in which the fetus twitched after its mother died.
  28. The lizard’s tail — If it is cut off, the severed piece twitches even though it is not alive.
  29. And they cut open her abdomen — because sometimes the mother dies before the fetus.
Tosafot on Arakhin 7a, in English Tab translation (5)
  1. A pit in the public thoroughfare — This objection is directed at Rabba, who said above that an obligation imposed by the Torah is not like a written loan; Rabbeinu Tam also presents it this way in his book. It could challenge Rav Yosef too, since he holds that a claim against a debtor’s property is not established by Torah law. But Rabba stated the relevant point more explicitly.
  2. Rav Ila said in Rav’s name: When he had stood trial — Rav was not answering the objection to Rabba; Rabba lived many years after Rav. Rather, this baraita is raised as an objection to Rav in the chapter Get Pashut (Bava Batra 175b), where he says that an oral loan cannot be collected from heirs, and Rav answers the objection to his own position.
  3. The judges were sitting at the mouth of the pit — It was still necessary to say that the ox killed and buried the digger. One might have thought that the person being judged must literally stand before the court, as suggested by ‘Let the owner of the ox come and stand by his ox’ (Sanhedrin 19a). The baraita teaches that the digger’s presence there suffices.
  4. They sprinkle for him from the blood of his sin offering and his guilt offering — A sin offering or guilt offering cannot be brought after its owner dies, but his burnt offering can be.
  5. She sat on the travailing chair — Rashi explains that this happened before her sentence was finalized, but that cannot be right: the mishna speaks of a woman being taken to execution, which means her sentence has already been finalized, as in the earlier cases. Gittin 28b likewise distinguishes someone going to trial from someone going to execution. The reason the first case does not wait for childbirth is that delaying execution after sentencing causes suffering. Sanhedrin 35a illustrates this: concluding a case on Shabbat and executing the person on Sunday would prolong his ordeal, whereas waiting until Sunday to conclude the case raises a concern that the judges will forget their reasons, not a concern about prolonging his ordeal.
Rashi on Arakhin 7b, in English Tab translation (22)
  1. It is merely cutting flesh — Liability for wounding applies only when one wounds a living being and draws blood.
  2. One may benefit from her hair — Women with sparse hair customarily tied another woman’s hair to their own; this is a wig.
  3. Wig — a braid of hair.
  4. A wig — The mishna does not mean her own hair, but another woman’s hair tied to it. By saying, “Give it to my daughter,” she showed that she did not want it treated as part of her body and forbidden along with it. It is as though it had been removed while she was alive.
  5. The hair of righteous women — The question concerns women in an idolatrous city who did not join its residents. Rava explains that the question is about a wig tied to a righteous woman’s hair: is it part of her body and spared, or her property and burned? The righteous leave the city without possessions, and all their property is burned. But our case seems to resolve the question: the wig is treated as part of her body unless she says, “Give it away.”
  6. Rav Nachman found it difficult — The explanation that the mishna concerns a wig is difficult because the mishna treats the woman’s hair like the animal’s hair, which is part of its body.
  7. Rather, Rav Nachman said — The mishna means her own hair. A corpse’s hair is not forbidden like the hair of an animal sentenced to death: the woman becomes forbidden through death, and hair does not die or change. The animal becomes forbidden when its verdict is issued, even if it is slaughtered before the sentence is carried out. Thus, everything attached to it when the verdict is issued becomes forbidden.
  8. Levi taught in accordance with Rav — He explained the case as a wig that the woman said to give away.
  9. If she died — Without saying, “Give it away,” it is not given to her daughter.
  10. A corpse is forbidden for benefit — This is derived from the words “and Miriam died there,” through a comparison with the heifer whose neck is broken, as explained in tractate Avodah Zarah.
  11. Isn’t it obvious? — Of course a corpse cannot be given away for benefit. The teaching must mean that even a dead person’s adornments, such as a wig, are forbidden. It mentions the prohibition on benefit to make clear that it does not mean her own hair.
  12. An animal that was killed is forbidden for benefit — Even its hair is forbidden.
  13. Mishna: Valuations are not less than one sela — Even a poor person whose valuation is set according to what he can afford must pay at least one sela.
  14. Nor more than fifty — Fifty sela is the highest valuation stated in the Torah passage.
  15. He gave one sela — A poor man aged twenty, whose fixed valuation is fifty sela, paid one sela according to his means and later became wealthy. He is exempt from further payment.
  16. He pays fifty — His first payment did not fulfill his valuation, so the obligation remains. A poor person who vows his own valuation and becomes wealthy before paying must pay the full amount.
  17. He had five sela — A poor man aged twenty vowed his own valuation and had five sela.
  18. Gemara: That applies to every valuation you make — Even the poorest person must pay at least one sela. If he has more, however, he pays according to what he can afford.
  19. The means of the one who vows, not of the person valued — A poor person who vows the valuation of a wealthy person pays according to his own means.
  20. Do we not learn this from it anyway? — Although the verse teaches that payment does not depend on the means of the person valued, it also says “according to what he can afford.” This itself teaches that one who can afford more must pay more.
  21. And he gave four to the second — As assessed by the priest, he fulfilled both obligations, even according to the Sages, because he paid the second one first.
  22. What was collected remains collected — If he gave everything he had toward the first obligation, that payment stands. The second cannot claim that he should have paid all five sela toward it: when he paid the second, the first already had a claim on his assets, so even what he gave toward the second was not rightfully available for it.
Tosafot on Arakhin 7b, in English Tab translation (3)
  1. One cannot be assessed for less than a sela — The case of someone who paid less than a sela and then became wealthy is not limited to a payment below one sela. Even if he paid the entire valuation except for one sela, he becomes liable for the full valuation.
  2. The means of the one who vows, not of the one being valued — Why would we have thought to follow the means of the person being valued, so that a verse must exclude that possibility? Scripture says, “Every valuation shall be in sacred shekels,” teaching that no valuation may be less than one shekel, while another valuation is fifty shekels. We might therefore have reasoned that payment according to one’s means depends on the means of the person being valued. The verse accordingly teaches, “what the means of the one who vows can afford”: we do not follow the means of the person being valued.
  3. When he pays for the first, he has nothing — This is puzzling: when he made the first vow, he had five sela’im. How can paying one sela discharge it? A mishna in the chapter “The Means He Can Afford” teaches that whether a person was wealthy when he vowed and became poor before paying the priest, or was poor when he vowed but paid nothing before becoming wealthy, he pays the valuation of a wealthy person. Our teacher explains that this applies only when the priest assessed him while he was wealthy. If he became poor before being assessed, he pays according to his means as a poor person. Here, the priest first assessed him for the second vow, and he paid four sela’im toward it. The priest then assessed him for the first vow, and he paid one sela as instructed. That discharged the first vow, since he had not been assessed for it while he still had five sela’im.

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 7.