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Bechorot 44 for kids: Eyes, Height, and Humility

בכורות מ״ד

👀 This daf asks which physical conditions disqualify a priest from serving in the Temple. It also discusses Moses’ height and two ways to understand a verse about not being barren.

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Stories from Bechorot 44

Words to know

Rashi and Tosafot on Bechorot 44 in simple English

Rashi on Bechorot 44a, in English Tab translation (42)
  1. That gaze upward — Their eyes are properly positioned, but they constantly look upward. The room is below, and the upper story is above.
  2. That are situated above — Their eyes are high on the forehead, unlike other people’s.
  3. And are properly positioned — His eyes are in their normal places, but he sees the room and upper story at once: one eye looks up and the other looks down.
  4. In his eye — The verse could have said simply “a cataract or a tevallul”; we would know these occur only in an eye.
  5. A blind man — The additional word “man” includes other conditions.
  6. Blind — This implies that his eyes have been removed and are entirely absent.
  7. Impaired vision — His sight is diminished, but he can still see somewhat.
  8. Cataract — A condition called tayla that impairs sight without taking it away entirely.
  9. Intermingling — White crosses into the black part of the eye but does not impair sight at all.
  10. Deviations — The eyes are unusually positioned, such as too high or too low, or he sees the room and upper story at once.
  11. Blindness — He cannot see.
  12. Derived from “man” — Pale spots and constant tears are forms of blindness, and the baraita derives them from “man.”
  13. Unable to look at the sun; Rav Yosef taught: Those who hate the sun — They cannot look toward a place where sunlight shines.
  14. One like theirs and one like ours — One eye resembles the eyes of those sitting opposite me, and the other resembles mine. Rabbi Yehuda sat opposite Rav Huna, and his eyes were unusual.
  15. Shekhavna — His eyebrows are long and hang over his eyes.
  16. Terutot — Round eyes.
  17. Tziraniyyot — Eyes rounder than terutot.
  18. Watery — The eyes tear a little.
  19. Dripping — They tear more than watery eyes.
  20. Streaming — They tear more than dripping eyes, as in “a continual drip” (Proverbs 27:15).
  21. The tanna also taught zaryan, lufyan, and tumyan — These are blemishes in which the eyes are streaked.
  22. But he taught them among the blemishes — Is tumyan truly a blemish? The mishna disqualifies it only because of its appearance.
  23. Stumps of the roots remain — This is not a blemish in itself; it disqualifies only because of its appearance.
  24. The mishna refers to his limbs — Such as his hands, feet, and lower legs.
  25. Tzimmem, tzimea — The mishna explains these terms.
  26. To absorb — because they are constricted and blocked.
  27. Ten cubits — we initially assume these are measured by his own cubit.
  28. Blemished — because his body is too large for his arms: a person’s body normally measures only three of his own cubits.
  29. I mean the cubit used for the Tabernacle boards — ten cubits by that measure, since the boards’ length was not measured by Moses’s own cubit. When we said earlier that one cubit exceeded Moses’s by half a fingerbreadth, we did not mean Moses’s actual cubit: that was certainly much longer than the sacred cubit Moses established.
  30. By a little finger — if his nose is disproportionately large for his other limbs by the width of a little finger, it is a blemish. We measure it against the noses of people as tall as he is.
  31. Ḥaziza — his ears are so long that they fold downward.
  32. In the Temple — because it is not a blemish.
  33. The tzemaḥ, tzimam, and tzamea — the mishna counts them as human blemishes because a priest with one of them does not resemble the other descendants of Aaron.
  34. Their bony cores — the bone inside the horns. The bony core of the hooves is the bone inside them, which forms the sole of the foot.
  35. And they are not redeemed on account of them — an animal consecrated as an offering other than a firstborn is not redeemed for these conditions. They disqualify it, but are not full-fledged blemishes.
  36. And it is redeemed on account of them — this challenges Rav Ḥisda, who said they are not grounds for redemption.
  37. The baraita speaks of complete uprooting — the horns and the roots of their bony cores were removed, leaving a visible hollow in the head.
  38. Rav Ḥisda speaks of cutting them off — they were cut at the top, but their roots remained.
  39. And if they were cut off at the top — would that even disqualify the animal?
  40. A cow — a red heifer.
  41. Cut — as in “Cut down the tree” (Daniel 4).
  42. Zeiri explained it — the instruction to cut means to cut above the horn’s bony core, at its tip, where the core does not reach for two or three fingerbreadths. If the black coloration does not reach the core, he may cut there; if it extends farther, the heifer is disqualified.
Tosafot on Bechorot 44a, in English Tab translation (2)
  1. Rav Huna pointed to one of theirs — This means Rav Yehuda, who was standing before him. Rashi says Rav Yehuda’s eyes were unusual but does not say how. Rabbeinu Tam explains that Rav Yehuda was unusually tall, as stated in Niddah, while Rav Huna was short, as stated in Taanit. Rav Huna’s eyes did not look especially small beside most people’s, but they did beside Rav Yehuda’s very large eyes. That is why Rav Yehuda took offense. The difference being illustrated was one large eye and one small eye. Although this does not invalidate the Temple service unless the large eye is as large as a calf’s or the small one as small as a goose’s, such a priest does not resemble the other descendants of Aaron.
  2. His eyes are terutot — Rashi explains that they are round, like the moon described in Sanhedrin, and that tziranit means even rounder. But why teach the more severe case if the less severe one was already taught? The same question arises with watering, dripping, and streaming eyes: each condition is more severe than the last. Perhaps all were taught to show that these priests are disqualified not because of a blemish, but because they do not resemble the other descendants of Aaron.
Rashi on Bechorot 44b, in English Tab translation (46)
  1. Sagging breasts — Breasts that are large.
  2. An epileptic — Someone who falls because of an illness.
  3. Once every few days — He has an episode only at fixed intervals.
  4. A melancholy temper — A demon spirit.
  5. One with an unnaturally long scrotum — His testicles are large.
  6. One with an unnaturally long penis — His penis is large.
  7. And they may not drink water — A Torah scholar should be modest about eating and drinking. But he should not seek privacy before urinating, lest he delay and endanger himself.
  8. He needed to — Urinate.
  9. On the Sabbath before the Festival — This was thirty days before the Festival, when people ask about and expound its laws, as stated in Megilla 4a.
  10. They spread a cloak for him — They spread a sheet between him and the people.
  11. Retract the incident — Teach publicly that one must not delay urinating in order to have privacy.
  12. You can do so — Because you are important, people can spread a sheet for you.
  13. But if someone else needs to urinate — If he cannot have a sheet spread for him, will he wait until the people leave, endanger himself, and become infertile?
  14. Your mother-in-law — Your wife’s mother.
  15. In her ear — If I had nowhere else to go, I would urinate even in her ear rather than wait, and certainly in her presence.
  16. Could it not have been caused by a leech? — The teaching says that he needed to urinate but did not, and his belly swelled. How do we know the delay caused it? Perhaps he swallowed a leech, which made his belly swell.
  17. His urine dripped — Afterward he could no longer urinate normally; it came out drop by drop. This was certainly caused by holding back his urine.
  18. When you act as among your cattle — Make yourself like an animal by not seeking privacy before urinating.
  19. So that your prayer will not be barren — When you pray for children, your prayer will be heard.
  20. Like an animal — Do not delay urinating.
  21. Not into an earthenware vessel — Not into a chamber pot: people empty it into a nearby river, and the rivers of Babylonia flow to and collect at the Spring of Eitam, as explained below.
  22. Nor onto hard ground — It does not absorb the urine, which remains on the surface until it washes down a slope into a river.
  23. Those inclines of Babylonia — The sloping places in Babylonia.
  24. Return to the Spring of Eitam — The High Priest immerses there on Yom Kippur, as stated in Yoma 31a.
  25. She should not stand directly in front of a child — When urinating, she should not stand right in front of children; doing so is immodest.
  26. To the side — if she turns away so that she is not urinating in front of the child, we have no objection.
  27. A mass — feces.
  28. Dropsy — an intestinal illness.
  29. A stream — urine.
  30. More blood, more boils — one who lets his blood build up without bloodletting develops more boils.
  31. More semen — a man who has a wife but does not have intercourse with her develops more leprosy.
  32. A foolish spirit has come upon him — a demon has afflicted him; this is called a ben nefilim, a nuiton.
  33. Hakein — the same as meshuban, one with enlarged testicles.
  34. Hagarvetan — a type of ba’al gever, one with an enlarged penis.
  35. In the testicles — his testicles are enlarged.
  36. In the penis — his penis is enlarged.
  37. How much — how large must the penis be to disqualify him?
  38. Mishna: Whose testicles were crushed — his testicles were mashed.
  39. Whose testicles are filled with wind — his testicles are swollen.
  40. Whose appearance is dark — he is dark-skinned, like a Cushite. This does not refer to his testicles at all.
  41. Gemara: Rabbi Yishmael found this difficult — Rabbi Yishmael disagrees with the first tanna because, if the verse meant a man without a testicle, it should have said, ‘lacking a testicle.’
  42. Teach: ‘whose testicles were crushed’ — this is why Rabbi Yishmael teaches it that way.
  43. It should say ‘mimruaḥ eshekh’ — for the mem of maruaḥ functions as a prefix.
  44. We remove and add letters — remove the ḥet from maruaḥ and the alef from eshekh, then put the ḥet in eshekh and the alef in maruaḥ. The result means ‘whose appearance is dark.’
  45. That is a Cushite — but the mishna explicitly lists ‘a Cushite and a giḥor’ later in Bekhorot 45a.
  46. Mishna: Whose ankles knock together — his knees bend outward and his ankles inward, so his ankles knock together as he walks. ‘Whose knees knock together’ is the opposite: his lower legs bend outward and apart, while his knees bend inward and knock together.
Tosafot on Bechorot 44b, in English Tab translation (6)
  1. And they may not drink water in public — Rashi explains that Torah scholars are ordinarily modest about eating and drinking. Yet in Pesachim, Rav Huna son of Rav Natan drank a cup in two sips without turning his face away; he replied that the rule about turning away concerned a bride. That was during a meal, when people drink together. A teaching on proper conduct says to turn aside when drinking water in public. It specifies water because usually only someone who is thirsty drinks it, whereas people commonly share other drinks. Rabbeinu Tam explains the point differently: Even someone too modest to drink water in public must not be too modest to urinate there, lest he wait and endanger himself.
  2. When will there be no barren man or woman among you? When you act as your cattle do — How could they relieve themselves like animals? They had to leave the camp and go three parasangs away. As Yoma says, they could not relieve themselves to the side or in front of the camp, only behind it. This applied even to urination: Berakhot interprets “You shall have a peg outside the camp, and you shall go out” as referring to urination.
  3. So that your prayer will not be barren before the Omnipresent, when you make yourself like an animal — Rashi explains this as a prayer for children. It seems, however, to refer to every prayer. The Sages say the world endures through one who makes himself like an animal, as it says, “You save man and beast, Lord,” and through one who regards himself as nothing, as it says, “He suspends the earth over nothing.”
  4. A person should not urinate on an earthenware vessel or on hard ground — These restrictions apply specifically in Babylonia. The reason given is that its slopes return water to the Spring of Eitam, connected to the Euphrates. Water naturally travels along its course, and the Euphrates mingles with all the world’s waters: Bekhorot says that one who vows not to drink Euphrates water is forbidden all water, and even elevated springs are called branches of the Euphrates. Sukkah likewise says that water reached by digging a little was from those branches. Nevertheless, the restriction applies only in Babylonia, because the Euphrates’ course there connects with the Spring of Eitam. This seems to imply that the Euphrates flows from Babylonia to the Land of Israel. But someone from the Land of Israel told me it flows the other way, as Bekhorot indicates: “Rain in the west has the Euphrates as its great witness.” Rashi explains it that way there too. It would be strained to say that rain in the Land of Israel makes the river rise upstream in Babylonia by backing up its waters.
  5. A woman should not stand directly in front of a child — Even if she does not expose herself, urinating while the child stands before her is immodest. After all, women do not ordinarily expose themselves in front of either children or adults, as Berakhot indicates.
  6. Causes dropsy … causes jaundice — This implies that dropsy and jaundice are different conditions. Yet they seem related: Yevamot says that when women were brought before the High Priest’s frontplate, the faces of those fit for intercourse turned yellow; it also calls dropsy a sign of transgression.

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: Bekhorot, Bechoros, Bekhoroth 44.