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Keritot 10 for kids: Counting the Days

כריתות י׳

📅 The daf asks how to count a mother’s days of purity when two babies are born at different times. It then studies offerings that change according to what a person can afford.

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Stories from Keritot 10

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Rashi and Tosafot on Keritot 10 in simple English

Rashi on Keritot 10a, in English Tab translation (29)
  1. Concerning impurity, what does Rabbi Yehuda say? — Does he recognize a separate completion period for the second child with regard to days of purity?
  2. Rabbi Yehuda said this only about an offering — He does not recognize a separate completion period for the second child’s offering, since the child was born within the period for the first child’s offering.
  3. But concerning impurity and purity — The second child might have its own days, separate from those of the first. Its days of impurity are attributed to it and do not count toward the first child’s completion period.
  4. And the second child’s impurity interrupts — It interrupts the first child’s days of purity. She then completes the first child’s days of purity, since for Rabbi Yehuda the first child is primary, and afterward counts the second child’s eighty days of purity.
  5. Or perhaps he recognizes the second child only for a stringency — This would increase the required offerings and give the second child its own days of impurity and purity, delaying her permission to eat consecrated food. But he may not recognize the second child where doing so would be lenient: attributing the intervening days of impurity to it, then making up the first child’s days of purity and giving the second child further days of purity, would extend the time when her blood is deemed pure. Nor can the second child be disregarded entirely, for that too would be lenient: it would permit her to eat consecrated food after immersion but before nightfall. So the second child must have days of purity; the question is whether making up the first child’s days as well is an impermissible leniency.
  6. One slaughters — The Paschal offering is slaughtered and its blood sprinkled on her behalf on the fortieth day after a male birth. At this point, the Gemara assumes this means the fortieth of her days of purity.
  7. And they challenged it: She is still impure — She still lacks her atonement offering.
  8. Rav Ḥisda said: This follows Rabbi Yehuda, who considers the second child as though it does not exist — The baraita concerns twins born on consecutive days. The fortieth day after the second is the forty-first after the first, when she can bring her offering. It teaches that the Paschal offering may be slaughtered for her even while she still lacks atonement; she can bring her offering afterward and eat the Paschal offering that evening. Thus the second child does not delay her by extending her days of purity another day.
  9. But if Rabbi Yehuda considers the second child existent concerning impurity — Its days of impurity would interrupt the first child’s days of purity. How, then, can the Paschal offering be slaughtered for her? She cannot eat it that evening: the first child’s eighth day was the second child’s seventh, an impure day, so she must make up the interrupted day and cannot bring her offering until the first child’s forty-second day. Rather, the second child must be treated as though it does not exist: its days of impurity and purity count toward the first child’s days of purity.
  10. Actually, I could say to you otherwise — The baraita does not concern a second child but an ordinary birth. Although she will still lack her offering that evening, it concerns a Paschal offering brought when most of the community is impure, for which impurity is permitted.
  11. They may not eat of it — Communal impurity is permitted only for impurity from a corpse. The verse says, “If any man is impure through contact with a dead person,” from which the Sages derive that an individual is deferred to the Second Passover, but a community is not deferred and instead offers the sacrifice in impurity.
  12. They may not eat when they have not immersed — The people mentioned either had not ceased their discharge or had ceased but had not counted seven days and immersed. The woman after childbirth, however, immersed on the eighth day after giving birth.
  13. If so — Why specify the fortieth day after a male birth or the eightieth after a female birth? She would be fit from the eighth day.
  14. On the fortieth day too, she would not be fit — Not even that evening, since she still lacks her atonement offering. At this point, the Gemara assumes that a zav lacking his offering has the same status as a zav and cannot eat a Paschal offering brought in impurity.
  15. This teaching of Rava — It appears at the beginning of the second chapter of the tractate on the slaughter of offerings.
  16. Rav Ashi said: Rava — Rava does not explain the baraita as referring to the fortieth day of her days of purity. Rather, it speaks of a woman who gave birth to a male on the fortieth day of pregnancy: one may slaughter the Paschal offering for her that very day. This follows Rabbi Yishmael, who says that a female fetus takes eighty-one days to form.
  17. Dry — Without blood.
  18. The womb — The uterus.
  19. Could it mean whether consecutive — For example, if she did not miscarry in between?
  20. Or scattered — For example, if she miscarried at the end of fifty-four days: might the miscarriage’s days of impurity interrupt the first birth’s sixty days of purity, which she would then complete afterward?
  21. The verse says “day”: Just as a day is wholly continuous — It is either wholly impure or wholly pure. So too, the sixty days must be continuous days of purity.
  22. Can the Rabbis have scattered days? — They count from the second birth and do not complete the first birth’s days of purity. For them, scattered days can never arise.
  23. Rather, must this not follow Rabbi Yehuda? — For offerings, he treats the first birth as primary. This teaching would show that he does not preserve the first birth’s days of purity for impurity and purity; otherwise those days could be scattered rather than continuous. Instead, she counts from the second birth. Thus, in the Mishnah, he counts from the first birth only as a stringency that increases offerings. He does not make up scattered days of purity for it, a leniency that would require further days of purity for the second birth.
  24. Actually, it follows the Rabbis — Scattered days could arise if she bore a male during the eighty days following a female birth, so that the male’s days of purity ended before the first child’s eighty days. In that case, the Rabbis would require her to make up the first child’s days of purity. The verse teaches that she does not make up, after the first birth’s eightieth day, the seven days interrupted by the male birth’s impurity; instead, she counts from the second birth.
  25. Ultimately — Such a case cannot occur. The first female birth’s eighty days would end before the male birth’s forty days could end: a male birth cannot occur before the female birth’s fifty-fourth day, allowing fourteen days of impurity followed by forty days for the male fetus to form. Thus scattered days cannot arise this way.
  26. Giving birth to twins — Twins conceived together.
  27. On the twentieth day of her days of purity — Twenty is not exact; the same applies if fewer or more days have passed.
  28. Interrupted — The seven days of impurity for the male child interrupt her days of purity for the female child. One might then give her seven additional days after the eighty days from the first birth; Scripture says “day.”
  29. The thirty days of purity for a male, interrupted — For example, a woman bears twins and delivers the second during the thirty days of purity following the first male’s birth. One might give her seven days beyond the forty days for the first birth to make up for the second child’s seven days of impurity. Her thirty days of purity would then be interrupted, since the intervening days of impurity would not count.
Tosafot on Keritot 10a, in English Tab translation (5)
  1. And does he not accept a leniency? — That is, allowing her to make up the first child’s days of purity after the second child’s days of impurity. Rashi explains that the second child is not entirely disregarded, since disregarding it would leniently permit her to eat sacrificial food; she must therefore observe days of purity for the second child. But this is difficult: the Gemara cites the ruling that the Paschal offering may be slaughtered and its blood sprinkled on her behalf on the fortieth day after the second birth, hoping to prove that the second child is disregarded. If she must observe its days of purity, she is still awaiting nightfall on that day and cannot bring her childbirth offering until the next day. Moreover, granting her days of purity is also a leniency, permitting her to be with her husband during those days even if she sees blood. Rather, Rabbi Yehuda grants no days of purity for the second child. According to the Rabbis, one counts from the second birth when its days of purity extend beyond those of the first; otherwise, one counts from the first. Although they say to count from the second birth, they agree that one counts from the first when its days of purity extend further. This also accords with the later discussion of sixty consecutive days, where a girl is born first and a boy is born twenty days into her days of purity. For the Rabbis, the same principle governs days of impurity and days of purity: count from the later birth when its period extends beyond the earlier one. Thus the Tosefta says that a woman who gives birth counts impurity from the last birth, like someone who becomes impure through contact with a corpse, rather than from the first, like a menstruating woman. It follows that if she sees blood during the seven days of impurity after childbirth, she does not count from the birth as a menstruating woman would; she counts seven days from seeing the blood. Likewise, if she gives birth during her menstrual period, she counts from the birth. The rule that she counts from the last child applies when that child’s days of impurity extend beyond the first child’s, as in the cases of a zav and a menstruating woman cited in the Tosefta. But if she bears a boy four or five days after a girl, we do not cancel the girl’s count and begin days of purity when the boy’s seven days end, on the girl’s eleventh or twelfth day. Since the boy’s seven days of impurity fall within the girl’s two weeks, her days of impurity are not cancelled.
  2. On the fortieth day of a male fetus’s formation — Although one cannot ordinarily know that day, since semen can take up to three days to be absorbed, Samuel was exceptionally knowledgeable, as the Gemara says in the chapter ‘The Miscarrying Woman’ (Niddah 25b).
  3. The womb cannot open without blood — If so, why must Scripture say that after bearing a boy ‘she shall be impure seven days’? Rabbi says that without this verse, we might infer from the girl’s two weeks of impurity that a boy requires at least as long: a girl has more days of purity yet still requires two weeks of impurity, so surely a boy, who has fewer days of purity, would too. A similar argument appears in the Sifra.
  4. This teaches us — It teaches that the womb can open without blood. Rav Aḥai’s She’iltot rules this way on the basis of this passage, which says that the Paschal offering may be slaughtered and its blood sprinkled on her behalf.
  5. It follows that the stricter rule applies — ‘Consecutive’ cannot mean, as with a zav’s counted days, that impurity must not interrupt them and that all thirty-three days must be free of blood. Scripture says, ‘She shall remain in the blood of purification,’ showing that those days need not be free of blood.
Rashi on Keritot 10b, in English Tab translation (25)
  1. Do they recognize dispersed days? They count from the second offspring — Since the first child was male, we cannot explain this as we did before, by saying that the first child’s days of purity continue after the second child’s days of purity.
  2. Rather, is it not Rabbi Yehuda’s opinion? — He counts for the first child, yet says her days must be continuous. This shows that he counts from the second child.
  3. Learn from this that he accepts a stringency, but not a leniency — He would not extend the first child’s days of purity by seven days to make up for seven days of impurity and then grant the second child’s days of purity as well. That would be an excessive leniency.
  4. Six days — For example, she miscarried after sixty-three of the purification days following the birth of a girl, seventy-seven days after that birth. She had three days left to count, but the miscarriage made her impure. One might think she receives three other days in their place, making the six days dispersed: the verse says “days,” not “day,” which could suggest dispersed days.
  5. Do they recognize dispersed days? They count from the second offspring — The second child’s days extend well beyond the first girl’s eighty days, so there can be no dispersed days from the first birth. Rather, this must be Rabbi Yehuda’s opinion.
  6. Hearing the voice — She heard the words of an oath.
  7. Defiling the Temple — This refers to an unwitting violation. It and an oath expressed with the lips are written together in Leviticus in the passage about the sliding-scale offering. As explained in the first chapter of Shevuot, the verse about a person touching anything impure concerns the Temple and its sacred foods.
  8. Wealth, poverty, and extreme poverty — In wealth, one brings a female lamb or goat; in poverty, turtledoves or young pigeons; in extreme poverty, one-tenth of an ephah of flour.
  9. Hearing the voice, an oath expressed with the lips, and defiling the Temple or its sacred foods — Leviticus specifies that these offerings can be brought in poverty or extreme poverty.
  10. Some of them bring — This is explained below.
  11. A woman after childbirth — In wealth, she brings a lamb as a burnt offering and a young pigeon or turtledove as a sin offering. In poverty, she brings two birds, one of them in place of the lamb.
  12. One-tenth of an ephah in place of two birds — That is one offering in place of two.
  13. It is incumbent upon me to bring an offering worth one sela — He means an offering purchased for one sela.
  14. Throughout the Torah, a lamb is called a yearling — This implies that a ram is two years old.
  15. The Torah writes — Regarding the guilt offering for misuse of sacred property, Leviticus requires a ram worth silver shekels, meaning two sela.
  16. At one-quarter of a dinar — A pair of birds cost one-quarter of a dinar. Thus, in poverty one brings two birds costing one-quarter of a dinar instead of a lamb costing one sela, or four dinars: one-sixteenth as much. A quarter-dinar contains forty-eight perutot, as follows from the coin values given in Kiddushin. If the offering for extreme poverty must likewise cost one-sixteenth as much as the offering for poverty, one-tenth of an ephah costs three perutot.
  17. The teaching derives it from a woman after childbirth — It derives the poverty offering from her case: she brings a bird costing one-eighth of a dinar instead of a lamb costing one sela. That is one-thirty-second of the lamb’s price, or twenty-four perutot.
  18. But why should the extreme-poverty offering cost one-sixteenth of the poverty offering? — The offering for poverty may be derived from a woman after childbirth, but she has no extreme-poverty offering. That offering must be derived from the cases of hearing an oath, an oath expressed with the lips, and defiling the Temple or its sacred foods. In those cases, the poverty offering is two birds costing one-sixteenth as much as the lamb. But a woman’s poverty offering is one bird costing twenty-four perutot; one-sixteenth of that is one and a half perutot.
  19. He derives it all from a woman after childbirth — Although she has no extreme-poverty offering, the same ratio is applied: just as her poverty offering costs one-thirty-second as much as her wealth offering, the extreme-poverty offering costs one-thirty-second as much as her poverty offering. Since her poverty offering costs twenty-four perutot, that is three-quarters of a peruta.
  20. Every individual sin offering is female — That is, a female lamb or goat.
  21. They are alike regarding lashes and an offering — If they act intentionally, both the man and the woman receive lashes, for Scripture makes their punishments equal. If they act unwittingly, both bring an offering: Scripture prescribes excision for their intentional acts, and an unwitting act whose intentional penalty is excision requires a sin offering.
  22. But with a designated maidservant — The woman receives lashes, while the man brings a guilt offering, as the Gemara explains.
  23. For all other forbidden sexual relations, initial penetration is treated like completed intercourse — This is taught in the tractate Yevamot.
  24. But with a designated maidservant, he is liable only for completed intercourse — Scripture refers to an emission of semen, so the act must be capable of insemination.
  25. For all other forbidden sexual relations, one is liable for each act of intercourse — But earlier in this chapter, the Sages said that with a designated maidservant, he brings one offering for many acts.
Tosafot on Keritot 10b, in English Tab translation (4)
  1. Defiling the Temple and its sacrificial foods — Here they are counted as one case, but in the first chapter they are counted as two. There, each has its own verse prescribing excision; here, the offering for both is stated together.
  2. A lamb in its first year is worth one sela — But elsewhere a sin offering is said to be worth only a danak. The Gemara also asks why the Torah sets no fixed value for the offerings of those who must complete their purification: lambs might become cheaper, leaving them unable to gain atonement. The answer is that a lamb normally costs a sela, and buying one at that price is ideal, but a cheaper one suffices. A guilt offering, however, must meet the Torah’s required value of two shekels. The Torah sets no minimum value for a sin offering; the Sages set a danak as its usual minimum. Buying one worth less is improper, but if prices have fallen, even a fine, fat lamb worth less than a danak brings atonement. A guilt offering worth less than two shekels does not, however fine it is.
  3. A lamb in its first year is worth one sela — That value is a rabbinic requirement; by Torah law, a sin offering worth a danak suffices. Rabbi also said that when she brings a lamb near the end of its first year, she should bring one worth a sela. But from its eighth day onward, she may bring even an eight-day-old lamb worth a danak.
  4. A tenth of an ephah for one peruta — This is not at the usual price cited throughout the Talmud: four seahs for a sela. At that price, an ephah costs three dinars, with six silver ma’ahs to a dinar, so a tenth of an ephah costs more than one and a half ma’ahs.

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: Kerisus, Kritot, Kerithoth 10.