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Keritot 2 for kids: Why Count to Thirty-Six?

כריתות ב׳

🔢 The Mishna lists thirty-six cases with a punishment called karet. The Gemara asks why the Mishna gives a number when we could count the cases ourselves.

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Stories from Keritot 2

Words to know

Rashi and Tosafot on Keritot 2 in simple English

Rashi on Keritot 2a, in English Tab translation (13)
  1. Mishna — These acts incur karet when done intentionally without a warning. With a warning, some are punishable by strangulation, some by stoning, and some by lashes; when done unwittingly, they require a sin offering. The mishna begins with intercourse with one’s mother, father’s wife, and daughter-in-law, then interrupts the list of forbidden relations with intercourse with a male or an animal and a woman’s intercourse with an animal, before returning to a woman and her daughter. It groups those first cases together because all are punishable by stoning, the most severe court-imposed death penalty.
  2. A woman and her daughter — This includes her granddaughter through either her son or her daughter. It also includes one’s own daughter and granddaughters, one’s mother-in-law, and the mothers of one’s mother-in-law and father-in-law.
  3. One who blasphemes — Some say this means one who curses God’s name; others say it means one who sings praises to an idol.
  4. The karet for eating notar — It is explained later in this chapter from the verse, “Its eater shall bear his sin, for he has profaned what is holy to the Lord, and that person shall be cut off.” That verse is understood to refer to sacrificial meat left over beyond its allotted time.
  5. The karet for eating piggul — This too is explained later in the chapter by comparing “bear his sin,” written about piggul, with the same expression written about notar. Just as eating notar incurs karet, so does eating piggul.
  6. Slaughtering offerings outside the Temple — This incurs karet even if one does not offer them up, as the verse says that one who fails to bring the animal to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting “has shed blood, and that person shall be cut off.” Offering a sacrifice outside also incurs karet. One who unwittingly both slaughters and offers it outside must bring two sin offerings.
  7. The Paschal offering and circumcision are positive commandments — Failure to fulfill either can incur karet, as stated in the verses about them. Unlike the other cases, which violate prohibitions, an unwitting failure to fulfill these positive commandments does not require a sin offering. Scripture states prohibitions and karet for the forbidden relations and the other listed offenses: blasphemy, idolatry, giving a child to Molekh, necromancy, Shabbat desecration, eating sacred food or entering the Temple while impure, eating forbidden fat or blood, notar or piggul, slaughtering or offering sacrifices outside, eating leaven on Passover, eating or working on Yom Kippur, compounding the anointing oil or incense, and applying the anointing oil. The wife of one’s mother’s brother and one’s wife’s maternal great-grandmother are different: their prohibition is rabbinic, so no biblical karet is stated for them. The incense prohibition concerns compounding it for one’s own use; merely smelling the Temple incense incurs neither a prohibition nor karet, since smell is not subject to misuse of consecrated property.
  8. The Paschal offering and circumcision are positive commandments — The Torah commands bringing the Paschal offering and circumcising a child on the eighth day; as noted, failure to fulfill them can incur karet. Some offenses listed here, such as idolatry and Shabbat desecration, can also be punished by a court if there was a warning. Without a warning, the offender remains liable to karet, which here means dying without children.
  9. For its unwitting violation, a sin offering — This is learned from idolatry: the Torah prescribes a sin offering for its unwitting violation, and just as its intentional violation incurs karet, so too offenses whose intentional violation incurs karet require a sin offering when committed unwittingly. For example, a man might think a woman is his wife. Or, intending to have intercourse with his wife in an unconventional manner, he might instead have intercourse with a male or an animal and discover his mistake afterward.
  10. And when it is not known whether he transgressed, a provisional guilt offering — For example, he does not know whether he had intercourse with his wife, a male, or an animal; comparable doubts apply to the other offenses. A woman might think she was bringing a man upon herself but bring an animal; a man might think a menstruating woman was ritually pure. One who blasphemes might think he was cursing a two-letter divine name but curse the four-letter Name, the only one that incurs liability. An idolater might mistakenly think only sacrifice and incense were prohibited, not bowing and pouring a libation. Someone might pass his own child to Molekh thinking it was another’s; intend a different kind of sorcery but perform necromancy; mistake Shabbat or a festival for a weekday; mistake sacred meat for ordinary meat, the Temple for another building, forbidden fat for permitted fat, blood for spleen—or, as my teacher explained, for insect or fish blood—or notar or piggul for valid meat. He might slaughter an offering outside thinking it was an ordinary animal, or offer one at a private altar thinking communal altars were still permitted. He might compound the oil or incense intending to use different ingredients, which turn out to be the prescribed ones. But someone who thinks the entire act is permitted has not committed an unwitting violation of this kind; he is treated as acting under a mistaken compulsion and is exempt.
  11. Not known — His wife and his sister were in the bed; he intended intercourse with his wife but does not know which woman it was.
  12. For which the offering varies with one’s means — There is no provisional guilt offering for a doubtful violation of this kind. That offering applies only where the intentional violation incurs karet and a definite unwitting violation requires a fixed sin offering.
  13. Even one who blasphemes — The Gemara explains what the Rabbis mean by this.
Tosafot on Keritot 2a, in English Tab translation (1)
  1. Mishna: Thirty-six cases of karet — The Mishna first lists forbidden sexual relations punishable by stoning, as Rashi explains. It then lists intercourse with a woman and her daughter, punishable by burning, followed by intercourse with a married woman, punishable by strangulation. That is why it does not interrupt this list with other offenses punishable by stoning.
Rashi on Keritot 2b, in English Tab translation (30)
  1. Gemara, the number — The tally of thirty-six.
  2. Those who have not yet brought an atonement offering — They may not eat sacrificial food until they bring their offerings. They are explained in chapter two, below (Keritot 8b).
  3. Until the blood is sprinkled — As explained in chapter two (Keritot 9a): “As you are, so shall the convert be.” Just as your ancestors entered the covenant through circumcision, immersion, and the acceptance of sacrificial blood, so must a convert.
  4. That is why it teaches four — Whenever the mishna gives a number, it is exact; do not say that it listed some cases and left others out.
  5. Four bring an offering for an intentional act — This is explained in chapter two.
  6. Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda — He states this below.
  7. Naziriteship in purity — A nazirite who became impure counts seven days before beginning a new term in purity. That term begins on the seventh day. Thus, he can bring one offering for several instances of impurity: he became impure, then became impure again on the seventh day, and again on another seventh day. Each seventh day, he had become pure, so these are three distinct instances. Yet he brings only one offering, because after the first two he never reached the eighth day, when an offering could be brought. Rashi specifies two repeated seventh-day impurities because the mishna speaks of several instances.
  8. One prolonged impurity — He had never reached a state of purity.
  9. Rather, conclude, and so on — The mishna gives a number to show that its list is exact. Do not say it follows Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and remove the nazirite from the list.
  10. And he shall sanctify his head — For a second term of naziriteship in purity.
  11. Five bring a sliding-scale offering — That is, for five kinds of transgression, as explained in chapter two.
  12. Why do I need the number? — The mishna could simply say, “These are they.”
  13. Because of what it teaches later — The later passage in Horayot, chapter two (8b), discusses these five transgressions. It says the court is not liable for an oath denying testimony, a spoken oath, and the other cases; likewise, a ruler is exempt from them, since a sliding-scale offering does not apply to him and poverty is uncommon for a ruler. Rabbi Eliezer says a ruler brings a goat, his usual offering. The Gemara limits his statement to impurity involving the Temple or its sacred food, because that offense carries karet, like offenses requiring a fixed offering. Here, the number five shows that the list is exact: for all five offenses, the offering is sliding-scale, not fixed. Do not remove Temple impurity from the list to make it follow Rabbi Eliezer. Rather, it follows either Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, who exempts the ruler entirely, or Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon, who require him to bring a sliding-scale offering: a ewe, a female goat, or birds.
  14. Thirteen and twenty-four — These numbers are explained there, in the chapter “The Four Primary Categories of Damage” (Bava Kamma 4b), as is the requirement to pay from one’s best property.
  15. An informer — Someone who reports another person to the authorities.
  16. One who invalidates a sacrifice through improper intent — A priest who intends to eat an Israelite’s sacrifice after its permitted time. If liable to pay, he does not pay from his best property: the damage was caused by speech alone and is not visibly apparent.
  17. His sister — She was already included among the forbidden relationships, of which it says, “The people who do these things shall be cut off” (Leviticus 18). Scripture then singles her out: “If a man takes his sister … they shall be cut off before their people” (Leviticus 20).
  18. His sister, whom Scripture singled out — One might think that if he transgressed with her and with other forbidden relatives, he owes one offering for her and one for all the others together. If you ask why the other forbidden relationships were singled out, the answer is to teach that some carry death by a court—by stoning, strangulation, or burning. Yevamot 54a explains the cases carrying karet that Scripture singled out, but not the case of his sister discussed here.
  19. Included among all sacred offerings — The verse says, “Any man among your descendants who approaches the sacred offerings” (Leviticus 22). “Approaches” cannot mean merely touches: touching does not incur death at Heaven’s hand. As explained in Makkot 14a, “He shall not touch any sacred thing” refers to eating. Me’ila 10a likewise explains that “approaches” means that the offering has become fit to be brought, not that someone touches it. Rabbi Elazar asks: Is anyone liable merely for touching? The verse teaches that eating it while impure incurs liability only once it is fit to be brought.
  20. This excludes offerings dedicated to Temple upkeep — Eating them while personally impure does not incur karet. Here too, one might derive all the cases from the law of his sister.
  21. A married woman, whose prohibition can end while her husband lives — She can be divorced by a bill of divorce. Therefore, her case cannot be derived from that of his sister to establish a separate sin offering for an unwitting transgression.
  22. On its own — Even if he committed it together with the other transgressions.
  23. To judge it by karet and not by lashes — It would teach the general rule that lashes do not free someone liable to karet from that punishment, according to the view stated in Makkot 23a.
  24. And to a woman — Scripture could instead have written, “And do not approach a menstruating woman.”
  25. And the Rabbis — They hold that lashes do free a person from karet, and they use the separate mention of karet for his sister to teach separate liability.
  26. “And to a woman” — The separate liability can be derived from this phrase.
  27. His sister, his father’s sister, and his mother’s sister — One might think that, since all three prohibitions concern a sister, he is liable only once.
  28. The prohibitions and the women are distinct — Separate liability for each woman follows from “And to a woman,” while these three prohibitions are stated in separate verses.
  29. His sister who is also his father’s sister and his mother’s sister — As explained later, a wicked man, son of a wicked man (a Samaritan), had intercourse with his mother and fathered two daughters. He then had intercourse with one daughter and fathered a son. That son had intercourse with the other daughter, who was his sister and also the sister of both his father and his mother. A verse is needed to establish separate liability here because all three prohibitions involve one woman.
  30. From “his sister” at the end — The earlier verse prescribing karet also refers to her.
Tosafot on Keritot 2b, in English Tab translation (7)
  1. To exclude Rabbi Eliezer ben Ya’akov — Later, in chapter two (8b), the Gemara says the Sages did not list a convert because he brings his offering in order to enter the congregation. So the Sages, too, consider a convert someone who has not yet brought an atonement offering. “To exclude” here means that the mishna is not discussing his case. Similar uses of a tally appear at the beginning of Bava Kamma and later here, concerning Rabbi Oshaya and Rabbi Hiyya.
  2. As the latter clause teaches, “And a leader is like them” — This is not the latter clause of the mishna about the five who bring one offering. It is taught in Horayot (8b).
  3. To exclude one who renders an offering invalid through improper intent — Rashi explains that he does not pay with his best land. But the first chapter of Bava Kamma implies that the tally does not exempt him from paying with his best land; he is simply not listed because the mishna is not discussing offerings. Why are other tallies, such as “Fifteen women exempt” and “A woman is acquired in three ways,” not cited? Those exclude statements of later sages, while the tallies here address views of earlier sages. And “four new years” means four new years whose laws differ from one another. There are many similar examples.
  4. One for whom the prohibition cannot end while the person who makes her forbidden is alive; this excludes a married woman — The text could instead have said: Just as the prohibition involving his sister cannot end at all, so too the others; this would exclude his brother’s wife, whose prohibition can end for the purpose of levirate marriage.
  5. All the forbidden sexual relationships are linked to his sister, for whom karet is explicitly stated — One might ask: Why not omit this link and state karet for a married woman, whose prohibition is less severe, or for a brother’s wife, and then infer it for the others? The answer is that this link is needed for many other teachings in Yevamot. Moreover, those cases differ because people can create more such prohibitions.
  6. To make him liable to karet and not to lashes — This is puzzling: Could we not say the same about peace offerings—that their separate mention makes one liable to karet and not to lashes?
  7. His sister who is also his father’s sister, and so on — Why choose cases that can arise only through a forbidden relationship? The text could have chosen his brother’s wife who is also his father’s brother’s wife, or his granddaughter who is also his daughter-in-law, or his wife’s sister, as stated in chapter three (14a). The point is stronger in the chosen case: Although all its prohibitions arise from sibling relationships, they still count as distinct prohibitions.

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 2.