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Keritot 9 for kids: Entering the Covenant

כריתות ט׳

🕊️ This daf asks how a convert enters the covenant when offerings cannot be brought. It also asks when one offering can cover more than one event.

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Stories from Keritot 9

Words to know

Rashi and Tosafot on Keritot 9 in simple English

Rashi on Keritot 9a, in English Tab translation (25)
  1. I compared him to you — In some respects, but not by requiring all your offerings. A burnt offering is presumably valid, since it is entirely burned on the altar.
  2. Circumcision, immersion, and the sprinkling of blood — These are explained below.
  3. And he shall offer it — This is said of a voluntary bird burnt offering in Leviticus.
  4. And he shall offer — This implies a complete offering.
  5. All the people who left Egypt — They were circumcised when they departed.
  6. In your blood — This refers to the blood of the Paschal offering and the blood of circumcision.
  7. The sprinkling of blood — Sprinkling the offering’s blood on the altar.
  8. If a stranger sojourns with you … throughout your generations — Even when there is no Temple.
  9. He must set aside a quarter of a dinar for his bird pair — So that he can bring the pair when the Temple is rebuilt. A smaller sum cannot be set aside for the offering, because a bird pair cannot be obtained for less than a quarter of a dinar. As the Mishnah says, bird pairs rose in price to a quarter of a dinar, but not below it.
  10. Because of a possible misstep — Lest someone benefit from the money.
  11. A resident alien — One who accepted a prohibition on idol worship, such as Naaman.
  12. He may work on Shabbat for himself — To prevent a loss, as a Jew may during the intermediate days of a festival.
  13. Like a Jew on a festival — He may prepare food.
  14. Mishnah: The oath of testimony — Its offering varies according to the person’s means.
  15. The oath concerning a deposit — It requires a guilt offering.
  16. Gemara: Since it could have written ‘for his sin’ and stopped there — The added words ‘for his sin that he sinned’ include multiple sins.
  17. And he shall be forgiven for his sin that he sinned — ‘Sin’ is written twice more here, beyond its first two occurrences, to treat intentional wrongdoing like unintentional wrongdoing.
  18. And the Lord said suddenly — All three had to come out at God’s command.
  19. And the simple passed on and were punished — This means intentional wrongdoing, since punishment applies only to intentional wrongdoing.
  20. I might have thought — Although ‘suddenly’ generally includes circumstances beyond one’s control, unintentional wrongdoing, and intentional wrongdoing, the ‘suddenly’ said of a nazirite must mean unintentional wrongdoing: he brings an offering for it, and most offerings throughout the Torah are brought for unintentional wrongdoing. Therefore, ‘unexpectedly’ is written as well, to clarify the meaning of ‘suddenly’ here.
  21. In all of them — In all the cases in that passage requiring an offering that varies according to means, such as defiling the Temple and an oath of utterance, which are written alongside the oath of testimony.
  22. To treat intentional wrongdoing like unintentional wrongdoing — But the verse primarily concerns intentional wrongdoing: it says, ‘There shall be punishment,’ meaning lashes, which are given only for intentional wrongdoing. It then says she must bring her guilt offering. Why, then, is ‘he shall be forgiven for his sin’ needed to include intentional wrongdoing?
  23. Rather, say: To treat unintentional wrongdoing like intentional wrongdoing — One might have thought that she brings an offering only for intentional wrongdoing. Therefore, ‘he shall be forgiven for his sin that he sinned’ teaches otherwise. ‘Sin’ is written four times: twice to teach that one offering covers multiple transgressions, and twice to treat unintentional wrongdoing like intentional wrongdoing.
  24. During one lapse of awareness — That is, before he received lashes and brought an offering for intercourse with one woman, he had intercourse with the other.
  25. Did you not say regarding forbidden sexual relationships — In the first chapter, the words ‘and to a woman’ distinguish each woman as a separate offense.
Tosafot on Keritot 9a, in English Tab translation (11)
  1. Might I include even a meal offering? — This means the meal offering accompanying drink offerings, which is entirely burned on the altar.
  2. The verse says, “As you are, so shall the stranger be” — The baraita could have argued as it did above: “Now that even a bird offering has been included…”
  3. For all the people were circumcised — They circumcised themselves when they left Egypt. Although those already circumcised under Abraham’s covenant were not circumcised again then, their original circumcision had been for entering God’s covenant and distinguishing themselves from other nations. They also immersed at this time.
  4. He sent the young men of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings — Although the discussion in the chapter The Red Heifer disagrees whether these were pilgrimage burnt offerings or daily burnt offerings, they may have offered many burnt offerings.
  5. And he sprinkled it on the people — They slaughtered many burnt offerings and peace offerings, providing enough blood to sprinkle on every Israelite.
  6. There is no sprinkling without immersion — This teaches that a convert who comes to convert today must immerse.
  7. He must set aside a quarter of a dinar, etc. — Unlike a woman with a discharge or a woman after childbirth, a convert must set money aside. Their offerings permit them to partake of sacred food, while a convert’s offering permits him to enter the community.
  8. The law follows Rabbi Shimon — He says that a resident convert, a male slave, and a female slave may work for themselves as an Israelite does on a weekday, but not for others.
  9. Like an Israelite on a Festival — The verse speaks only of rest, not of a complete cessation from work.
  10. A resident convert may work for himself — This raises a difficulty with Rashi’s explanation in the chapter HaCholetz. On “so that your maidservant’s son and the stranger may rest,” he explains that the stranger is a resident convert who has accepted the prohibition on idol worship but works on Shabbat like a gentile. Here, however, the resident convert is permitted to work. The passage there must mean that he may not work for his master, though he may work for himself. From here, Rabbi Yitzhak ruled that one may allow a gentile to do his own work on Shabbat in an Israelite’s home.
  11. One might think this applies when he brings an offering for an inadvertent sin, etc. — If so, why did the verse not simply say “inadvertently”?
Rashi on Keritot 9b, in English Tab translation (23)
  1. Pure naziriteship begins on the seventh day — Therefore, if he becomes impure twice on seventh days, these are separate instances of impurity, since a new pure naziriteship has begun each time. Yet he owes only one offering, because he has not reached a time when an offering could be brought.
  2. He shall sanctify his head — Pure naziriteship begins for him. “The day of his shaving” refers to the seventh day.
  3. One who warned his wife — When he has her undergo the ordeal, he brings one barley meal offering for all the warnings.
  4. Who suffered several outbreaks of leprosy — For example, he completed the seven days of purification but suffered another outbreak before bringing his offerings, and this happened a second and a third time.
  5. He brought birds — These are the two live birds, one to be slaughtered and one to be released; they are not sacrificial offerings.
  6. They do not count for him — At first we understand this to mean that, in the end, he must bring two birds for each outbreak until he brings his sin offering. But if he brought the birds and his sin offering before another outbreak, he need not bring birds for the first outbreak when he becomes pure again.
  7. But you said he brings only one offering — He brings one offering for several outbreaks. Evidently they are treated as one prolonged case of leprosy; why, then, require birds for each outbreak?
  8. To establish whether he brings a poor person’s offering — Rather, the mishna means that the birds do not establish whether he brings a poor or wealthy person’s offering. If he was poor when he brought the birds and then became wealthy, he must bring a wealthy person’s offering; if he was wealthy and then became poor, he brings a poor person’s offering. His means when he brings his sin offering determine which he brings.
  9. Whose means do not suffice — If he is poor at the time of his purification, he brings a poor person’s offering even if he later becomes wealthy.
  10. Rabbi Shimon holds — “His purification” means the act that atones for his sin, since, as taught in Tractate Arakhin, leprosy comes on account of seven kinds of wrongdoing.
  11. The act that makes him eligible — The guilt offering makes him eligible to eat consecrated food, because some of its blood is placed on his thumbs and big toes.
  12. The birds — They begin his purification, since he is sprinkled with the blood of one bird.
  13. A woman who gave birth to several children — The mishna explains how: for example, she miscarried within the eighty-day period following the birth of a girl. After her two weeks of impurity, she immersed, had intercourse, conceived, and miscarried a girl more than forty days later—fifty-four days after the first birth. She then miscarried again fifty-four days after that. The example uses girls because this sequence cannot occur with boys: a miscarriage within the forty-day period following a boy’s birth would not yet be a formed fetus, which takes forty days to form.
  14. One who miscarried twins — This applies even to boys. For example, she conceived three babies and miscarried one after forty days. The second was delayed and emerged during the first child’s days of purity, and the third during the second child’s days of purity. She brings one offering for the last child and owes no others.
  15. Rabbi Yehuda — He disagrees concerning both successive births and twins. She brings an offering for the first child, but not the second, who was born within the first child’s prescribed period. She brings another for the third: because the second does not begin a new prescribed period, the third is treated as a new birth. She brings none for the fourth, born within the third child’s period. The third was not born within the first child’s period: the first child’s days of impurity had passed, as had the time for the second child to form and its days of impurity, and the time for the third to form—more than eighty days in all. In the case of twins, too, Rabbi Yehuda’s disagreement concerns a third child born after the first child’s prescribed period. The second child’s period does not matter to him, since it is treated as though it did not exist.
  16. Gemara — Wherever Scripture says “the law of,” it can refer to multiple cases.
  17. Could she bring one offering for childbirth and for a discharge? — For example, she saw a discharge for three days during the time when it would make her a zavah, stopped on the fourth, and gave birth on the fifth. She is then a woman who gives birth while subject to the laws of a zavah. As stated in Tractate Niddah, the discharge must stop shortly before birth; otherwise, it is certainly blood caused by the child, and she is not such a woman.
  18. But if so — Why would one think that she brings one offering for childbirth and a discharge, so that a verse is needed to exclude it? If she ate forbidden fat and gave birth, would anyone think she brings one offering for both? What connection does a discharge have with childbirth?
  19. This — It implies that she brings one offering for births within a single prescribed period, but after that period is complete, she owes an offering for each birth.
  20. According to Rabbi Yehuda — Since he does not count a prescribed period for the second child, the first child must be what creates the obligation to bring an offering. The eighty days are therefore counted from the first birth, and a third child born after that period requires its own offering.
  21. According to the Sages — Since they require only one offering, for the last child, they hold that the last child creates the obligation. The first child has no separate offering because its days of purity have not been completed. The prescribed period is counted from the second child to the third, and from the third to the fourth; it is reckoned from the last child.
  22. Obviously that is so — Otherwise, what reason would they have for their ruling?
  23. One who miscarries twins needed to be taught — The tanna needed to tell us that Rabbi Yehuda disagrees even in the case of twins. One might have thought he agrees there that, because they were conceived together, their births count as one prolonged birth. The second twin would then begin its own prescribed period, and the third child would not require an offering.
Tosafot on Keritot 9b, in English Tab translation (4)
  1. And she is a maidservant — This verse is needed to establish a separate offering for each maidservant. But why is a verse needed when they are separate people? In the chapter “It and Its Offspring” (Ḥullin 82b), it seems obvious that one who slaughters an animal and then its offspring is liable separately for each offspring, even without a verse. Likewise, later in the chapter “They Said to Him” (Keritot 17a), the Gemara says that separate Sabbaths are like separate bodies.
  2. One law for many jealousy warnings — This is puzzling: Sotah says that, according to the Rabbis, a woman cannot undergo the ordeal twice, and according to Rabbi Yehuda, she cannot undergo it twice with the same husband and two different suspected partners. If she cannot undergo it twice, why must a verse teach that she brings only one offering?
  3. One law for many lepers — In the Sifra, this is derived from “one ewe lamb,” which teaches that a person brings one offering for several outbreaks of leprosy. From “This shall be the law,” the Sifra instead derives one law for all lepers, since Scripture distinguishes among them in matters of impurity and oaths.
  4. He needed the case of a woman who miscarried twins — One might have thought that Rabbi Yehuda agrees with the Rabbis in this case. But if so, for whom is the case taught? For the Rabbis, it is obvious; and if it is for Rabbi Yehuda, he agrees with them. This requires further examination.

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 9.