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Temurah 34 for kids: Hair, Sacks and Ashes

תמורה ל״ד

✂️ This daf asks why some items must be buried while others must be burned. The Sages study a nazirite’s hair, hair woven into a sack, and the ashes of consecrated things.

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Rashi and Tosafot on Temurah 34 in simple English

Rashi on Temurah 34a, in English Tab translation (25)
  1. A provisional guilt offering shall be burned — This applies if it was slaughtered and, before its blood was sprinkled, the person learned that he had not sinned. It is then an ordinary animal slaughtered in the Temple courtyard. If he did not learn this, the offering may be eaten like other guilt offerings: the Torah calls it a guilt offering to atone for his uncertainty and protect him from suffering until he learns whether he sinned. If he did, he brings a sin offering, as stated in tractate Keritot.
  2. A bird sin offering — For example, a woman miscarried and is unsure whether what she lost was a fetus. She brings her bird sin offering despite the uncertainty, since it is not burned on the altar, so sprinkling its blood in an uncertain case is not a concern. It may not be eaten: if it was not a fetus, the bird was an ordinary bird, and pinching its neck left it an unslaughtered carcass. It must be burned like other unfit offerings. Tractate Nazir establishes that a bird sin offering may be brought in an uncertain case.
  3. Cast it into the drain — A water channel runs through the Temple courtyard and empties into the Kidron Valley. Because the bird's skin is soft, it decomposes and does not remain intact in the flowing water.
  4. Items that must be burned must not be buried — Someone might find them and eat them.
  5. Items that must be buried must not be burned — The Gemara explains why.
  6. A full sit — The greatest distance one can spread the thumb from a finger.
  7. Wool of a firstborn animal — Benefit from it is forbidden because the animal is consecrated.
  8. Shall be burned — The mishna speaks of wool in a garment and hair in a sack, as these are their usual uses.
  9. Hair of a ritually pure nazirite — It must be burned, as the verse says, 'and put it on the fire.' No such burning is prescribed for the hair of a ritually impure nazirite.
  10. Here, in a sack — The ruling that it must be burned concerns hair of a nazirite or firstborn donkey woven into a sack. If it were buried, someone might find and use it, since the sack takes time to decay. Our mishna concerns unwoven hair itself. Either ruling can involve a ritually pure or impure nazirite.
  11. And Rabbi Elazar says — Both rulings concern hair woven into a sack. The Gemara later resolves the case of the firstborn donkey by attributing its ruling to Rabbi Yehuda.
  12. Let it be nullified by the majority — The wording suggests that only a little hair of the nazirite or firstborn donkey was woven into a large sack of permitted material. One might ask why, then, a garment containing a lost thread of forbidden wool-and-linen mixture may not be sold to a non-Jew: why is that thread not nullified by the majority? That is no objection. The Torah forbids wool and linen specifically when mixed, so nullification does not apply to that prohibition.
  13. In the shape of a bird — The forbidden hair was woven into a bird design on the sack. Because the design enhances the whole sack, it is significant and is not nullified.
  14. Whose opinion is this? — At this point, the proposed answer is that the ruling follows Rabbi Yehuda, who favors the stricter practice.
  15. He said to him: Our difficulty was that he should remove them — If the sack can be fixed, how can you attribute the ruling to Rabbi Yehuda? Would he require burning when there is a way to fix it? Rabbi Yirmeya replied: I meant that if the designs can be removed, that is best. If they cannot, attribute the ruling that the sack is burned to Rabbi Yehuda. That also resolves the contradiction about the firstborn donkey's hair without distinguishing between a ritually pure and an impure nazirite.
  16. What is the reason? — Items requiring burial must not be burned because benefit from their ashes is forbidden, and people might mistakenly permit it.
  17. Menstrual blood and flesh of a corpse — Although tractate Nidda teaches that they convey impurity whether wet or dry, once they become mere ash they are pure, provided there is not a full ladle of decomposed corpse remains. Benefit from them is permitted; flesh of a corpse is among the items requiring burial, yet benefit from its ashes is permitted.
  18. Whose blood has been drained — Its prescribed rite has been completed.
  19. Its crop and feathers — These require burial. Tractate Yoma says that the crop and feathers, along with the ashes of the inner altar and the lampstand, are absorbed where they are placed.
  20. And are permitted — Even if someone deliberately digs them up and takes them.
  21. All items that must be burned — For example, leavened food, priestly tithe, orla fruit, and produce of a vineyard planted with other crops: their ashes may be used to launder clothes.
  22. It remains forbidden forever, but he does not combine them — The questioner explains why the baraita lists ashes of an idolatrous tree separately from ashes of consecrated property, though benefit from both is forbidden. They differ: a non-Jew can nullify the idolatrous status of the tree, as taught in tractate Avoda Zara, while this does not apply to consecrated property.
  23. Read it this way: There was no person who could commit misuse — If someone burned consecrated wood, that person committed misuse and its ashes became unconsecrated. Ashes of unfit offerings that require burning become unconsecrated even without misuse, because their sanctity has diminished. The ruling that ashes of consecrated property remain forbidden concerns consecrated wood burned without anyone committing misuse.
  24. When was that taught? — The ruling that ashes of consecrated property are forbidden concerns the handful of ash that the priest removes each morning and places beside the altar, as described in tractate Yoma.
  25. And place it beside the altar; he must place all of it there — Because the entire handful must be set aside, benefit from it is forbidden.
Tosafot on Temurah 34a, in English Tab translation (2)
  1. If he can pull them out, well and good — This does not address the question of why the hair is not nullified by the majority. It addresses the original contradiction: the other mishna says the sack is burned, while our mishna says the hair is buried. The wording is not exact.
  2. And items that are burned are permitted — Consecrated items seem difficult to explain. This works if the text reads, “The ashes of items that are burned are permitted,” as some manuscripts do. But it can also be explained as mentioning the ashes of consecrated offerings in our mishna—offerings slaughtered at the wrong time—because their ashes are permitted. The Gemara soon raises a question from these offerings, so the mishna includes them here.

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: Temura 34.