Talmud zu Parah 12:12

“Ink.” If one carried out ink in a reed pen, sufficient to write two letters. If it was in a vessel it needs more⁹⁰Since to fill the pen one needs more of the ink. The Babli disagrees, 80a.. There, we have stated⁹¹Mishnah Parah 12:5. The minimum amount is what is needed to dip the heads of two stalks of hyssop. In a vessel this might require a larger amount. Cf. Note 82.: “How much water is needed for one sprinkling? Rebbi Jeremiah asked, would it not be reasonable that in a vessel it would need more?

Abbaye ben Rebbi Benjamin¹⁶⁸In the Babli (Soṭah 38b) he is called Abba the son of Rav Minyamin bar Ḥiyya, a Babylonian Amora of the third generation. stated: Those who stand behind the Cohanim are not included in their blessing. Those who stand before the Cohanim; Rebbi Ḥiyya bar Abba said the blessing even cuts through an iron wall¹⁶⁹In the Babli (loc. cit.) this is a tradition of R. Joshua ben Levi.. About those who stand on the side, we may understand from the following¹⁷⁰Mishnah Parah 12:2, dealing with a man who wants to sprinkle from the water mixed with ashes from the red heifer on a person impure by contact with a dead body. It is a general rule that the water used for this purpose becomes invalid if, after it was taken from a flowing source, the person in charge of the water lets it slip from his mind. An action that contradicts the intention has the status of a slip of mind.: If he wanted to sprinkle before him and he sprinkled behind him, behind him and he sprinkled before him, his sprinkling is invalid. Before him and he sprinkled on his sides, his sprinkling is valid. This implies that those who stand on the side are included in the blessing¹⁷¹Since the Cohanim intend to bless the people before them, this intention automatically includes those who stand on their sides and excludes only those behind their backs. (The same reason is given in the Babli, loc. cit.).

Rebbi Joḥanan said, Rebbi Jehudah and Rebbi Eliezer said the same thing. As we have stated there¹⁷⁹Mishnah Parah 12:2. The flask contains water, with some ashes of the red cow, drawn for the express purpose of dipping into it a branch of hyssop and sprinkling the water on the hyssop leaves on a person or things impure by the impurity of the dead (Num. 19).: “In a narrow-mouthed flask he dips and takes it out normally. Rebbi Jehudah says, for the first sprinkling¹⁸⁰R. Jehudah holds that the narrow neck will squeeze the hyssop so that the second time some water drops on the narrow neck will get on the hyssop and the second sprinkling will not all be from the new immersion of the hyssop, which for him makes the sprinkling invalid. It follows that “the first pushes out the last” means: The first makes the second inoperative..” Just as Rebbi Jehudah said the first pushes out the last, so here Rebbi Eliezer said the first pushes out the last.