פירוש על עדיות 8:4

איל קמצא – a form of locust. The Aramaic translation of “like locusts” is “like a species of locusts.”

Introduction In this mishnah Rabbi Yose ben Yoezer testifies concerning three things. One unusual feature of this mishnah is that it is all in Aramaic, as opposed to Hebrew which is the language of nearly all of the Mishnah.

דכן – it is clean and permitted to eat.

Rabbi Yose ben Yoezer, a man of Zereda, testified concerning the ayal-locust, that it is pure; The Torah permits eating certain types of locusts and forbids others. However, it is very difficult to tell which locusts are permitted and which are not. Therefore, today we don’t eat locusts (I’m sure you’re disappointed!). Rabbi Yose ben Yoezer testifies that a certain type of locust, called the “ayal-locust” is pure, meaning one is allowed to eat it. Bon Appetit.

ועל משקה בית מטבחייא – the blood in the slaughterhouse of the Temple courtyard.

And concerning liquid in the slaughter-house (of the, that it is pure; The liquid which would be found on the floor of the slaughter-house of the Temple, which is assumedly a mixture of blood and water, is pure and cannot become impure. One explanation of this is that the concept of the impurity of liquids is a Rabbinic innovation (derabanan). The Rabbis did not include in this innovation the liquids found in the Temple, so as not to increase the impurity of things found in the Temple.

דאינון דכיין – there is one who says that they are completely pure, for the defilement of liquids is not from the Torah but rather the Rabbis are those who decreed upon them defilement, and on these they did not decree. And there is another opinion that these are pure from making others impure, but they are impure of themselves and there is, from the Torah, defilement for liquids, to become defiled and the Rabbis were not able to make pure what the Torah had defiled.

And that one who touches a corpse is impure. This section is puzzling. Seemingly Rabbi Yose makes the simple statement that one who touches a corpse is impure. This law is stated clearly in Numbers 19:11, 16, and there is no need for a “testimony” to restate that which is obvious. One explanation given is that according to the Torah one who touches a dead body is impure for seven days and one who touches this person is only impure for one day. However, the Rabbis were stricter and ruled that also one who touches a person who has touched a dead body is impure for seven days. Rabbi Yose disagreed with this ruling. When he states that one who touches a dead body is impure for seven days, he excludes one who touches a person who has touched a dead body. Another possibility is that Rabbi Yose ruled that one who definitely touched a dead body is impure, but one who may or may not have done so is not impure. An intriguing possibility that Albeck brings up is that this ruling of Rabbi Yose is against the Essenes, a Jewish sect that existed towards the end of the Second Temple period. The Essenes, who are likely the same group that occupied the Dead Sea settlement where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, were extremely strict in matters of purity and impurity. They ruled that a person could be impure for seven days under certain circumstances by touching a live human being. Rabbi Yose rules against this overly strict position; only a corpse can transmit seven day impurity.

ועל דיקרב למיתא מסאב – this is how it should be understood (Talmud Avodah Zarah 37b), that whomever definitely touches a corpse is unclean. But there is a doubt, even a grave defilement of the dead is pure, and all the more so, defilement [via a contact with] a reptile is light. And a doubtful impurity in the public domain comes to permit. And even though a doubtful impurity in the public domain is pure according to the Torah, for prohibition of doubtful defilement we derive from the Sotah/suspected adulterous woman, for the Bible derives it with the language of defilement (Numbers 5:13): “and she keeps secret the fact that she has defiled herself, the Biblical verse informs us that on that which is doubtful, she is prohibited, and just as the case of the Sotah/suspected adulterous woman is in the private domain, and there is no hiding in the public domain, so doubtful defilement is not other than in the private domain, nevertheless before Yosi ben Yoezer came, they would say, it is the Halakha but we don’t teach thus. And he came and testified that we do teach as such ab initio, to make pure all doubtful defilement in the public domain.

And they called him “Yose the permitter”. For these rulings, Rabbi Yose ben Yoezer was called, “Rabbi Yose the permitter”. This was probably said with a certain degree of derision; Rabbi Yose was overly permissive. The fact that they called Rabbi Yose a “permitter” proves that section three also contained a permissive ruling.

וקרי ליה יוסי שריא – because he permitted three things that they (i.e., the Rabbis) would practice a prohibition on them. For any Jewish court that permits three things where their permit is not simple, they would call it, a permitting/absolving Jewish court.