Comentário sobre Sotá 9:10

הודיית מעשר – the confession of the tithe (Deuteronomy 26:13): “I have cleared out the consecrated portion from the house; and I have given it to the Levite,” because Ezra fined the Levites that they did not give to them the tithe [of the tithe] when he came up [to the Land of Israel] from the Diaspora, and the Levites did not go up with him, and he (i.e., Ezra) commanded that they should give the tithe [of the tithe] to the Kohanim, and Yohanan the High Priest annulled the confession because he was not able to say, “and I have given it to the Levite.”

Introduction There are four practices mentioned as being discontinued in this mishnah.

בטל את המעוררים – for the Levites would say on each day on the platform (Psalms 44:24): “rouse yourself, why do you sleep, O God.” He stated: Is there sleep before God? (see Talmud Sotah 48a and Tosefta Sotah 13:9). And he stood and annulled them.

Yohanan the high priest brought to an end the confession made at the presentation of the tithe. As we learned above in mishnah 7:1, twice in seven years a person must take his accumulated tithes out of his house and make a confession at the Temple that he had no more tithes. Yohanan the high priest ended this practice. There are two explanations given for why he ended the practice. The first is that he saw that people were no longer separating tithes, and they were only separating terumah. The second is that the tithes were no longer given to the Levites but rather to the priests. This is because when Ezra came to Israel from Babylonia, the priests did not come with him. Therefore he penalized them by giving the tithes to the priests.

ואת הנקפין – that they would wound the calf of the sacrifice between its horns in order that blood would fall between its eyes so that it would not see and it would be easy to bend over and to slaughter it and he would stand and annul it for it appeared as having a blemish (and unfit for the altar) and he established for them rings in the ground for them to place the neck of the animal within it.

He also discontinued the wakers and the knockers Before Yohanan the high priest, there was a custom that when the Levites would rise in the Temple in the morning, they would recite the verse, “Rouse Yourself; why do you sleep, O Lord?” (Psalms 44:24). These Levites were called the “wakers”. The practice was abolished because it gives the impression that God is sleeping, and Psalms 121:4 says, “See, the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” The “knockers” refers to a practice of striking a sacrificial heifer between its horns in order to prepare it for sacrifice. This would make it easier to slaughter. When they began to fear that this would render the animal unfit to eat and therefore they stopped the practice.

נוקפין – beat and its example [Tractate Hullin 7b], “no person bruises his finger here on earth [unless it was so decreed against him in heaven].”

Up to his days the hammer used to strike in Jerusalem, Up until the days of Yohanan the high priest, on the intermediate days of the festival (hol hamoed), one could hear the sound of hammers striking in Jerusalem. Although the people were doing the types of work which are permitted on these days (we shall learn these laws when we learn tractate Moed Katan), Yohanan the high priest said that this was inappropriate for the sound made it seem as if there was no festival. Therefore, he put an end to the practice.

היה פטיש מכה בירושלים – on the Intermediate days of the Festival those artisans of copper and iron would beat with a hammer in order to perform work which cannot be postponed without irretrievable loss, and he stood and cancelled them because the thing becomes more known and there is a disregard of the Intermediate Days of the Festival.

And in his days there was no need to inquire about doubtfully tithed produce. Doubtfully tithed produce (demai) is produce bought from an uneducated person, a person who may not properly separate tithes. In the time of Yohanan the high priest, a person did not need to ask if what he was purchasing was properly tithed, for Yohanan decreed that anybody who buys produce from an uneducated person should separate only the terumah taken from the tithe and second tithe. He would also separate the first and second tithe but these he could eat them himself. Since these tithes may have already been taken out before he bought the produce, the Levite cannot prove that the first tithe belongs to him, nor can the poor person prove that the poor tithe belongs to him. Therefore, he can retain these tithes for himself. Before Yohanan’s time, people had to ask those selling produce if it was tithed, and they would have to decide whether the person was trustworthy. If the seller was not trustworthy, people wouldn’t buy from him, because they would have to separate all of the tithes.

ובימיו אין אדם צריך לשאול על הדמאי – for he said to the people of his generation that just as regarding the great heave offering–priest’s share of the crop, its punishment [for non-fulfilment] is death, so too, the tenth of the tenth [given by the Levites to the Kohanim] and separation of priestly shares is required before one is able to partake of them, [non-fulfillment] is punishable by death and he established that they should take out from the doubtfully tithed produce only the tenth-of-a-tenth and the Second Tithe, and they should not take out it the First Tithe and the Poor Man’s Tithe for one can say to the Levite and–or the Poor Person: Bring proof that it is produce from which priestly gifts and tithes had not yet been separated and take it. And from this ordinance and onward, a person who takes his fruit from the marketplace would not ask if they had been properly prepared [by the giving of the priestly gifts and tithes] or not, but immediately, he separates from them the tenth-of-the-tenth and the Second Tithe, and consumes the rest for anyone who purchases from those who did not observe certain religious customs regarding tithing, their produce is considered doubtfully tithed.