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The Talmud, by Joseph Barclay, [1878], at sacred-texts.com


CHAPTER VII.

1. "How do men roast the passover?" "They bring a stick of pomegranate and thrust it through its mouth to its tail. And they put its legs and intestines inside it." The words of R. José, the Galilean. Rabbi Akiba said, "that is a kind of boiling, therefore they hang them outside of it."

2. Men must not roast the passover on a spit or a gridiron. Said R. Zaduk, "it happened to Rabban Gamaliel that he said to Zabi, his servant, 'go and roast for us the passover on the gridiron.'" "If it touch the side of the oven?" "That part must be peeled off." "If its gravy drop on the side of the oven, and again return on it?" "That part must be taken out." "If the gravy drop on the fine flour?" "That part must be pulled out" (and burned).

3. "If men anointed (basted) it with oil of the heave-offering?" "If it be a company of priests, they may eat it." "If it be a company of Israelites?" "If it be raw they can wash it away." "But if roast?" "They must peel off the surface." "If it was anointed with oil of the second tithe?" "Its value in money must not be charged to the members of

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the company, because they cannot redeem 1 the second tithes in Jerusalem."

4. Five things may be brought during legal uncleanness, but they must not be eaten in legal uncleanness: the sheaf, 2 the two wave loaves, 3 and the shewbread, 4 sacrifices of peace-offerings of the congregation, 5 and the kids 6 on the feast of the New Moon. The passover which was brought during legal uncleanness, may be eaten in uncleanness, because in the beginning the command came only for eating.

5. "If the flesh be legally unclean and the fat unpolluted?" "The priest must not sprinkle its blood on the altar." "If the fat be unclean and the flesh unpolluted?" "The priest may sprinkle its blood." But with other holy offerings it is not so, for though their flesh be unclean, and their fat remains unpolluted, the priest may sprinkle their blood on the altar.

6. "If the congregation be legally unclean, or its majority, or the priests be legally unclean, and the congregation legally clean?" "The passover may be kept in legal uncleanness." "If the minority of the congregation be legally unclean?" "The clean majority can keep the first, and the unclean minority the second passover" (on the 14th day of the following month).

7. When the blood of the passover-offering was poured on the altar, and it was afterwards known that it was unclean, the (golden) 7 plate of the High Priest makes it accepted. When the body of the paschal sacrifice was unclean, "the plate" cannot make it accepted, as they say the Nazarite and the celebrant of the passover have the uncleanness of the blood accepted with "the plate." But "the plate" does not make the legal uncleanness of the body of the paschal lamb accepted. If it be legally unclean with an unknown uncleanness, the plate makes it accepted.

8. "If it be legally unclean in whole or in most part?" "The passover must be burned in front of 'the palace' 8 with the wood of the altar." "A little which is unclean, and

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that which is left over?" "The owners may burn it in their own courts, or on their roofs with their own wood." The stingy ones burnt it in front of the palace, that they might use the wood of the altar.

9. "The passover which was carried out of the city, or became unclean?" "The owner must burn it off-hand." "Its masters became unclean or died?" "Let its appearance change, and let it be burned on the sixteenth." 1 Rabbi Jochanan, the son of Beruka, said, "even it must be burned off-hand, because it has no one to eat it."

10. "Bones and tendons and what is left over?" They must be burned on the sixteenth. "If the sixteenth happened on a Sabbath?" "They must be burned on the seventeenth, because they cannot abrogate either the laws of the Sabbath or the holiday."

11. All that is eaten in a great ox may be eaten in a tender kid, and the tops of the shoulder-blades, and the gristle. "Whoever broke any bone in a clean passover?" "He must receive forty stripes." "But for what is left over in the clean, and broken in an unclean passover?" "He does not receive the forty."

12. "A member partly displaced?" "One must cut in till he reach the bone, and he must peel off the flesh till he reach the joint, and he cuts it off. But in other holy offerings one may cleave the displaced members with an axe, since there does not exist any (prohibition of) breaking the bone for them." (For example), from the door-post and inwards is inside. From the door-post and outwards is outside. The windows and thickness of the wall are reckoned as inside.

13. "Two companies which eat the passover in one house?" "These turn their faces to this side and eat; and those turn their faces to that side and eat. And the boiler 2 is between the companies. The servant stands to mix wine. The servant must shut his mouth till he serve the other

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company. He afterwards turns his face till he reach his own company, and then he may eat. And she who is newly married can turn her face aside and eat it."


Footnotes

109:1 Jer. Tal. reads "sell."

109:2 Lev. xxiii. 11.

109:3 Lev. xxiii. 17.

109:4 Exod. xxv. 30.

109:5 Lev. xxiii. 19.

109:6 Numb. xxviii. 15.

109:7 Exod. xxviii. 36-38.

109:8 1 Chron. xxix. 19.

110:1 It remained uneaten overnight, and therefore must be burned, in accordance with Exod. xii. 10.

110:2 From the need of a boiler it appears that the wine used at the Passover was mixed with hot water. The wine itself was always red.


Next: Chapter VIII