Mishnah Terumot
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Terumot discusses the produce due to priests (one-fiftieth of one’s crop) and to Levites (a tithe of the tithe). The first excerpt presented here (m. Terumot 8:1–2) is a classic rabbinic example of a “border case” in which legal principles are illuminated by constructing a hypothetical situation in which distinct categories collide. It presents a case in which a person who is permitted to perform a certain act—such as consuming food designated for members of the priestly caste—undergoes a change in status that renders the act prohibited; the person loses his or her access to priestly perquisites at the very moment that he or she is engaging in the act. Does the person halt the activity or complete it? Is the person guilty of a violation? If the act was a ritual act, is it valid? In other words, is the act judged by its initial permitted status or its final prohibited status?
Another kind of hypothetical case appears in m. Terumot 8:11–12. How should one behave when confronted with the choice between actively defiling a single loaf of sanctified bread oneself and passively enabling the defilement of many loaves of bread at the hands of another? The principle that one should passively allow the defilement of many loaves rather than actively defiling a single loaf may appear noble in the first mishnah, but the application of this principle to the case of rape in the very next mishnah raises profound moral questions.
m. Terumot 8:1–2, 11–12
1. If a woman [who was married to a priest] was eating terumah [the priest’s portion], and they came and said to her, “Your husband is dead,” or “He divorced you”; or if a slave was eating terumah, and they came and said to him: “Your master is dead,” or “He sold you to an Israelite,” or “He gave you away as a gift,” or “He emancipated you”; so too, if a priest was eating terumah and it became known that he was the son of a divorced woman or a ḥalitsah [a woman released from levirate marriage]: R. Eliezer says: They must repay both the value and the fifth. But R. Joshua exempts them [from the added fifth].
If [a priest] was standing and sacrificing on the altar, and it became known that he was the son of a divorced woman or a ḥalitsah: R. Eliezer says: All the sacrifices he had offered on the altar are disqualified. But R. Joshua pronounces them valid. If, however, it became known that he possessed a blemish, his service is disqualified.
2. In all the above cases, if terumah was still in their mouth: R. Eliezer says: They may swallow it. But R. Joshua says: They must spit it out. [If it was said to him], “You have become impure” or “The terumah has become impure,” R. Eliezer says: He may swallow it. But R. Joshua says: He must spit it out.
[If it was said to him], “You were impure” or “The terumah was impure,” or it became known that [the food he was eating] was untithed, or that it was the first tithe from which terumah had not yet been taken, or the second tithe or dedicated produce that had not been redeemed, or if he tasted the taste of a bug in his mouth, he must spit it out.
m. Terumot 8:11–12
11. [ . . . ] If one was passing from place to place with loaves of terumah in his hand and a gentile said to him, “Give me one of these and I will make it impure; for if not, I will defile them all,” let him defile them all and not give him deliberately one to defile; the words of R. Eliezer. But R. Joshua says: He should place one of them on a rock.
12. Similarly, if gentiles say to women, “Give us one of you that we may defile her, and if not, we will defile you all,” then let them all be defiled rather than hand over to them one soul from Israel.
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Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.
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