Rava vs. Rava - Visible Change is Material

Bava Kamma 101

In yesterday’s daf (Bava Kamma 101), consider the following. In trying to show that chazuta mileta, appearance has significance (or perhaps, in this case, physicality), a proof via ta shema is brought from Orlah 3:1, where dyeing is also encompassed in the prohibition. To this (seemingly), Rava says:

אָמַר רָבָא: הֲנָאָה הַנִּרְאֶה לָעֵינַיִם אָסְרָה תּוֹרָה – דְּתַנְיָא: ״עֲרֵלִים לֹא יֵאָכֵל״ – אֵין לִי אֶלָּא אִיסּוּר אֲכִילָה; מִנַּיִן שֶׁלֹּא יֵהָנֶה מִמֶּנּוּ, וְלֹא יִצְבַּע [בּוֹ], וְלֹא יַדְלִיק בּוֹ אֶת הַנֵּר?

The Gemara rejects this resolution. Rava said: The reason the garment must be burned is not because the dye remains an independent substance. Rather, it is because the Torah prohibited benefit that is visible to the eye, as it is taught in a baraita: The verse states: “And shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then you shall count the fruit thereof as forbidden; three years shall it be as forbidden [areilim] to you; it shall not be eaten” (Leviticus 19:23). From this verse I have derived only a prohibition against eating it; from where is it derived that one may not even derive benefit from it, and that one may not dye with dyes extracted from the fruit, and that one may not light a lamp with oil extracted from the fruit?

תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״וַעֲרַלְתֶּם עׇרְלָתוֹ אֶת פִּרְיוֹ״, ״עֲרֵלִים לֹא יֵאָכֵל״ – לְרַבּוֹת אֶת כּוּלָּם.

So, in context, Rava is rejecting a proof from that Mishnah that chazuta mileta. Yet, a moment later, on the next amud, Rava understands that Mishnah as indeed being evidence that chazuta mileta. Thus:

רָבָא רָמֵי, תְּנַן: בֶּגֶד שֶׁצְּבָעוֹ בִּקְלִיפֵּי עׇרְלָה – יִדָּלֵק; אַלְמָא חֲזוּתָא מִילְּתָא הִיא. וּרְמִינְהִי: רְבִיעִית דָּם שֶׁנִּבְלְעָה בַּבַּיִת – הַבַּיִת טָמֵא. וְאָמְרִי לַהּ: הַבַּיִת טָהוֹר. וְלָא פְּלִיגִי, הָא בְּכֵלִים דַּהֲווֹ מֵעִיקָּרָא, הָא בְּכֵלִים דַּאֲתוֹ לְבַסּוֹף.

The Gemara states that Rava raises a contradiction: We learned in a mishna (Orla 3:1): A garment that one dyed with dye extracted from peels of orla must be burned. Apparently, the change in appearance precipitated by the orla peels is considered a significant matter, and the dye retains its status as orla. And raise a contradiction from another mishna (Oholot 3:2)….

And then Rav Kahanah, presumably Rava’s student, provides an answer. But, how could the same Rava first reject that explanation of the Mishnah and then see the Mishnah as proving that very point?

To this, Tosafot at the top of the second amud weigh in:

רבא רמי תנן בגד שצבעו בקליפי ערלה כו'. תימה דהא רבא שני לעיל שאני ערלה דכתיב קראי ומהתם לא ילפינן ואם כן מאי פריך מערלה אטומאה ונראה כספרים דגר' לעיל רבה ואי גרס רבא יש לומר דדיחוי הוא:

They point out that there exist sefarim that have רבה instead of רבא above, so that there is no contradiction. And alternatively, keep both as Rava, but above, it was a mere flimsy push-off, that you cannot prove it.

I don’t know. It seemed more than a flimsy push-off. It was a claim that this was a gezeirat hakatuv, with an explicit derasha found in a brayta. Though admittedly with a strangeness that we didn’t say that this was then a binyan av establishing the status of chazuta in all contexts.

Hachi Garsinan doesn’t have all manuscripts, and if Tosafot speak of existing manuscripts with this reading, they exist somewhere. Although they might have come about in the first place as a conjectural emendation.

At Hachi Garsinan, the printings, and Hamburg 165 and Munich 95 have Rava in both places.

The same for Escorial, and Vatican 116 and Bar Ilan 170.

(Regarding that extra Rava on the middle line, it is a spurious repetition of the preceding section, rather than Rava answering the attempted Sheviit proof.

Finally, an Oxford manuscript spells it ראבה, but does so in both occurrences. So I can’t point you to an example of Tosafot’s variant Talmudic texts.

I have an inkling that it is correct to have Rava in both places, and that the Talmudic Narrator massaged an earlier sugya to produce what we have here. If so, Rava may be consistent.

To spell the idea out a little more clearly, see what Tosafot quote Rava saying in the first statement: תימה דהא רבא שני לעיל שאני ערלה דכתיב קראי ומהתם לא ילפינן. It is strange, for it was Rava who taught above that sha’ani orlah, Orlah is different. But of course, Rava doesn’t use those words. I don’t know if Tosafot is quoting a variant text, or more likely, just rewording the idea. Why reword it this way? Well, for the attempted proof from Sheviit, it said שָׁאנֵי הָתָם, דְּאָמַר קְרָא: ״תִּהְיֶה״ – בַּהֲוָיָתָהּ תְּהֵא, which is quite similar.

So Rava doesn’t exactly say sha’ani hatam. Further — and I’ll talk about this be’ezrat Hashem in a different post, there’s a lot of Stammaitic reframing in this sugya. It began with an אִיבַּעְיָא לְהוּ, which in this case was a question posed among Amoraim, with an Amora weighing in — Rava. But before we got to the resolution, the Stamma questioned the premise of the question multiple times. (Though note that in the end of the reframing, Ravina I or II weighed in about the monkey.) Here as well, within Rava, this could be Stammaic hand-holding.

If so, let us just read the ibaya lehu, with the question of whether there is shevach of the dye on the wool. And Rava weighs in to say yes, because chazuta mileta, as we see from this brayta, a direct derasha from a pasuk showing that impact of dyeing is forbidden. Rava would then be consistent with the Mishnah he cites next, that chazuta mileta. And cites that because he can oppose the Mishnah in Orlah 3:1 with the immediately following Mishnah, Orlah 3:2.

However, since the Stamma is bringing these two instances of ta shema and then rejecting them, that Stamma repurposes the Amoraic material, to show that it is not a definitive proof. Because of this, he inadvertently causes an internal contradiction within Rava.

For more reading about Rava / Rabba switches, here’s an article summary (and article) about where the gemara is uncertain about whether Rava or Rav Pappa said something, and how Tosafot discuss that it (similarly) means that some statements were said by Rava and others by Rabba.