Today’s daf TB Pesakhim 27 continues to discuss issues surrounding deriving benefit from something that is prohibited. The Mishnah teaches that one is forbidden to use the hametz (from the beginning of the sixth hour) as fuel to light one’s oven. The Gemara analyzes this law through the lens focusing on other forbidden objects in which deriving benefit is also forbidden.
“It was taught in the mishna that one may not even light the oven with leavened bread. The Sages taught in a baraita: With regard to an oven that one lit with the peels of orla fruit[1], or with straw of grain that was planted in a prohibited mixture of diverse kinds in a vineyard, if it was a new oven, and by lighting it he hardened the oven and made it stronger for use in the future, then it must be shattered. Since prohibited items were used in the process of forming the oven, one may not derive benefit from the use of the prohibited items. However, if it was an old oven, it may be cooled, and it is prohibited to use the oven only while it is still hot.
“With regard to one who baked bread in the oven while it was heated or strengthened by the prohibited items, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says: It is prohibited to eat or derive benefit from the bread, since prohibited items were involved in the process of preparation. And the Rabbis say: It is permitted to eat and derive benefit from the bread. If he cooked the bread over the coals that remained from prohibited wood, everyone agrees that it is permitted.” (TB Pesakhim 26b)
Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and the Rabbis each applied a different halakhic principal concerning the permissibility of the bread. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi holds that the prohibition of deriving benefit from orla or straw planted in a prohibited mixture of diverse kinds in a vineyard enters directly into the bread or in the words of the Gemara “There is improvement from the wood in the bread- יֵשׁ שֶׁבַח עֵצִים בְּפַת” (Sefaria.org translation)
The Rabbis holds the principle when there are two catalysts, one forbidden and one permitted, the outcome is permitted or in the words of the Gemara “both this and that cause, it is permitted, it is permitted to derive benefit from both of them- זֶה וָזֶה גּוֹרֵם מוּתָּר.” (Sefaria.org translation) In our case the old oven that had that forbidden wood burned in it made the oven a forbidden utensil, one of the two catalysts. When new permitted fuel was used to bake the bread, the rabbis apply the rule זֶה וָזֶה גּוֹרֵם מוּתָּר. I have to admit that Rabbi Eliezer holds the opposing view that “both this and that cause, it is prohibited- זֶה וָזֶה גּוֹרֵם אָסוּר.
Usually we follow the majority position and
not Rabbi Yehuda’s minority position, but in today’s case we follow Rabbi
Yehuda HaNasi’s opinion. Bread that is baked over Asherah [2] wood is forbidden.
If that loaf of bread becomes accidentally mixed with other loaves of bread,
one takes the monetary value of that bread and destroys it (the Gemara uses the
metaphor of throwing the money into the Dead Sea) and the loaves of bread
becomes permitted to be eaten. See Shulkhan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah, 142:4)
[1]
Orla is fruit produced during the first three years of a trees life and is
forbidden.
[2] An Asherah pole is a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honor the Ugaritic mother goddess Asherah, consort of El.[1] The relation of the literary references to
an asherah and archaeological finds of Judaean
pillar-figurines has engendered a literature of debate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah_pole
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