The Oral Law and the Eight Things That Destroy the World

His fellow came and sat opposite me; and in this one too there was Scripture but no Mishnah. And he said to me: My master, the washing of hands from the Torah — it was not said to us from Mount Sinai. I said to him: My son, we have many matters, and they are weighty, and the verse does not need to state them; therefore they were laid upon Israel, and He said, Let them set them apart in order to increase their reward. And how do you know? Know that it is so: when Israel were in the wilderness, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses (Exodus 19:10), "Go to the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments," and they taught in the Mishnah that "and sanctify them" means by immersion. We also learned the washing of hands from the Torah, from Moses and Aaron and his sons, as it is said (Exodus 30:20), "When they come into the tent of meeting, they shall wash with water." And concerning Israel what does it say (Leviticus 20:7)? "And you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy." From here Rabban Gamliel would eat ordinary food in purity, and he said to his disciples: Holiness was given not to the priests alone, but to priests and Levites and Israelites, all of them, as it is said (Leviticus 19:2), "Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel... you shall be holy." From here they said: Whoever is lax about the washing of hands — it is a bad sign for him, and of him it says (Deuteronomy 29:18-19), "And it shall be when he hears the words of this curse... the LORD will not be willing to pardon him... and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven." From this you have learned that whoever eats without washing his hands, it is as if he came upon a married woman. And he said to me: My master, slaughtering from the neck is not from the Torah. I said to him: My son, what did you see to say so — and is slaughtering itself not from the Torah, with the burnt offering and the sin offering and the guilt offering and all the sacrifices? And I said to him: My son, but in truth thus the Sages taught: One who slaughters one sign in a bird and two signs in an animal, his slaughter is valid, and the greater part of one is like all of it; and one who tears in his slaughter at all, this one is evil-eyed. Blessed is the Omnipresent, blessed is He, before whom there is no favoritism: just as the slaughterer pulls the flesh from the neck and tears it and brings it to invalidity, so they pull his money from him and give it to others, as it is said (Proverbs 28:8), "He who increases his wealth by interest and usury." And he said to me: My master, the blood of a human being is not forbidden from the Torah. I said to him: My son, what did you see to say so? He said to me: My master, because it is written, "You shall not eat upon the blood" — behold, there is no human blood here. I said to him: My son, but is it not a matter of all the more so? If the blood of beast and animal and bird, whose way it is to be eaten, their blood is forbidden, the blood of human beings, whose way it is not to be eaten, all the more so is its blood forbidden. Of him the verse says (Deuteronomy 12:23), "Only be strong not to eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh," and it says (Leviticus 17:14), "For the life of all flesh is its blood with its life"; and it says, "to the children of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood" — "the blood of any flesh you shall not eat" comes to include human blood, that it is forbidden in eating, since "the life of all flesh is its blood." And by the Temple service, even the blood of a living person that congealed and was pressed out into a vessel and set apart by itself, that it was put into one vessel, this too is forbidden in eating, as it is said "blood, blood" — in any case. And he said to me: My master, an animal from which no offering is brought, its fat is permitted. I said to him: My son, what did you see to say so? He said to me: My master, because it is written (Leviticus 7:25), "For whoever eats the fat of the animal from which one brings a fire offering to the LORD, that soul shall be cut off." I said to him: My son, see what the power of the Torah is, and all its words are understanding, and every single matter said in it was said only with wisdom, understanding, and discernment, so that a person should not say to himself, an animal from which an offering is brought, its fat is forbidden, and an animal from which no offering is brought, its fat is permitted. Therefore the verse went back and explained it in another place (Leviticus 3:17), "a perpetual statute for your generations in all your dwellings: all fat and all blood you shall not eat." "A perpetual statute for your generations" teaches you that the matter applies for the generations until the end of the world; "in all your dwellings," in the Land and outside the Land; "all fat and all blood you shall not eat" — just as blood is forbidden in eating, so fat is forbidden in eating. If so, why is it said "all fat and all blood"? Rather, to liken the commandment of both to one another, that blood is equal to fat and fat is equal to blood, and both are subject to flogging and to being cut off. Therefore it is said "all fat and all blood." And thus the Sages taught in the Mishnah: If the blood, from which a person's soul recoils, even so the one who keeps apart from it receives reward — robbery and forbidden unions, which a person's soul desires and craves, the one who keeps apart from them, all the more so, that he merits for himself and for his generations and for the generations of his generations until the end of all generations. And he said to me: My master, robbing a brother is permitted. I said to him: My son, what did you see to say so? And he said to me: My master, it was said on Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:12-13), "Honor your father and your mother... you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal" — and there is no robbing of a brother there. And I said to him: My son, is this not the first approach that I told you, that we have many matters and they are weighty, and the verse does not need to state them; therefore they were laid upon Israel, and He said, Let them set them apart in order to increase their reward? Of them the verse says (Isaiah 26:8-9), "My soul desires You in the night." But I would say, from the words of Torah they are chastised, and from the words of Torah they are healed. From here they said: By eight things the world is destroyed, and by four things the world is settled. By eight things the world is destroyed: first, over judgments; second, over idolatry; third, over forbidden unions; fourth, over the shedding of blood; fifth, over profanation of the Name; sixth, over the ugly words that a person brings out of his mouth; seventh, over arrogance of spirit; eighth, over slander; and some say, also over coveting. The earlier generations were uprooted from the world only by eight things, as it is written (Job 21:14), "And they said to God, Depart from us, and the knowledge of Your ways we do not desire," and by eight things they were uprooted from the world. And the men of the generation of the dispersion were uprooted from the world only by eight things, as it is said (Genesis 11:1), "And the whole earth was of one language," and by eight things they were uprooted from the world. And the men of Sodom were uprooted from the world only by eight things, as it is said (Genesis 13:13), "And the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the LORD," and by eight things they were uprooted from the world. Pharaoh was uprooted from the world only by eight things, as it is said (Exodus 5:2), "And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD that I should heed His voice?" and by eight things he was uprooted from the world. Sennacherib was uprooted from the world only by eight things, as it is said (2 Kings 18:35), "Who among all the gods of the lands... that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?" and by eight things he was uprooted from the world. Nebuchadnezzar was uprooted from the world only by eight things, as it is said (Isaiah 14:13), "And you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven," and by eight things he was uprooted from the world. And by four things the world is settled: by charity, by judgment, by truth, and by peace. And he said to me: My master, an incident in which I sold to a certain gentile four kor of dates and measured out for him in a dark room, half by half, and he said to me, God is in heaven, and you know by what measure you are measuring out for me. And because I measured out for him in a dark room, I shortchanged him three seah of dates; and afterward I took the money and bought with it one jar of oil and placed it in the place where I had sold the dates to the gentile, and the jar split and the oil spilled and was gone. I said to him: My son, it is written (Leviticus 19:13), "You shall not oppress your fellow and you shall not rob him"; your fellow is like your brother, and your brother is like your fellow. From this you have learned that robbing a gentile is forbidden, for it is robbery; and there is no need to speak of robbing a brother. And because the Holy One, blessed be He, saw human beings oppressing and robbing and plundering one another, He went back and explained it through tradition by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 18:18), "His father, because he cruelly oppressed, robbed his brother by robbery, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he died in his iniquity." And he said to me: My master, a daughter or a granddaughter — which is more stringent? I said to him: My son, just as a daughter is a forbidden relation, so a granddaughter is also a forbidden relation; just as a daughter is, so a granddaughter is. And he said to me: My master, is it not written in the Torah (Leviticus 18:10), "The nakedness of your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter you shall not uncover"? I said to him: My son, is it not a matter of all the more so? If his son's daughter and his daughter's daughter are forbidden to him, his daughter, all the more so. And what does the verse teach by "the nakedness of a woman and her daughter you shall not uncover" (Leviticus 18:17)? Whether a woman and her daughter of his own, or a woman and her daughter from elsewhere. And he said to me: My master, a man with a discharge or a menstruant woman — which is more stringent? I said to him: My son, the menstruant is more stringent than the man with a discharge. And he said to me: My master, but did we not learn immersion for the menstruant only from the man with a discharge? I said to him: My son, is it not a matter of all the more so? If the man with a discharge, who does not bear offspring, conveys eleven impurities and requires the seven washings and immersions of the Torah, the menstruant, who bears offspring, all the more so does she convey eleven impurities and require the seven washings and immersions of the Torah. From this we have learned: whoever says to his wife and his daughters and the members of his household when they are in their menstrual state, You are permitted to touch all the vessels, do as you wish to do — because there is no immersion for the menstruant from the Torah — sees no satisfaction of spirit in the world.