Yuma Mask

asked 5 months ago

Hello Rabbi Michi!
A long time ago I studied Tractate Yuma.
I studied 2 chapters and came to the conclusion that only the eighth chapter is relevant.
I’m not interested in the work of the High Priest and other theoretical topics. Am I missing something?

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מיכי Staff answered 5 months ago

It depends on what you mean by the word “relevant.” Does it concern the fact? Does it teach me important things? Is it of value in terms of Torah study? You are only right about the first question, and even that is only superficial. Halacha refines ways of thinking and evidence and analogies from issues that can be hypothetical and very far from the subject at hand. Therefore, issues in the Yom Kippur Act can certainly have implications for practical halachic questions. In this regard, there is even a very well-known example (and there are many others), in the Osh that rules that a sick person who eats on a Yom Kippur Act does not perform kiddush, and his view is that the Rambam in the Osh Act wrote that on a Yom Kippur Act that falls on Shabbat, even the Shabbat adders are brought near by the High Priest. Of course, the issue on Yom Kippur Act 13 with the wives of the priest also has many halachic and scholarly implications.

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השואלת! replied 5 months ago

By relevant, I mean it concerns the practical law. There is no Temple and I am not a priestess, so I don't know what difference it makes that a week before Kippur another woman is brought to the High Priest. For me, practical law concerns that it is forbidden to eat, drink, and wear perfume. Of course, I won't skip it completely, I'm only skipping over legends (I didn't see any supreme wisdom in the fact that a disciple of Rabbi Chiya came to a Gentile woman and had a tzitzit and then they somehow got married because of it and she converted - Menachot 40). If you have any arguments that concern something that I missed or where it is really worth emphasizing (because from what I've seen, at least the Rif and Rosh only commented on the Pach)
Thank you for your time.

מיכי Staff replied 5 months ago

I answered that. What are you asking now? I explained that there is value in studying Torah even if it is not practical. And I explained that studying every issue is practical. You want criteria for what? There are no criteria. You have to study everything.