Q&A: A Question in Tractate Niddah
A Question in Tractate Niddah
Question
In tractate Niddah, at the end of the sixth chapter, there is the final Mishnah with complicated calculations about niddah, and Rabbi Yehoshua says, “Before you correct the foolish women, correct the competent ones.” From the commentary on the Mishnah it sounds like he is arguing: why busy yourselves and “waste” a Mishnah on rare cases? Discuss common cases instead. But I couldn’t understand his point—after all, isn’t the Mishnah supposed to cover all types of cases?
Answer
The medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagreed here:
According to Maimonides, this is dealing with remote and complicated possibilities, and therefore Rabbi Yehoshua says that it is preferable first to clarify the principles. There is no point in dealing with applications that contain nothing essential beyond the calculation itself. One deals with remote cases only if they contain some substantive novelty, and not merely for the sake of the intellectual/calculational challenge.
According to Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura and other medieval authorities, this is about correcting those who are right before those who err. That seems like just a pedagogical rule. Those who err will not know this Mishnah either, so why deal with it?
And more generally, it seems to me that not all the sages of the Talmud accepted that one should deal with remote cases. I discussed this at length in Book 11 of the Talmudic Logic series. For example, Rabbi Yirmiyah was rebuked for overly clever questions about remote cases.