Q&A: Regarding the Rabbi’s Article on Okimtot
Regarding the Rabbi’s Article on Okimtot
Question
Hello Rabbi,
The Talmud says in Bava Metzia 92a:
“Come and hear: ‘If a nazirite said, Give it to my wife and children, we do not listen to him.’ But if you say that he eats from his own, why do we not listen to him? There, it is because people say to a nazirite: Go around, go around; do not come near the vineyard. Come and hear: If a laborer said, Give it to my wife and children, we do not listen to him. But if you say that he eats from his own, why do we not listen to him? What is meant by laborer? A nazirite laborer. But wasn’t it taught in a baraita: a nazirite; and wasn’t it taught in a baraita: a laborer? Were they taught alongside one another?”
At first glance it seems that by this the Talmud establishes the second baraita as dealing with a nazirite, and in doing so it changes the entire novelty of the baraita: according to this okimta, the baraita meant to teach a special penalty regarding a laborer who is a nazirite, which has no connection at all to an ordinary laborer. So it is explicitly making an okimta in which the main point of the baraita is embedded. How does this fit with the Rabbi’s explanation regarding the phenomenon of okimtot? Perhaps one could say that there are places where okimtot are really an assumption of an error in the text version?
P.S. In a way quite the opposite of what the Magen Avraham says, which the Rabbi likes to quote, may I use things the Rabbi said without mentioning their source if I am concerned that mentioning the Rabbi’s name will cause the listeners not to accept the ideas?
Answer
Here, on the contrary, it actually implies that it really is speaking about a nazirite laborer. After all, in the first citation, where they are discussing a nazirite, it is clear that this is a nazirite who was a laborer. Therefore, even when they speak about a laborer, they explain that it means a nazirite laborer. By the way, the Talmud itself says this when it compares the sources. That implies that this is not an okimta but an interpretation, more like a textual version reading (I do not think this is an error in the textual version, but rather an interpretation).
There is no problem at all.
That addition — “And since it taught it in the language of a laborer, it brought the verse of a laborer” — proves that this is not a regular okimta. In a regular okimta they do not add a sentence like that. So from here, on the contrary, my point is actually proven: in a regular okimta, this is not interpretation or a textual version, but what I explained.