Q&A: “Why do I need both?” — Clarifying the Question
“Why do I need both?” — Clarifying the Question
Question
Hello.
The Talmud asks, “Why do I need both?” when an amora states the same thing twice. For example, in Kiddushin 75a: “A certain one with a certain one — permitted (but a certain one with one of doubtful status, one of doubtful status with a certain one, and one of doubtful status with another of doubtful status — prohibited). Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: the Jewish law follows Rabbi Eliezer” and “A betrothed woman who became pregnant… — Rav said: the child is of silenced status”—the Talmud asks, “Why do I need both?” since in essence this is one ruling: that someone of doubtful mamzer status is prohibited to a definite mamzer. My question is: what exactly is the point of this difficulty? After all, Rav (and any other amora) presumably gave many general lectures in his lifetime, many study sessions, and presumably repeated his ruling—that what is definite is prohibited to what is doubtful—in all kinds of forms and variations, just as we see rabbis and halakhic decisors repeating their rulings in different words many times, whether in the framework of lectures they give or answers they give to questioners. Why is there room to wonder why an amora said the same thing in different words twice? Presumably he said the same thing dozens of times!
Answer
They do not ask “Why do I need both?” in ordinary Talmudic passages. It is asked only about dicta that are transmitted in their fixed wording, meaning they are part of some canon. And about that they ask: why include in the canon two dicta with the same message? And even when an amora says something as an explanation of such a dictum, that raises the question about the dictum itself. If this is its meaning, why is it needed?
Discussion on Answer
Either about them, or about other collections that existed then (like Toseftas and baraitas in tannaitic literature), or collections that existed already in the era when everything was still oral. Some of them were written down (this is probably the “secret scroll” mentioned in the Talmud).
If so, then this is really a question about the editors of the Talmud themselves—why they included in the canon two dicta with the same meaning?