Review of Tuesday night - Shiur for Wednesday unfortunately cancelled

As I’ve written, due to difficult travel conditions and a trip to Canada, the shiur I had hoped to give (even early!) this afternoon – will not take place.

To whatever extent I can minimize the lag between Tuesday’s class and next Monday’s shiur, here is a short summary of yesterday’s shiur:

We reviewed the interplay between Rav Yehuda/Rav and R. Chiya – on the one hand – and Tanna Kamma and R. Yochanan Ben Nuri on the other hand.

Here is the chart we saw last night:

Views from bottom of ג:	ג' לוגין מים + קורטוב יין		ג' לוגין מים חסר  קורטוב + קורטוב יין	Tanna of mishna
Rav Yehuda/Rav	Mikvah is Kosher		Everything goes according to the appearance (Rashi: Even if there were 3 full לוגין and then the wine dropped in) He paskens like RY/Rav	R. Yochanan Ben Nuri
Baraita of R. Chiya	Mikvah is Psula הורידו את המקוה		Mikva is Kosher (Rashi: Tanna Kamma of this mishna is only lenient, not invalidating the mikvah, in the case where the 3 lugin of water was not complete prior to the wine dropping in.   Therefore, the mikvah is kosher.)  However, were this same TK to be presented with a case like that of R. Yehuda/Rav/R. Chiyah’s baraita, he would rule like R. Chiya, who said הורידו את המקוה	Tanna Kamma

As I said in shiur, the goal of the Gemara is to validate the view of Rav Yehuda/Rav as being based on a legitimate Tannaitic view.  After all, R. Chiyah quoted a baraita

תני רבי חייא – and if Rav Yehuda/Rav is going to survive the attack questions of R. Kahana, he must provide Tannaitic back-up.

Make sure you know the chart above before you go to the next step.

The Gemara then asks the following question:

הא מיבעיא בעי לה רב פפא

But Rav Pappa had a question (Rashi: the Gemara’s goal is to question the limiting of Rav Yehuda/Rav’s view to that of R. Yochanan Ben Nuri, to the exclusion of Tanna Kamma of that mishna.  The Gemara wants to establish that Rav is also consistent with the view of Tanna Kamma/Rabbanan of that mishna)

דבעי רב פפא:

As R. Pappa asked:

רב תני חסר קורטוב ברישא, אבל שלשה לוגין לתנא קמא פסלי, ואתא ר' יוחנן למימר: הכל הולך אחר המראה, ורב אומר כר' יוחנן בן נורי;

(This first approach is exactly the way we’d explained Rav until now, that he lines up with R. Yochanan Ben Nuri, and R. Chiyah with Tanna Kamma) Did Rav have the text of “less a Kortov” in the opening case of the mishna, ie the wine case, but in the case of a full 3 lugin, Tanna Kamma would say the mikvah is psula – and R. Yochanan comes to say “everything goes according to the appearance” (thereby maintaining that even when there are 3 full lugin, and then the kortov drops in the mikvah is kosher)?  And Rav goes according to this view of RYBN?  (WE’LL CALL THIS APPROACH #1)

או דלמא רב לא תני חסר קורטוב ברישא,

Or perhaps, Rav does not have the edition of “less a Kortov” in the first case of the mishna (instead, it’s a full 3 lugin of water before the wine falls in  - and nevertheless the TK says the mikvah is kosher)

ור' יוחנן בן נורי כי פליג - אסיפא הוא דפליג, ורב דאמר כדברי הכל?

And when R. Yochanan Ben Nuri disagrees, he disagrees with the ruling of TK on the case of the milk. (In the milk case, the situation is “less a kortov” and TK says the mikvah is kosher because there are not 3 full lugin of water, and RYBN disagrees, using his principle of “everything goes according to the appearance”) – and Rav says what he says (regarding the 3 full lugin + wine = kosher mikvah) according to everyone – ie both RYBN and TK! (because both agree with this ruling)

It is this last point that completes the flow of this stage of the Gemara: Rav Pappa entertained the possibility that Rav could be ruling like both TK and RYBN – so why was he artificially linked only to RYBN??