Eruvin 4B

״תאנה״: כגרוגרת להוצאת שבת.

Fig alludes to the measure of a dried fig-bulk with regard to the halakhot of carrying out on Shabbat. One is liable for carrying food fit for human consumption on Shabbat, provided that he carries a dried fig-bulk of that food.

״רמון״, כדתנן: כל כלי בעלי בתים שיעורן כרימונים.

Pomegranate teaches the measure, as that which we learned in a Mishnah: All ritually impure wooden vessels belonging to ordinary homeowners become pure through being broken, as broken vessels cannot contract or maintain ritual impurity, and they are considered broken if they have holes the size of pomegranates.

״ארץ זית שמן (ודבש)״: ארץ שכל שיעוריה כזיתים. כל שיעוריה סלקא דעתך?! והאיכא הני דאמרן! אלא אימא: ארץ שרוב שיעוריה כזיתים.

The rabbis interpreted: A land of olive oil and honey, as: A land, all of whose measures are olive-bulks. The Talmud poses a question: Does it enter your mind that it is a land all of whose measures are olives-bulks? Yet aren’t there those measures that we just mentioned above, which are not olive-bulks? Rather, say: A land, most of whose measures are olive-bulks, as most measures, e.g., those relating to forbidden foods and to impurity imparted by a corpse in a tent and by contact with an animal carcass, are olive-bulks.

״דבש״, ככותבת הגסה ליום הכיפורים.

Honey, i.e., dates from which date honey is extracted, also determines a measure, as with regard to eating on Yom Kippur, one is liable only if he eats a large date-bulk of food. Clearly, the measurements pertaining to mitzvot are explicitly written in the Torah and were not transmitted to Moses from Sinai.

ותיסברא שיעורין מיכתב כתיבי? אלא הלכתא נינהו, ואסמכינהו רבנן אקראי.

The Talmud refutes this argument: And can you hold that all these measures are explicitly written in the Torah with regard to each of the halakhot mentioned above? Rather, they are halakhot that were transmitted to Moses from Sinai, and the rabbis based them on verses in the Torah.