Study Ketubot folio 28B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
אפוטרופוס, או שהניח תפילין בפני רבו, או שקרא שלשה פסוקים בבית הכנסת — הרי זה לא יצא לחירות. התם דאיקרי עבד מדעתו. כי קאמרינן — דקא נהיג ביה מנהג בנים.
steward over his property, or who donned tefillin in his master’s presence, or who read 3 verses from the Torah scroll in the synagogue, did not necessarily emerge to freedom. Apparently, there are slaves who learn Torah to the extent that they are capable of reading the Torah in the synagogue, and conceivably that Torah is learned in school. The Talmud answers that there is no proof from the baraita, as there it is a case where the slave read at his own initiative, and conceivably he taught himself to read the Torah as well. When we say in the Mishnah that it is proof that he is a priest, it is in a case where he treats him with treatment typical of children, not slaves, and sends him to school.
לטבול לאכול בתרומה. בתרומה דרבנן. ושהיה חולק עמנו על הגורן. ודלמא עבד כהן הוא? תנן כמאן דאמר אין חולקין תרומה לעבד אלא אם כן רבו עמו. דתניא: אין חולקין תרומה לעבד אלא אם כן רבו עמו, דברי רבי יהודה. רבי יוסי אומר: יכול הוא שיאמר: אם כהן אני — תנו לי בשביל עצמי, ואם עבד כהן אני — תנו לי בשביל רבי.
When the Mishnah states that he is deemed credible to testify that as a minor he saw that others went to immerse in order to partake of teruma, the rabbis permit them only to partake of teruma by rabbinic law. And the Mishnah states that he is deemed credible to say that they saw that so-and-so would share teruma with us at the threshing floor, and therefore he is a priest. The Talmud asks: And perhaps he is the slave of a priest? The Talmud answers: We learned the Mishnah according to the one who says: One distributes teruma to a slave only if his master is with him. Therefore, it is clear that the one sharing teruma with them was a priest, not a slave, as it is taught in a baraita: In the case of the son of a priest’s wife and the son of a priest’s female slave who were intermingled at birth, both mothers go to the threshing floor together based on the principle: One distributes teruma to a slave only if his master is with him; this is the statement of R' Yehuda. R' Yosei says: It is possible that each will say: If I am a priest, give me teruma for my own sake, and if I am the slave of a priest, give me teruma for the sake of my master.