Study Nazir folio 50A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
אמר רבי יוסי: יאמרו מאיר שכב, יהודה כעס, יוסי שתק — תורה מה תהא עליה? אמר רבי יוסי: לא נצרכה אלא למת שאין עליו כזית בשר. ועדיין יאמר: על אבר ממנו מגלח, על כולו לא כל שכן?!
R' Yosei said: Now they will say: Meir is dead, Yehuda is angry, and Yosei remained silent and did not respond. If so, what will become of the Torah? R' Yosei therefore said: It is not necessary to teach that a nazirite must shave for impurity imparted by a corpse, but only that he must shave even for impurity imparted by a corpse upon which there is not an olive-bulk of flesh. The Talmud asks: But one could still say: If he must shave for impurity imparted by a limb from a corpse, even if it is less than an olive-bulk, as stated in the Mishnah, is it not all the more so that he must shave for impurity imparted by all of a corpse, even if it does not contain an olive-bulk of flesh?
אלא, כדאמר רבי יוחנן: לא נצרכה אלא לנפל שלא נתקשרו אבריו בגידין. הכא נמי: בנפל שלא נתקשרו אבריו בגידין.
Rather, the Mishnah should be explained as R' Yoḥanan said, with regard to a different issue: It is necessary only for a miscarried fetus whose limbs had not yet become joined to its sinews. Here too, one can say that the Mishnah’s statement that a nazirite must shave for impurity imparted by a corpse is referring to a miscarried fetus whose limbs had not yet become joined to its sinews. Although it does not impart impurity through one of its limbs, as the limbs lack sinews and bones, this corpse itself does impart impurity.
רבא אמר: לא נצרכה אלא לרוב בניינו ולרוב מניינו, שאין בהן רובע עצמות.
Rava said a different explanation: This ruling is necessary only for the majority of the structure or the majority of the number of bones of a very small corpse, despite the fact that together they do not contain 1/4th-kav of bones. Since these bones comprise the majority of the structure or the majority of the number of bones of a corpse, they have the status of a whole body. This halakha could not have been derived from the measure of impurity of part of the body, as this corpse is very small.