Study Yevamot folio 45B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
מנו — רב יהודה. והא אמר רב יהודה: מי שחציו עבד וחציו בן חורין הבא על בת ישראל — אותו ולד אין לו תקנה!
who is he? He is Rav Yehuda, as the Talmud cited above. But didn’t Rav Yehuda himself say: With regard to one who is a half-slave half-freeman who had sex with a Jewish woman, that offspring of that union has no recourse to be able to marry? It is apparent, then, that even one who permits the offspring of a slave to marry into the congregation of Israel does not permit the offspring of a half-slave to do so, contrary to Rava’s assertion.
כי איתמר דרב יהודה, כגון דקדיש בת ישראל, דנמצא צד עבדות שבו משתמש באשת איש.
The Talmud resolves the difficulty: When this ruling of Rav Yehuda was stated, it was referring to a case where the half-slave betrothed a Jewish woman. Since a slave’s betrothal does not take effect, the result of that betrothal is that the woman is married to only the free half of the half-slave half-freeman, such that it emerges that when he has sex with her, the slave side of him is having sex with a married woman to whom that side of him is not married, and so the offspring of that union is a mamzer.
והאמרי נהרדעי משמיה דרבי יעקב: לדברי הפוסל — פוסל אפילו בפנויה, לדברי המכשיר — מכשיר אפילו באשת איש.
The Talmud raises an objection: But didn’t the rabbis of Neharde’a say in the name of R' Ya’akov: According to the statement of the one who renders the child of a non-Jew or slave and a Jewish woman unfit to marry into the congregation of Israel, he renders the child unfit even when the mother is an unmarried woman. And according to the statement of the one who renders the child fit, he renders the child fit even when the mother is a married woman.