Yoma 75B

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Text Excerpt

לחם ששאלו כהוגן ⁠— ניתן להם כהוגן. מכאן למדה תורה דרך ארץ שלא יאכל אדם בשר אלא בלילה. והאמר אביי: האי מאן דאית ליה סעודתא ⁠— לא לאכליה אלא ביממא! כעין יממא קא אמרינן. אמר רב אחא בר יעקב: בתחלה היו ישראל דומין כתרנגולים שמנקרין באשפה, עד שבא משה וקבע להם זמן סעודה.

However, bread, which is essential, they asked for appropriately. Therefore, it was given to them appropriately, in the morning, when there was time to prepare it. The Talmud comments: From here, the Torah teaches etiquette, that it is proper to eat meat only at night, as Moses said to the children of Israel: “This should be, when YHWH will give you in the evening meat to eat” (Exodus 16:8). The Talmud asks: But didn’t Abaye say that someone who has a meal should eat it only in the day? The Talmud answers: We mean to say: Like day. It is not necessary to eat the food in the daytime, as long as one can see what he eats. R' Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: At the beginning, the Jewish people were like chickens pecking at the garbage; any time there was food they grabbed it and ate it, until Moses came and set specific times to eat, as the verse implies. He set mealtimes for them in the morning and in the evening.

״הבשר עודנו בין שיניהם״, וכתיב: ״עד חדש ימים״, הא כיצד? בינונים, לאלתר מתו. רשעים, מצטערין והולכין עד חדש ימים.

It was stated with regard to the quail: “While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of YHWH was kindled against the people” (Numbers 11:33), which means that they died immediately. However, it also states: “You should not eat it for only one day…but for an entire month until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you” (Numbers 11:19–20). How can these texts be reconciled? The average people died immediately, but the wicked continued to suffer in pain for a month and then died.

Text data via Sefaria: William Davidson Edition - English and William Davidson Edition - Vocalized Aramaic, CC-BY-NC; edition provenance: Koren. Display terminology has been modernized for readability.