The Lived Mishnah·A Zeman Nakat Project
Tisha B'Av Series
Mishnah 25 of 41
אִם אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלָיִם
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NezikinSederסדרנְזִיקִין
EduyosMasechtaמסכתעדיות
8Perekפרקח׳
4Mishnahמשנהד׳
נושא · Topicשָׁלֹשׁ עֵדֻיּוֹת שֶׁל רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בֶּן יוֹעֶזֶר אִישׁ צְרֵדָהThe three testimonies of Rabbi Yossi ben Yoezer of Tzereida
Mishnah עדיות ח׳:ד׳ · Eduyos 8:4
הֵעִיד רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בֶּן יוֹעֶזֶר, אִישׁ צְרֵדָה,
עַל אַיִל קַמְצָא, דָּכָן.
וְעַל מַשְׁקֵה בֵית מִטְבְּחַיָּא, דְּאִינּוּן דַּכְיָן.
וּדְיִקְרַב בְּמִיתָא, מִסְתָּאָב.
וְקָרוּ לֵיהּ, יוֹסֵי שָׁרְיָא.
Testified Rabbi Yossi ben Yoezer, of Tzereida:
on the ayil kamtza [a kind of locust], that it is permitted to eat;
and on the liquids of the slaughter-area, that they are tahor;
and that one who touches a corpse, is rendered tamei.
And they called him, "Yossi the Permitter."
case/objectpermissive rulingrestrictive rulingTanna
Transcript
Summary Chart
The three testimonies of Rabbi Yossi ben Yoezer of Tzereida▾
CaseRulingReason
May one eat the ayil katza (a locust)?Rabbi Yossi ben Yoezer: Permitted—
Are the slaughter-area liquids tahor?Rabbi Yossi ben Yoezer: Tahor—
Does one who touches a corpse become tamei?Rabbi Yossi ben Yoezer: Tamei—
All Meforshim
Mishnah Insights
Three leniencies from the first of the Zugos▾
עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב
R' Yosi ben Yoezer ish Tzereidah · Zugos (earliest pair) — רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בֶּן יוֹעֶזֶר אִישׁ צְרֵדָה

R' Yosi ben Yoezer of Tzereidah stood at the very start of the Zugos — the paired leaders of the Sanhedrin (Avos 1; Chagigah 2:2): the Nasi who led the people, alongside the Av Beis Din who headed the courts. He was the Nasi of the earliest pair, a kohein called chasid she'b'kehunah (Chagigah 2:7). He died a martyr: led to execution by the Hellenizers, he was taunted on the way by his own nephew, Yakum ish Tzerorot, a Hellenizer himself. Yosi's few quiet words broke him — Yakum turned in remorse and took his own life in teshuvah, and Yosi said he saw Yakum enter Gan Eden before him (Bereishis Rabbah 65:22). A life and a death that both taught.

A mishnah in Aramaic

This is one of the rare mishnayos recorded in Aramaic. The Hon Ashir explains why: Yosi ben Yoezer's rulings reversed practices the people already kept as forbidden, so they had to be published in the spoken vernacular — Aramaic — that everyone would understand, not the Hebrew of the beis midrash.

עוֹלָמוֹ שֶׁל הַמִּשְׁנָה
The Mikdash floor awash with blood

The middle testimony — mashke beis mitbachaya tahor — answers a structural reality. During the avodah, above all on erev Pesach, the floor of the Azarah ran with the blood of the slaughtered korbanos. The Bavli (Pesachim 65b): shevach hu li'vnei Aharon she'yelchu ad arkuvoseihem ba'dam — it is praise for the sons of Aharon to walk ankle-deep in blood. The Yerushalmi (Pesachim 5:8) describes mistavyos, stone columns set across the floor so the kohanim could walk above the blood. Had the slaughter-area liquids not been ruled tahor, every kohein would have become tamei the moment he entered. The ruling is not abstract leniency — it is the accommodation without which the service was physically impossible. The blood-water was later channeled through the amah to Nachal Kidron and sold to gardeners as fertilizer (Yoma 5:6).

Why the Mikdash liquids stay tahor

Why are the blood and water of the slaughtering area pure? Three readings: (a) liquids never contract tumah by Torah law — only rabbinically — and in the Mikdash the Sages did not impose it; (b) the liquids can contract tumah but cannot transmit it to anything else; (c) the Rambam — liquids fully contract and transmit, but a halacha l'Moshe mi'Sinai exempts the Mikdash's korban-liquids. With blood and water flowing everywhere, the rule kept tumah from cascading through the avodah.

Safek tumah in the public domain — and “Yose the permitter”

The third testimony's force is in the doubtful case: certain contact with a corpse defiles, but a doubt about contact in the public domain stays tahor — safek tumah b'reshus harabim — even for corpse-tumah, the gravest kind, where one might have expected stringency. This is the ruling that earned him his name. They called him Yosi Sharya, ‘Yosi the permitter,’ because he permitted three things the people had practiced as forbidden. The Bartenura draws the rule out a step further: any beis din that permits three things whose heter is not obvious is called a bei dina sharya, a permitting court — because ruling something permitted, against settled practice, takes more rigorous reasoning than forbidding it. The title is earned by the harder work.

Series Insights
Series context▾
← Previous
Yoma 3:3
Tevilah and kiddush yadayim before the avodah
Mishnah 25 of 41
Eduyos 8:4
Purity in the Mikdash
Next →
Kelim 15:6
Ezra's master Sefer Torah exempt from tumas seforim

Where this sits: purity in the Mikdash

This series surveys how the purity laws ran in the Beis HaMikdash — stringent in some ways (even one already tahor needed a second tevillah just to enter the Azarah), lenient in others. This testimony records one of the leniencies: certain rabbinic impurities were set aside in the Mikdash, among them tumas mashkin — the liquids of the slaughter area stay tahor where, anywhere else, the decree would render them capable of contaminating. The series keeps it as part of that portrait of how tahara worked inside the Mikdash and not beyond it.

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