Good evening everybody and thank you for joining as we continue our pre-Pesach Mishnayos Chabura as we look to learn some mishnayos related to the period between Purim and Pesach that allow us to get ready for the upcoming Yom Tov of Pesach. So last night we covered the mishna in Shekalim talking about the fifteenth of Adar and on that day the Beis Din would start to fix the public facilities like the roads and the mikvaos so people can get, make their way to Yerushalayim after the rainy season. We are continuing in Maseches Shekalim this evening but we are jumping ahead to פרק ז משנה ד. פרק ז משנה ד will discuss a very interesting issue. And we saw similar ideas when we learned Maseches Chagiga together this past winter. The mishna is going to address an issue: what happens when you find animals that are around the area of Yerushalayim? We know Yerushalayim had the Beis HaMikdash and most of the animals that were in Yerushalayim were going to be used for either korbanos, kodshim korbanos, korbanos that people had to bring, or people would buy animals to use with their Maaser Sheni money because Maaser Sheni money can only be spent on food items and so they would buy animals and maybe bring them as korban shlamim as well. So the question the mishna is addressing is sometimes you'll find a little lamb, a little goat, a baby goat, wandering around, no apparent owner, and the question then is: how do you treat such an animal when you find it? Do you treat it as a korban? Can you treat it as not a korban, what is called chullin, and so that you can just make a barbecue with it? Or do you have to treat it as a korban? And if you do treat it as a korban, the question then is what type of korban do we treat it as? We will not get into all the intricacies and all the details of the korbanos, but one thing that is good to know for our mishna is that when there are, there are two basic types of korbanos. One is called a korban ola. A korban ola is a type of korban that you burn the entirety on the mizbeach. No part of it goes to any person to eat. On the other hand, a korban shlamim, a korban shlamim is a korban that is brought by a person and it is, the way that happens is that the mizbeach gets a piece of it, you burn a part of the animal, you give the kohen a little bit of it, and the person who's bringing the korban gets to keep the rest and eat that korban, although he has to eat it within a certain timeframe, usually within two days and the night in between, and he has to eat it in Yerushalayim. So our mishna starts like this. פרק ז משנה ד in Maseches Shekalim. בהמה שנמצאת מירושלים ועד מגדל עדר. You find a little animal. It's wandering around. It seems lost. And you find it in the area in between Yerushalayim and Migdal Eder. Migdal Eder is not a well-known place. It is mentioned in the Chumash and in Sefer Bereishis, and it seems to have been identified as a place that was somewhere between Yerushalayim and Beis Lechem. Beis Lechem is where we traditionally know the, that Kever Rachel is, and so somewhere between Kever Rachel and Yerushalayim there was an area called Migdal Eder. Now eder, as we know, adarim are flocks, so maybe that's why it was called Migdal Eder, I don't know. But you find this animal in between Yerushalayim and Migdal Eder. U'kemidasa l'chol ruach, the mishna continues, and the same distance in all directions. Meaning let's say it was a mile from Yerushalayim to Migdal Eder, you would draw a circle that is a mile from Yerushalayim all around, and in that vicinity, if you found this animal, so the mishna tells us two rules. Zcharim, if you find a male animal, then olos, we treat it as if it's an ola. The rule is that an ola has to be a male animal, a zachar, and therefore if you find a zachar we assume that it is a korban ola. On the other hand, nekevos, if you find a female animal, zivchei shlamim, we make the assumption that it is a shlamim because most zcharim would have been used for olos because it can only be used for olos, leaving the shlamims for the nekevos, for the females. We will not necessarily get into the discussion now as it relates to whether or not you brought these specific animals as the korban or did you let them sit around until they got a mum, a blemish, and then you would sell them and use the money to buy those animals, we'll leave that discussion aside. The mishna however does continue and this is the relevant part to this period of time. Rabbi Yehuda omer, Rabbi Yehuda says, harouy l'psachim, if it's an animal that is useful for a korban Pesach, what I mean to say is that it's of the right age, a korban... A Korban Pesach has to be less than one year old and it can be a baby goat or a lamb but it has to be less than a year old. So if you find an animal that is of that age, psach, then we assume that it is going to be a Korban Pesach when? קודם לרגל שלשים יום. If it is within thirty days before Pesach, so effectively Shushan Purim and on, if I were to find a baby lamb or a baby goat walking around this area from Migdal Eder to Yerushalayim, I'll assume that it is a Korban Pesach and therefore the halakhah is you should keep it and if you don't find the owners before Pesach you should use that animal for your Korban Pesach and if and when you find the owners you'll pay them back. One interesting note as it relates to this is that Rabbi Yehudah seems to suggest that once we get within the time frame of Pesach we can assume that this korban is a Korban Pesach. We find that Rabbi Yehudah views the idea of time in two other mishnayos. We know many of you are familiar with this mishnah, there's a mishnah in Bava Kamma פרק ו משנה ו where it talks about Chanukah and it says that if you light the menorah outside and it causes damage to a passing animal, Rabbi Yehudah says that you are patur, you don't have to pay for the damage because during Chanukah it's appropriate to have your menorah outside. So again, just like during the period leading up to Pesach, during Chanukah there's some permissiveness that we give to the time. Similarly, the mishnah in Ma'asros פרק ג משנה ז says that and again we won't go into details but in order to be obligated to give ma'aser from your produce, the produce has to be brought into the house and at that point you're obligated in ma'asros. And so Rabbi Yehudah says that although a Sukkah is generally considered a temporary dwelling, Diras Arai, however during Succos, again, it's considered a Diras Keva, it's a permanent structure and therefore if you were to bring during Succos you would bring the produce into your Sukkah you would then be obligated in ma'aser. So we see that Rabbi Yehudah himself has a very interesting viewpoint as it relates to time and how that affects the halakhah and how we think about it.