- Squeezing pickled vegetables
The Gemara brings a machlokes Amoraim regarding squeezing pickled vegetables.
▪ Rav and Shmuel hold that the melacha of mefaraik - extracting, only applies to liquids that originally grew within the food. Therefore, squeezing pickled vegetables to get the liquid is only forbidden to do mid’Rabbanon, lest one comes to squeeze olives and grapes.
▪ Rebbe Yochanan holds that one is liable for extracting a beverage even if it did not originally come into existence within the fruit. Therefore, he says one would be chayav a chatas for mefarek if one squeezed pickled vegetables for their liquid.
As part of this discussion, there is an additional machlokes between Rav, Shmuel and Rebbe Yochanan regarding squeezing boiled vegetables.
- Secondhand testimony
It was taught in a Baraisa regarding testimony אין עד מפי עד כשר אלא לעדות אשה בלבד – a single witness that acquired his information from the mouth of a second single witness is not valid, except with regard to testifying to the marital status of a woman.
Rav Assi says that a single secondhand witness is also permitted to testify that a blemish in a bechor developed on its own and was not inflicted by a Kohen who sought to make the meat permissible to consume. The Gemara asks that the above Baraisa states that a single secondhand witness may only testify about the status of a married woman? The Baraisa was emended to read, לעדות שהאשה כשרה לה בלבד – except for testimony that a woman is also permitted to make, meaning that an עד מפי עד may testify about any situation that a woman is permitted to testify about, and a woman is allowed to testify about a bechor.
- Rebbe Yochanan’s answers to Rebbe Chiya bar Abba’s questions
Rebbe Chiya bar Abba asked Rebbe Assi questions, and Rebbe Assi answered them, while Rebbe Yochanan was dozing. When Rebbe Yochanan awoke, he rejected the answers given and provided his own. He explained:
• The birds in Bavel are fatter than those in Eretz Yisroel because the birds there were never exiled.
• The moadim in Bavel are more joyous for the community in Bavel because they were not included in a curse to those living in Eretz Yisroel, about diminished simcha on the holidays.
• The talmidei chochomim of Bavel adorn themselves in fine clothing because they are not native to the locale, and therefore distinguish themselves in dress.
• The reason that ovdei cochavim are impure is that they did not stand at Har Sinai to accept the Torah, for when Klal Yisroel stood at Har Sinai, the impurity that the nachash cast into Chavah was removed.
