Study Avodah Zarah folio 26B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
and one may not lower them into a pit. But the heretics, and the informers, and the apostates [vehameshummadim] are lowered into a pit, but not raised out of it.
R' Yoḥanan said to R' Abbahu: I teach that the verse: “And so you shall do with every lost item of your brother” (Deuteronomy 22:3), serves to include the apostate in one’s obligation to return a lost item to another Jew; and you say that one may lower him into a pit? Remove the term apostate from h
The Talmud asks: And let R' Abbahu answer R' Yoḥanan as follows: Here, with regard to a lost item, the verse includes an apostate because it is referring to an apostate who eats non-kosher meat due to his appetite, i.e., he succumbs to the temptation. Conversely, there, with regard to raising an
§ It was stated with regard to the definition of an apostate that Rav Aḥa and Ravina disagree. One says that someone who transgresses a prohibition due to his appetite is an apostate, while one who transgresses a prohibition in order to express insolence is a heretic. And one says that even one who
The Talmud raises an objection from a baraita against the opinion that one who sins to express insolence is considered a heretic. The baraita teaches: If one ate a single flea or a single mosquito, he is considered an apostate. The Talmud clarifies the objection: But here it must be assumed that th