Study Avodah Zarah folio 42A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
of one violent person [metzik] in the city of Rimon, who cast a non-viable newborn into a pit, and a priest came and looked into the pit to ascertain whether the baby was male or whether it was female, as the length of time of a woman’s ritual impurity after childbirth, even if she gave birth to a
The Talmud concludes its objection: And here, in this case, where it is certain that the woman cast the non-viable newborn into the pit, and it is uncertain whether an animal dragged it away and it is uncertain whether no animal dragged it away, the rabbis nevertheless ruled that an uncertainty com
The Talmud rejects this interpretation of the baraita: Do not say that the woman certainly cast a non-viable newborn into a pit; rather, say that she cast an object similar to a non-viable newborn into a pit. Perhaps it was not the body of an infant; it might have merely been congealed blood, which
The Talmud asks: But isn’t it taught in the baraita: To ascertain whether it was male or whether it was female, indicating that the only uncertainty was with regard to its sex, as it was certainly a non-viable newborn?
The Talmud answers that this is what the baraita is saying: The priest attempted to examine two aspects of the miscarried entity. He sought to ascertain whether the woman miscarried, bearing an amorphous mass, or whether she cast a non-viable newborn into the pit; and if you say that she cast a n