Study Eruvin folio 14B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
in water; specifically in the water of a mikveh. The expression “all his flesh” (Leviticus 15:16) teaches that one must immerse in water that his whole body can enter at once. And how much is that? A cubit by a cubit by the height of 3 cubits. And the rabbis calculated that the volume of water nece
The Talmud now calculates how many ritual baths should have been contained in Solomon’s Sea. The volume of the sea was 500 cubic cubits, as it was 10 cubits in length, 10 cubits in width, and 5 cubits in height. The minimum volume of a mikveh is 3 cubic cubits. Therefore, 300 cubic cubits is the vo
The Talmud answers that there is an error in the calculation: These calculations with regard to the volume of the sea would apply to a square, but the sea fashioned by Solomon was round, and its volume was therefore smaller.
The Talmud continues to ask: Now, how much larger is a square of 10-by-10 cubits than a circle with a diameter of 10 cubits? 1/4th. Consequently, 400 cubic cubits of our original calculation must be reduced to 300, which is the volume of 100 ritual baths; and the remaining 100 cubits must be reduce
In answer to this question, Rami bar Yeḥezkel taught as follows: In the sea that Solomon fashioned, the 3 lower cubits were square and the upper two were round. Consequently, the 3 lower cubits of the sea contained the volume of 100 ritual baths, and its upper two cubits contained the volume of 50