Study Shabbat folio 26B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
R' Shimon ben Elazar and the tanna of the school of R' Yishmael essentially said the same thing, even though they said it in different ways. The Talmud elaborates: The statement of R' Shimon ben Elazar is that which we said: The only fabrics woven from plant materials that are considered bona fide
In contrast to Abaye, who viewed the opinions expressed by R' Shimon ben Elazar and the tanna of the school of R' Yishmael as expressing the same idea, Rava said that the two opinions are not identical. There is a difference between them when the cloth is 3 by 3 handbreadths, with regard to other ga
In any case, based on the above, everyone agrees that, clearly, 3 by 3 fingerbreadths in a wool or linen garment can become ritually impure with the impurity of tzara'at. The Talmud asks: From where do we derive this? The Talmud responds that it is derived as it was taught in a baraita with regard
The Talmud rejects this: If so, then let us also derive a cloth that is 3 by 3 fingerbreadths through the same a fortiori inference from the warp and woof threads. Rather, it must be that this a fortiori inference is flawed. Threads woven into fabric do not maintain their previous status as they a
The Talmud also asks: Indeed, there is amplification in the Torah, derived from the term: And the garment, which is a generalization that comes to expand upon the details that follow. And say that it comes to include the ruling that cloth that is 3 by 3 handbreadths in garments made of materials oth