When a court issues an errant ruling, it bears responsibility for the transgressions of the people who act upon its decisions. If a majority of people act according to the ruling, the court is liable to bring a sacrifice. Today’s daf explores a number of questions about what constitutes a majority. Here’s one: What happens when a court permits a forbidden fat and a minority of the people follow the ruling, and then the court then reverses itself and then reverses itself again, causing a different minority of people to eat the forbidden fat? The Gemara considers two options:
Is it that since there are two (disparate experiences of) awareness, the first minority does not combine?
Or perhaps, since both this and that (transgression are the same), eating forbidden fat, the first minority combines with the second minority.
Do we consider the two groups of fat eaters to be one group or two? Perhaps, since they both committed the same transgression of eating forbidden fat, they combine into one group, in which case the court is liable to bring a sacrifice for leading a majority (two minorities combined equal a majority) astray. Or perhaps the two groups are separate since they each a distinct experience of transgression, in which case the court is not liable.
Before resolving the matter, the Gemara wonders if it makes a difference if the two groups ate forbidden fat from different parts of the animal. Again, the Gemara offers two possible rationales.
Since (these transgressions) come from two verses, the first minority certainly does not combine with the second minority.
Or perhaps, since both this and that (transgression are the same), eating forbidden fat, the first minority combines with the second minority.
Perhaps since there are two distinct biblical verses prohibiting fat from the mouth and the intestine, the transgressions are distinct and the minorities do not combine. Or maybe, since the transgressive act is the same — eating forbidden fat — the two minorities do combine.
The Gemara then asks whether those who would combine the two groups in the second situation would also do so in a third one where one minority ate forbidden fat and another forbidden blood, both based upon the ruling of a court. Would they argue that the prohibitions are distinct so they don’t combine or would they argue that since the sacrifice that is required for those who violate the prohibition is the same, they can be combined?
Finally, the Gemara asks those who would allow the groups to combine in this case if they would also do so if one group ate forbidden fat based upon the ruling of a court and another engaged in idol worship based upon a different erroneous ruling by the same court. Here we have a case where neither the prohibitions nor the sacrifices are identical (which supports not combining the groups) but where the ultimate consequence for both is karet, the biblical punishment known as excision (which may allow for combining).
In response to this list of dilemmas, the Gemara declares: Teyku. The dilemmas shall stand unresolved, perhaps acknowledging that it believes there are compelling arguments to allow for the combining of the groups in all of the cases and equally compelling arguments not to.
Yet, it’s noteworthy that in each successive case the actions of the two minority groups become more dissimilar. It makes much more sense to allow the groups to combine in the first case than it does in the last. Reasonable minds could disagree about what point in this list the law should stop combining groups. So perhaps in this instance, the Gemara’s declaration of teyku is not about an inability to decide the law, but an inability to determine where to draw the line.
Read all of Horayot 3 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on September 4, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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