As anyone who has ever been to school will tell you, there comes a time when someone tests you on your knowledge. For Eifa, that time is (recorded on) today’s daf.
Eifa learned Shevuot in the academy of Rabba. His brother Avimi met him.
This is a meta story — within Tractate Shevuot, we get an account of someone studying Tractate Shevuot! I like to imagine that Eifa’s even been studying the story about himself, but of course Shevuot, like all tractates, was originally a fluid oral composition, still undergoing development during the time these named authorities lived.
Eifa studied whatever shape the tractate took in his lifetime, during the fourth generation of the Babylonian amoraim, and now it’s time for the oral exam, administered by his brother. We’ve met this sibling pair before, in Sanhedrin 17b. There, the Talmud explains that Eifa and Avimi, unusually talented, are known by the collective nickname “the sharp ones of Pumbedita.”
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So how does the test go?
Avimi said to him: If a person said, “On my oath I did not eat, on my oath I did not eat,” what is the halakhah?
Eifa said to him: He is liable only once.
Avimi said to him: You have confused it. Each time, a false oath was issued.
In the case where someone has taken two identical oaths that they did not eat something in the past, but it turns out that they actually did eat it, how many oaths are they liable for breaking? Eifa says one. According to Steinsaltz’s interpretation, Eifa reasons that since the second oath repeats exactly what the first one says, it doesn’t take effect. But Avimi says Eifa is wrong: A second, identical oath fails to take effect only when the oath in question is about the future. This, however, is an oath about the past. Two identical false oaths about the past, says Avimi, are two separate transgressions.
The test shifts to future-oriented oaths. Let’s look at one example:
Avimi asked: If someone said, “On my oath I will not eat nine,” and, “on my oath I will not eat ten,” what is the halakhah?
Eifa replied: He is liable for each and every one.
Avimi said to him: You have confused the issue: If he may not eat nine, he may not eat ten.
These oaths have slightly different language. Eifa reasons that since they are saying different things, they are both operative. But Avimi disagrees: In order to eat ten of something, you have to first eat nine. Therefore, the second oath is redundant, and since they are future facing, only the first counts.
Ultimately, according to Avimi, Eifa fails his end-of-tractate test. We can likely sympathize — after all, in our own journey through the tractate, we’ve encountered many confusing ideas and principles. But the Talmud ends this story with a quick word of affirmation for the studious Eifa.
Abaye said: There are times when you find according to the opinion of Eifa.
When it comes to oaths, the rabbis mostly follow the positions of Avimi and not Eifa, though sometimes the latter’s thought processes are exactly what they need.
Read all of Shevuot 28 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on May 29, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
