050a - יש בכור פרק שמיני בכורות דף נ, ע"א

Rabbi Yochanan says:^[1] A Hadrianic, Trajanic, shayfa dinar, which sells for twenty-five zuz.^[2]

דינרא הדריינא - A gold dinar stamped with the coin-image of Hadrian Caesar and Trajan Caesar.

ושייפא - The name of the king.

דמיזדבין בכ"ה דינר של כסף - [Twenty-five dinars of silver] – in Tyrian dinars.^[3]

Take off a sixth of them, and these [that remain] go for the redemption of the son.

דל מינייהו שתותא - And the rest [go] for the redemption of the son. For he holds that the sela’im of the firstborn are sela’im of four dinars, which is the Tyrian sela, so that five sela’im come to twenty dinars.

But these come to twenty-one less a danka!^[4]

עשרים וחד נכי דנקא הוו - Take a sixth off twenty-four and twenty remain; and take a sixth off the one [remaining] zuz, and twenty-one less a danka remain.

Rather: take off a sixth and a zuz, and these go for the redemption of the son.

אלא דל שתותא וזוזא - And it is still twenty less a danka: for when you take off a sixth, and then take off one more, twenty less a sixth remain.

It is still twenty less a danka!

Rather: take off a zuz and [then] a sixth, and these go for the redemption of the son,

אלא דל בריש זוזא - And twenty-four remain; then take a sixth off the twenty-four, and twenty remain, and these go for the redemption of the son.

for they come to twenty weights by the weight of the dinar, which are twenty-eight and a half zuz and half a danka.

דהוו להו עשרין מתקלי במתקלא דינרא - By the weight of the Tyrian dinar, as I explained.

דאינון עשרין ותמניא ופלגי ופלגא דנקא - In Arabian dinars.^[5] For of Tyrian dinars, the seven make ten in Arabian dinars, and the fourteen make twenty; there remain six Tyrian, which make eight Arabian dinars and a half [and a half] danka – which is a pundyon, for a dinar is twelve pundyonin – except that Tyrian pundyonin are large and Arabian ones small. And since seven Tyrian make ten Arabian, each Tyrian dinar comes to an Arabian dinar and five Arabian pundyonin and a seventh of a pundyon. Go and reckon: for seven dinars, five pundyonin and a seventh of a pundyon for each dinar make thirty-six tufyana pundyonin, which are three dinars; so it turns out that seven are ten. Therefore seven Tyrian dinars are ten, and the fourteen are twenty, and six Tyrian dinars remain. Add to each dinar five pundyonin and a seventh: they make thirty-one tufyana pundyonin, slightly less, and that small amount is not counted among the pundyonin. Make them into dinars: thirty-one pundyonin are two dinars and half a dinar and a pundyon. It turns out that six Tyrian dinars make eight and a half and half a danka of Arabian ones. And this explanation that I have given is written in the books, but it was not explained to us, for this whole matter of “which come to twenty weights by the weight of the dinar, which are twenty-eight and a half and half a danka” was not explained from the mouth of the great master; but I found it in the responsa of the Geonim.

Rava said: The sela’im of the Torah are three and a third [dinars],

סילעין דאורייתא תלתא - They are three Tyrian dinars and a third, for they are twenty ma’in.

as it is written (Shemos 30): “Twenty gerah is the shekel,” and we translate [in the Targum]: “twenty ma’in,”^[6] and it is taught: “Six ma’ah of silver are a dinar.”

They objected: “But is not the sela of the Sanctuary forty-eight pundyonin?”^[7]

והלא סלע של קודש - One who consecrates his field in the Jubilee year would redeem an area sown with a chomer of barley for fifty sela’im.^[8] And in Toras Kohanim, regarding one who consecrates his field, it teaches: “According to your valuation it shall stand – he gives forty-nine sela’im and forty-nine pundyonin for the forty-nine years of the Jubilee; but is not the sela of the Sanctuary etc.” That is to say: why did we say forty-nine pundyonin? Is not the sela of the Sanctuary forty-eight pundyonin? So it turns out that he redeems an area sown with a chomer of barley for fifty shekels and a pundyon.

“What is the nature of this pundyon?”

פונדיון זה מה טיבו - But [the verse] says only “fifty shekels of silver”!

“It is a kolbon for each one separately!”^[9]

קולבון לפרוטרוט - This pundyon is a makeweight: a kolbon, a small ma’ah, comes to each one separately – “lifrotrot” means to each one by itself, as we say in the first perek (above, 5a): “Scripture counted them only individually.” In any case, it teaches that “the sela of the Sanctuary is forty-eight pundyonin,” which is four Tyrian dinars; for so we say in Kiddushin (12a): “Six ma’ah of silver are a dinar,” and a ma’ah is two pundyonin, so a dinar is twelve pundyonin and a sela forty-eight. Evidently the sela of the Torah is four dinars, and this is difficult for Rava.

[That was] after they added to them.^[10]

ומשנינן בתר דאוסיפו עליה - To the sela of the Torah they added a sixth, and made it the size of the Tyrian sela, twenty-four ma’in.

As it is taught: “Twenty gerah is the shekel – we have learned that the shekel is twenty gerah.

And from where [do we know] that if one wishes to add, he may add?

The verse says (Vayikra 27): ‘it shall be.’^[11]

יהיה - “Twenty gerah shall the shekel be” – this implies a further “being.”

Could it be that he may reduce?

The verse says (Bamidbar 18): ‘it is.’”^[12]

בפרשת ערכין כתיב הוא - In the section of Vayikach Korach it is written “twenty gerah it is” – that it may not be less.^[13]

Rav Ashi sent seventeen zuz to Rav Acha the son of Ravina for the redemption of [his] son.^[14]

Rav Acha was a kohen, and Rav Ashi sent [the redemption money] to Rav Acha.

He sent him [word]: Let the master send me [back] the extra third that is on them.^[15]

לישלח לי מר תילתא - For I gave you too much, following Rava, who said that the sela of the Torah is three dinars and a third: for five sela’im that comes to fifteen dinars and the thirds, which are two dinars less a third, so that in all it comes to seventeen zuz less a third.

He sent him [back]: Let the master send me another three, for they have added to them!^[16]

שלח ליה - Rav Acha [replied]: Let the master send me three zuz, for they have added to them and made them the size of the Tyrian [sela], so that five sela’im are twenty zuz.

Rabbi Chanina said: All silver mentioned in the Torah without specification is a sela; in the Prophets, litrin; in the Writings, kintarin,^[17]

ליטרין - A maneh, which is twenty-five sela’im.

קינטרין - A hundred sela’im for every shekel.

except for the silver of Efron, which, although it is written in the Torah without specification, is kintarin,

as it is written (Bereishis 23): “four hundred shekels of silver, current with the merchant.”^[18]

דכתיב עובר לסוחר - For wherever there are merchants, they accept it as shekels.

And there is a place where they call a kintar “tikla” [a shekel].^[19]

והאיכא דוכתא דקרו לתקלא דידהו קינטריא - For it is large, of the measure of a kintar; therefore [Avraham] gave him kintarya.

Rabbi Oshaya said: They sought to put away all the silver and gold in the world because of the silver and gold of Yerushalayim,^[20]

מפני כספה [וזהבה] של ירושלים - Which was in the [Temple] chamber; it is hekdesh and forbidden to outsiders, and when the idolaters took it they mixed it in with [other] gold coins.

until they found a verse in Scripture that it is permitted, as it says (Yechezkel 7): “and robbers shall enter it and profane it.”^[21]

וחיללוה - This implies that once robbers came, they profaned it: it went out to chullin.

But is Yerushalayim most of the world?!

הויא רובא דעלמא - In astonishment: that because of it all the gold coins in the world should become forbidden?

Rather, Abaye said: They sought to put away the Hadrianic, Trajanic, shayfa dinars, because of the coinage of Yerushalayim,^[22]

הדריינא טריינא שיפא - These were among the coins of Yerushalayim, and most of these came from Yerushalayim.

until they found a verse in Scripture that it is permitted, as it says: “and robbers shall enter it and profane it.”

Tosfos

רבי יוחנן אמר דינרא הדריינא כו' - This is the gold dinar [mentioned] throughout the Shas, which sells for twenty-five. And he concludes: take off a zuz and twenty-four remain, and then a sixth of those twenty-four, and twenty remain for the redemption of the son, which is five sela’im, since the sela is four dinars. And it is written in the books: “which come to twenty weights by the weight of the dinar, which are twenty-eight and a half zuz and half a danka” – and it resembles an explanation of the Geonim, who explained the five sela’im of the son according to the coinage of their days.

דינרא הדריינא טריינא שייפא - The Kuntres explained: hadriana after Hadrian Caesar, and Trajan Caesar; shayfa is the name of the king. Rabbeinu Tam finds this difficult: for shortly below it says that they sought to put it away because of the coinage of Yerushalayim, and of the coinage of Yerushalayim we say in [Perek] HaGozel Kamma (Bava Kamma 97b): “David and Shlomo on one side, and Yerushalayim the holy city on the other side.” And Rabbeinu Tam says that hadriana means round, as in (הדר הודרנא) (Avodah Zarah 22); turyana means large, like תריטא (Chullin 124a) – and although turyana is with a tes and terita with a tav, one need not be particular; and shayfa means that its image is rubbed smooth. However, the explanation of the Kuntres can be reconciled by distinguishing between the First Temple and the Second Temple, as it says in Menachos; and we find Hadrian Caesar in Perek Ein Maamidin (Avodah Zarah 32a); and so the Aruch explained.

דמזדבנא בעשרים וחמש זוז - And so too it says at the beginning of [Perek] HaZahav (Bava Metzia 44b) that a silver dinar is one twenty-fifth of a gold dinar; and so it is proven in Perek Shor SheNagach Daled VeHei (Bava Kamma 36a) regarding “the first two [paid in] gold dinars,” and in Perek Kol HaNishba’in (Shevuos 44b, and there) regarding “I received a gold dinar from you.” But one may wonder: nowadays a zakuk of gold is worth no more than ten zakukim of silver at the most – how did the rate of gold and silver change so much, that in the days of the Sages of the Gemara gold was worth twenty-five of silver? And it appears to Rabbeinu Tam that a gold dinar weighs double a silver one – and not as the Kuntres explained above, from whose words it is implied that they are equal, as I explained above. And in Perek Elu Tereifos (Chullin 55b) too it is implied that the thickness of a gold dinar differed from a silver dinar, since it says: “and if as much as the thickness of a gold dinar remains, it is kosher”; learn from this that it was double the silver one, and therefore it is worth twenty-five of them, but weight for weight it is worth only twelve. And the Midrash also proves that a gold sela is only twelve silver sela’im: for in the book of Shmuel (II 24) it is written regarding the threshing floor of Aravnah [the Yevusi] that he bought it for fifty shekels of silver, while in Divrei HaYamim (I 21) it is written “six hundred shekels of silver”; and the Midrash explains that this is the meaning of the verse in Shmuel: silver [worth] six hundred shekels, that is, fifty shekels of gold; and this is the meaning of the verse in Divrei HaYamim: shekels of gold, fifty, that is, six hundred shekels of silver. But in the last perek of Zevachim (116b) it explains it differently: that he collected fifty from each tribe, which together are six hundred. Now according to what I explained, that a gold dinar weighs two of silver, by this reckoning a gold dinar is twenty-four of silver; and as for the dinar extra here, in saying twenty-five – Rabbeinu Tam says that this extra zuz is for the makeweight. Know that this is so, for it says here “take off a zuz and a sixth,” which is five zuz – why did it put it this way? It should have said “take off a fifth,” since five zuz are a fifth of twenty-five! Rather, since that extra zuz is for the makeweight, it counts it by itself. And this too is the measure of the makeweight for the half-shekel, according to the one who says in Shekalim that for the half-shekel one gives half a ma’ah: the half-shekel is two dinars, and the dinar is six ma’ah of silver – that makes twenty-four half-ma’ahs. And although there is one there who says that the kolbon of the half-shekel is a ma’ah, he agrees concerning the makeweight of a gold dinar that it is a silver dinar. And as for what it says shortly below regarding an area sown with “a chomer of barley for fifty shekels of silver,” that one gives only one pundyon, and that pundyon is a kolbon for each separately – which implies that the makeweight comes to no more – it did not use the term kolbon precisely, for it is only to even out the years, so that it is a sela and a pundyon for [each of] the forty-nine years of the Jubilee, which are short by one pundyon. And perhaps when one gives fifty shekels together he does not give a pundyon at all, and a makeweight does not apply there, since it is like buying and selling; a makeweight applies only when exchanging money with a money-changer. And as for what was explained, that the makeweight of a gold dinar is by the reckoning of the makeweight of half a ma’ah for the half-shekel: although we find in [Perek] HaMocher HaSefinah (Bava Basra 89a) regarding meat, that when he weighs ten litra together he does not give him as much makeweight as when he weighs each litra by itself, one cannot compare meat to the makeweight of silver. However, there is a difficulty from partner brothers, who are exempt from the kolbon, below in the last perek (Bechoros 56b): although if each one weighs by himself he is liable (in kolbon) two kolbons for two half-shekels, now that they are together they give only one kolbon. One may distinguish among makeweights. And Rabbi Yehudah bar Nasan explained in Perek HaZahav (Bava Metzia 44b) that this dinar is for the makeweights of the coins and the wage of the minters: one who has silver enough to make twenty-five silver dinars gives it to the minter to strike, and he returns to him only twenty-four of silver.

Notes

1. 1. The Gemara continues explaining the Mishnah’s words “by the Tyrian maneh” [Bechoros 49b]: how much are the five sela’im of pidyon haben in coins of the Amoraim’s day. Rabbi Yochanan gives his answer in gold dinars.
2. 2. A gold dinar was worth twenty-five silver dinars (zuz). The sela of pidyon haben is four zuz, so the five sela’im come to twenty zuz – and the Gemara now works out how to reach twenty from twenty-five.
3. 3. The Tyrian dinar is the full-weight silver dinar of Tyre. Amounts of silver in the Torah are reckoned by this standard, as the Mishnah says: “by the Tyrian maneh.”
4. 4. A danka is a sixth of a zuz. A sixth of twenty-five is four and one-sixth, which leaves twenty and five-sixths – twenty-one less a danka.
5. 5. The Arabian dinar was a smaller coin. By the Geonim’s reckoning that Rashi brings, seven Tyrian dinars equal ten Arabian, so twenty Tyrian dinars come to twenty-eight and a half Arabian dinars and half a danka.
6. 6. Onkelos translates the Torah’s gerah as ma’ah, and a dinar is six ma’ah. So the shekel of twenty ma’ah is three and a third dinars, not four.
7. 7. A pundyon is half a ma’ah. Forty-eight pundyonin are twenty-four ma’ah, which is four dinars – against Rava’s three and a third.
8. 8. One who redeems a consecrated ancestral field pays fifty shekels of silver for each area sown with a chomer of barley, spread over the forty-nine years of the Jubilee cycle (Vayikra 27:16). That is a sela and a pundyon for each year.
9. 9. A kolbon is a small premium added when coins are exchanged or paid one at a time. Here the extra pundyon is paid because the payment is made sela by sela, year by year.
10. 10. Later on the sela was raised by a sixth, to twenty-four ma’ah (four dinars), the size of the Tyrian sela. The beraisa that follows shows that the Torah allows this increase.
11. 11. Vayikra 27:25: “Twenty gerah shall the shekel be.” The word “shall be” implies a further state, so the shekel may be increased.
12. 12. Bamidbar 18:16, on the redemption of the firstborn: “it is twenty gerah.” The word “it is” means it stays as it is, and may not be reduced.
13. 13. That is, “shall be” is written in the section of valuations (Vayikra 27), and “it is” in the section of Korach (Bamidbar 18).
14. 14. Rav Acha was a kohen, and Rav Ashi gave him the five sela’im for the redemption of his firstborn son in the form of seventeen zuz.
15. 15. According to Rava the five sela’im are sixteen and two-thirds zuz, so Rav Ashi had paid a third of a zuz too much.
16. 16. Rav Acha answered that after the sela was raised, five sela’im are twenty zuz, so three more were owed.
17. 17. “Without specification” means where the verse does not name the coin. In the Torah it means a sela; in the Prophets a litra (a maneh of twenty-five sela’im); in the Writings a kintar, a far larger unit.
18. 18. Bereishis 23:16. “Current with the merchant” means a coin accepted everywhere, so Efron’s shekels were large units, kintarin.
19. 19. Rashi reads the line the other way round: there is a place that calls its shekel “kintarya,” because it is as large as a kintar.
20. 20. To “put away” means to take out of use, since silver and gold of hekdesh from the Temple might be mixed into it, and hekdesh is forbidden to use.
21. 21. Yechezkel 7:22. “Profane it” means that once the robbers entered the Temple, its wealth lost its sanctity and became chullin.
22. 22. Coins minted in Yerushalayim. According to Rashi most of these dinars came from Yerushalayim.