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Daf Ditty

A wide-ranging commentary on the daily page of Talmud.

Shavuot 31: שְׁבוּעַת הָעֵדוּת

jyungar June 1, 2025

For the source text click/tap here: Shavuot 31

To download, click/tap here: PDF

Mi-devar sheker tirḥak – “Distance yourself from a false matter” (Shemot 23:7).

The Gemara on our daf offers a series of applications of this passage.

Among them we find:

When a teacher says to his student “you know that I would not lie, even if I was offered money; I have only a single witness to a loan that I made – please join the witness in testifying on my behalf” – how do we know it is forbidden to do so?

Mi-devar sheker tirḥak

When a judge hears testimony and know that the witnesses are lying, how do we know that he should not say “since the witnesses are testifying, I will rule accordingly and the responsibility will rest on their shoulders” (the language of the Gemara is that the kolar will be hung on the necks of the witnesses – a kolar being a metal chain that was put around the neck of prisoners)?

Mi-devar sheker tirḥak

We explore oath taking and compare to its New Testament refusals.

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Julian Ungar-Sargon

This is Julian Ungar-Sargon's personal website. It contains poems, essays, and podcasts for the spiritual seeker and interdisciplinary aficionado.​