Commentary for Sanhedrin 173:16

משפט זה הדין

that a leap year may be proclaimed during the whole month of Adar. [This testimony was necessary,] because they [i.e., the other Sages] maintained: Only until Purim. [Hence, if the elder flouted the ruling of the great <i>Beth din</i>] in either direction, he permitted leaven to be eaten on the Passover.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Thus: If the Beth din ruled after Purim that the year was to he prolonged by a month (called the second Adar), Passover would commence six weeks after the end of the first Adar. If he disregarded this and gave a practical decision that such intercalation was invalid, Passover would commence four weeks earlier and end three weeks before it even began according to the ruling of the Beth din. Hence those who followed his views would be eating leaven during the Passover fixed by the latter. The same would result if they ruled that a month was not to be intercalated, and he ruled that it was. The deliberate eating of leaven on Passover is punished by extinction, as are all the offences enumerated in the following passage. ');">²⁹</span> '"A thing" refers to a [traditional] <i>halachah</i>.' By this is meant the [traditional] halachahs<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' V. note 6 for the explanation of the plural here. ');">³⁰</span> of the eleventh [day].<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' According to Biblical law, a niddah can cleanse herself when seven days have passed from the beginning of her menstrual flow, provided it ceased on the seventh day before sunset ([H]) During the following eleven days, which are called the beginning days between the menses, she cannot become a niddah again, it being axiomatic that a discharge of blood in that period is not a sign of niddah, but may be symptomatic of gonorrhoea. A discharge on one or two day's within the eleven days renders her unclean, and she is forbidden cohabitation until the evening of the following day (the full details of her position vis a vis her husband, and her uncleanliness in general, are discussed in Nid. 71b ff.), and must wait for the third to see whether another discharge will follow, rendering her a zabah, or not. Should another discharge follow the third day, she becomes unclean as a zabah, and cannot become clean until seven days have passed without any issue at all. Should she, however, discharge on the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth days she is not a zabah, for the twelfth day commences a new period wherein the issue of blood may make her a niddah. (The foregoing is, as mentioned, on the basis of the ancient law, but already in the period of the Talmud itself the law was adopted whereby a single blood issue at any time imposes all the restrictions necessitating for cleanness a period of seven clean days.) ');">³¹</span> For it has been stated: As for the tenth day. R. Johanan maintained that it is as the ninth, whilst R. Simeon b. Lakish ruled that it is as the eleventh. R. Johanan maintained that it is as the ninth: Just as [a blood discharge on] the ninth necessitates observation,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' On the tenth and eleventh days. Since discharges on those days following that of the ninth renders her a zabah. ');">³²</span> so for an issue on the tenth too observation is required.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Though unable to become a zabah, she is subject to the law of a woman under observation. ');">³³</span> But Resh Lakish ruled that the tenth day is as the eleventh: just as [a blood discharge on] the eleventh does not necessitate observation,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Both R. Johanan said Resh Lakish agree to this, on the basis of Beth Hillel's ruling in the Mishnah Nid. 72a. ');">³⁴</span> so on the tenth too no observation is required.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Thus, in R. Johanan's opinion, there is only one traditional halachah with respect to the eleventh day, viz., that a blood discharge thereon does not necessitate observation, and this is the only thing in which it differs from the preceding ten days. But if there was a discharge on the tenth, observation is necessary on the eleventh just as on the other days. But according to Resh Lakish it differs in two respects: (i) that a discharge thereon necessitate further observation, and (ii) that it does not become an observation day on account of the tenth day's discharge. Hence there were two halachoth for that day. This explains the use of the plural in this passage. Now to revert to the main subject, in the opinion of R. Johanan, if a woman had a discharge on the tenth, cohabitation on the eleventh is Biblically forbidden on pain of extinction, whilst according to Resh Lakish it is prohibited only by a Rabbinical ordinance, not by Biblical law; thus this too conforms to R. Meir's requirements. ');">³⁵</span> '"In judgment", — this means [a law deduced by] a din.'

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