פירוש על עבודה זרה 10:2

The Israelites in the desert were ungrateful, refusing to recognize the good that God had done for them. They were the descendants of Adam who was ungrateful to God for the woman whom he had been given.
Only at the end of their time in the desert did Moses tell the Israelites that they were ungrateful.
Rabbah learns from the experience of the Israelites that it takes forty years to learn the mind of one’s teacher. So students and teachers, give it some time!

Jews who occupy themselves with Torah and righteous acts can master their inclinations. Torah and a rich life of good deeds is a spiritual practice that leads one to live a life in which our better sides win out over our more base inclinations.

One should accept the burden of studying Torah just like an ox accepts a yoke and donkey accepts a load. There are many levels to this statement. One way I take it is that human beings were created to study Torah and wisdom. This is what God gave us our intellects for.

The assumption here is that it is prohibited to sell an animal to a gentile before his holiday because he might slaughter it that day and use it for a sacrifice. But why do we need three days before. A mishnah from Hullin (5:3) teaches that four (or five, according to one opinion) times a year a person can assume that an animal being sold today will be slaughtered today. Therefore, if he is selling a mother he must let the buyer know if the young had been sold to be slaughtered on that day. This is in order to prevent one from accidentally transgressing the prohibition of slaughtering a mother and her young on the same day. But again, the requirement is for one day. One can sell a mother on Tuesday if its young was sold the day before, because the two animals will not end up being slaughtered on the same day.

The mishnah in Hullin referred to selling animals for food. The assumption is that people would buy the animal and slaughter it the same day. Our mishnah refers to sacrifice. People might by the animal three days ahead of time.

If the animal is being sold for sacrifice, then maybe the prohibition needs to be longer than three days. After all, Jews are supposed to start preparing for the Pesah sacrifice thirty days (or at least two weeks) before Pesah. The answer is that Jews need more time because there are more rules for us about what flaws disqualify animals from being sacrificed. Non-Jews have fewer rules and therefore three days is sufficient.

The derashah here seems to be on “all flesh.” For Noah to use the animal he brings on the ark as a sacrifice, it must have all of its flesh, meaning not missing any limbs.

The Talmud believes that this verse is needed to exclude the “trefa” an animal that will soon die. Such an animal cannot be sacrificed. But perhaps one missing a limb can be sacrificed by Noahides?
The resolution is that the prohibition of sacrificing a “trefa” is derived from a different verse, “to keep seed alive.”

If one holds that by definition a “trefa” cannot give birth, then it makes sense to exclude it from the phrase, “to keep seed alive.” But what about those who hold that a “trefa” can give birth. We would then need the earlier verse to exclude the trefa and we would have no verse to exclude the animal missing a limb.
The Talmud finds a new way of excluding the trefa—from the word “with you.” The animals that Noah sacrifices must be like Noah—able to bear offspring and not trefot.