פירוש על עבודה זרה 47:6

This famous story is brought here as proof that one can buy offerings for the Temple from non-Jews. After all, the sages approached Dama b. Natina asking him to sell them stones for the ephod, the high priest’s breastplate.

At first the Talmud tries to solve this by stating that the words “onyx stones” which do not have a connective vav in front of them are separated and therefore not governed by the words, “And you shall take.” However, this fails because the words which follow do use the vav which reconnects them to the phrase “And you shall take.” So we are left with our difficulty—why is the interpretation of the verse not applied consistently.

An even greater difficulty is that the following year Dama ben Natina sold them a red heifer. This proves that not only is Shila wrong, but even R. Eliezer himself. The Talmud answers that the red heifer was not bought directly from Dama. Dama sold it to some Jewish merchants and they sold it to the sages. Jewish middlemen—they always find a way don’t they!

R. Eliezer’s response to the sages implies that he is concerned about bestiality. That’s why they can buy the heifer if it had been guarded by Jews from the time of its birth.

In the end, R. Eliezer is suspicious of bestiality. But he also has another reason why—the midrash on the word “and you shall take” as taught by Shila.

Even if the new born red heifer is watched from the time its born, there is the problem that if the non-Jew had bestiality with the mother, the animal is unfit.

Even watching the mother from the time she became pregnant is not sufficient—for R. Eliezer holds that if the mother was disqualified, then her young is too.

We could solve the problem by saying that the offspring are disqualified only if they had bestiality with the mother when the mother was already dedicated to the Temple. We could say that we do not have to worry about the non-Jews having bestiality with the mother because the mother was surely not yet dedicated.

But according to R. Hinena, R. Eliezer disqualifies the offspring even if someone had sex with the mother before it was dedicated, then according to R. Eliezer we should not buy animals for sacrifice from non-Jews even if they were watched from birth.

Not only must the young be watched, but the mother has to be watched from birth as well.

Earlier we said that Jews would watch the mother of the red heifer from the time the child was formed in its womb. But how would the Jews know to watch this animal? Did they watch every cow just in case it would have a red heifer? R. Kahana offers a solution—pass a red cup (of wine?) in front of her while he was mating. This would magically create a red heifer! [Maybe if you want a redheaded kid you can try this at home].

If all you need to do is pass a red cup in front of the mating animal and out comes a red heifer, then why is the red heifer so expensive. The answer is that even two non-red hairs on the entire animal disqualify it. While it is evidently easy to produce a mostly red heifer, an exclusively red heifer is difficulty. So now comes the final and obvious difficulty—why do we need non-Jews to produce the red heifer. If all you need is the red cup trick, then we could just make our own red heifer? The answer is that the trick only works with certain breeds of cows, and evidently those breeds are possessed by the non-Jews. We should note that the Talmud painted itself into this corner with a series of difficulties. This happens from time to time—the Talmud raises difficulties, resolves them but then creates new difficulties that lead to some extremely strange types of resolutions.

This is the position we saw before—R. Eliezer disqualifies all animals bought from non-Jews from being used as a sacrifice.

The other sages responded to R. Eliezer with a verse from Isaiah. According to this verse, in the future, all the flocks of Kedar, a land inhabited by non-Jews, will be brought to the Temple to be sacrifices. This proves that non-Jews can bring sacrifices. R. Eliezer responds that in the future these nations will convert. This verse is thus not proof of non-Jews bringing sacrifices.

R. Joseph uses the verse from Zephaniah to prove that the non-Jews will convert in the future. Abaye tries to interpret the verse as referring to simply turning away from idolatry, but not necessarily conversion. R. Joseph then uses the end of the verse to prove that it refers to conversion to Judaism, not just rejection of idolatry.

This is all the same report as above with merely some differences in how it is presented. We can see here that some amoraim (R. Papa and R. Zevid) had the same material but had it preserved in a different formula.

Moses tells Pharaoh that he must provide him with sacrifices which they will offer to God in the wilderness. This proves that animals can be received from non-Jews. The Talmud says that the law was different before the giving of the Torah. The Torah is what prohibits taking animals as sacrifices from non-Jews.

The Talmud cites another verse where non-Jews offer sacrifices to God. However, this too occurred before the giving of the Torah, or at least this is what seems.

Rabbis dispute whether Jethro’s visit to Moses (in Exodus 18) happened before or after the giving of the Torah (chapters 19-20). For those who hold that it happened after the giving of the Torah, we still need to resolve how Jethro could bring his own animal as an offering. The answer is that Jethro bought the animal from an Israelite.