Vayeilech 31:10 · unit 1

English: “And he read there before the broad place that was before the Gate of the Water” (Nehemiah 8:3). According to this opinion, the High Priest would read from the Torah in the Temple courtyard. Rav Ḥisda says in response: The baraita also means that the reading takes place in the women’s courtyard. § It is taught in the mishna that the High Priest receives the Torah scroll and reads the Torah portion beginning with the verse: “After the death” (Leviticus 16:1), and the portion beginning with the verse: “But on the tenth” (Leviticus 23:26). Since these two portions are not adjacent to each other, the High Priest skips the section between the two portions. The Gemara raises a contradiction from a mishna (Megilla 24a): One may skip sections when reading the haftara in the Prophets, but one may not skip sections when reading in the Torah. Abaye said: This is not difficult. There, in the mishna in tractate Megilla that teaches that one may not skip, the intention is that one should not skip if the sections are so far apart from one another that the delay caused by doing so will be of such length that the translator who recites the Aramaic translation will conclude his translation before the next section is reached. However, in the case of the mishna here, it is permitted to skip verses because the two passages are in close proximity to one another. The delay caused is of such short length that the translator will still not conclude his translation. The Gemara challenges this resolution: But isn’t it taught about this mishna in a baraita: One may skip sections when reading in the Prophets, but one may not skip sections when reading in the Torah. And how much may one skip from one passage to another in the Prophets? One may skip when the section skipped is of such short length that when the furling of the scroll is completed the translator will still not have concluded his translation. By inference, when reading in the Torah one may not skip at all. Rather, Abaye said another explanation: This is not difficult. In the mishna here, it is permitted to skip because both passages pertain to a single topic. There, in the mishna in tractate Megilla that teaches that one may not skip, the halakha is referring to a case where the passages pertain to two different topics. And this is as it is taught in a baraita: One may skip sections when reading in the Torah when both sections pertain to a single topic, and in the Prophets one may skip from one section to another even if they pertain to two different topics. And both here and there, one may skip only when the section skipped is of such short length that when the furling of the scroll is completed the translator will still not have concluded his translation.