Gittin 60 continues the discussion which began with the mishna on 59(a and b) as to rules that were made for darcei shalom. Although this post will only touch on a few of the topics discussed, the daf itself is filled with interesting topics and (in my opinion) would be an excellent daf for a tikkun leil shavuous.
One of the first topics discussed involves the laws of priority for aliyos among yisraelim. When we started the daf tonight after the 9:45 ma'ariv, a passing gabbai heard the topic and said something to the effect that it would make his life easier if everyone knew this topic. Unfortunately, the daf does not get into the specifics of whether a yartzheit takes priority over a baby naming or aufruf. Instead, the gemara gives a list of priority among yisraelim, starting with the chacham haparnas (the scholar who gets involved in managing communal affairs) and finishes with the regular Jew.
Another interesting topic dealt with the use of Haftora books. I can recall that in the late 1980's my parents' shul stopped using a Haftora book (a single bound volume containing only the Haftora for each Torah reading) and started using a full tanach. The source for the concept is this gemara in which Rabbah and R' Yosef indicate that it is not permitted to use such a book because permission was not granted to write down only portions of a book of Nach in an individual scroll as the scrolls should contain the entire text of that book of Nach. Indeed, many yeshivos use an individual Nach sefer scroll (i.e. a Shmuel I from a klaf) when reading the Haftora. So why do some communities still use the Haftora book? The topic in the gemara ends with a heter for the use of such a book when a community cannot afford to have each of the books of Nach written in individual scrolls. The reason is derived from a pasuk in Tehillim ("Es la'asos L'Hashem") which Rashi explains that -- if a time arises when something must be done, the chachamim can be "mefer" something because the time demands it.
One last topic that I want to get into involves the eight parshios that R' Levi teaches were given to Moshe on the day that the Mishkan was erected. The gemara makes mention of R' Levi within a fascinating discussion as to whether Moshe wrote the Torah piece by piece as it occurred, or whether he learned and taught everything, but did not write the Torah until the end of his life when the Torah formed the complete unit which we know it to be. Within this discussion, the gemara mentions R' Levi as a proof that at least some (eight) separate parshios were written so as to have the topics available for use by those involved with the Mishkan.
Within the eight parshios that were taught on that day is "parshas teme'im." Rashi explains that this parsha dealt with the rules of those people who were involved with carrying atzmos yosef and were therefore ineligible to eat the pesach sacrifice. Rashi explains that the parshas teme'im which was taught allowed these people to know that they could eat fron the korban pesach on Pesach Shayni.
Tosafos (d'h Parshas Teme'im) takes issue with Rashi's explanation. Tosafos asks, if the laws of Pesach are taught thirty days in advance, how could this be a discussion of those disallowed from eating the korban pesach since it was a month and a half away. Tosafos also says that it could not be those who were tamei from carrying Yosef's bones or because they were mitamei for a meis mitzva because they would have had their seventh day of counting on erev Pesach. Instead, Tosafos indicates that the Parsha Teme'im that was taught dealt with those who became impure by coming into contact with impure sheratzim.
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