Daf Yomi Nedarim 13: Understanding The Parallel Yerushalmi

In the prior post on the topic of the various girsaot of the gemara about hakorban vs. ha korban vs. hai korban, I mentioned in passing the Yerushalmi, which is very difficult to understand. To quickly recap the issue, our Mishna states:

האומר קרבן עולה מנחה חטאת שלמים תודה שאני אוכל לך אסור

ורבי יהודה מתיר

הקרבן כקרבן קרבן שאוכל לך אסור
לקרבן לא אוכל לך ר"מ אוסר
האומר לחבירו קונם פי מדבר עמך ידי עושות עמך רגלי מהלכות לך אסור

F ONE SAYS [TO HIS NEIGHBOUR], 'THAT WHICH I MIGHT EAT OF YOURS BE KORBAN', [OR]' A BURNT-OFFERING', [OR] 'A MEAL-OFFERING', [OR]' A SIN-OFFERING [OR] 'A THANKSGIVING-OFFERING', [OR]' A PEACE-OFFERING, — HE IS FORBIDDEN.
RABBI YEHUDAH PERMITTED [HIM].

[IF HE SAYS,] 'THE KORBAN,' [OR] 'AS A KORBAN,' [OR]' KORBAN, BE THAT WHICH I MIGHT EAT OF YOURS,' HE IS FORBIDDEN.

IF HE SAYS: THAT WHICH I MIGHT NOT EAT OF YOURS BE FOR A KORBAN,' RABBI MEIR FORBIDS.

Our gemara (in Bavli) asks and answers on this (text taken from my Rif blog):

ר"מ אוסר
והתניא מודים חכמים לר"י באומר הא קרבן הא עולה הא חטאת הא מנחה הא תודה הא שלמים שאוכל לך מותר שלא נדר זה אלא בחיי קרבן
ל"ק הא דאמר הא קרבן [והא דאמר הי קרבן
אמר הא קרבן אסור אמר הי קרבן מותר מאי טעמא] חיי קרבן קאמר
וכן הלכתא.

"{hakorban [as one word] ...} Rabbi Meir forbids":
But they learnt {in a brayta}: The Sages admit to Rabbi Yehuda by where he says "ha korban, ha olah, ha chatat, ha mincha, ha todah, ha shelamim" "what I eat of yours," that he is permitted, for he did not vow except by the life of the korban. {thus, by the life of the korban, I will eat of yours."
{Nedarim 13b}
This is no contradiction. This is where he said ha korban [and this is where he said hay korban. {our gemara: "hakorban," as one word, but then the examples of permitted and forbidden would be reversed.} If he said ha korban, it is forbidden. If he said hay korban, he is permitted. What is the reason? By the life of the korban, he means.
And so is the halacha.

As opposed to this Rif above, our version of the gemara has ha korban -- הא קרבן vs. הקרבן. There is a difference between Nimukei Yosef and Ritva in explaining this. One says it means one word vs. two words. The other says it means ה with a kametz under it (הא) as opposed to ה with a patach under it. And indeed, in other contexts, the aleph is used to denote the kametz sound. But then what of the gap? Perhaps to denote the meaning, that is as if it were two words.

On to the Yerushalmi, Nedarim 4b. That Yerushalmi reads:

כל עמא מודיי הקרבן מותר כקרבן אסור
מה פליגין קרבן.
ר' יודה אומר האומר קרבן כאומר הקרבן והוא מותר. ורבנין אמרין קרבן כאומר כקרבן והוא אסור

Our gemara Bavli just got finished saying that hakorban is forbidden, and now the Yerushalmi is saying that everyone agrees that hakorban is permitted!

Furthermore, this Yerushalmi appears to be against the very Mishna it is going on. For that Mishna stated:

הקרבן כקרבן קרבן שאוכל לך אסור

Perhaps we could suggest an extremely weird parse as: hakorban (to one side); kekorban (to the other, stringent side); "korban that I eat of yours" is forbidden. But even so, there would be no dispute in "korban," while Yerushalmi claims this is the point of dispute. No, this is not the answer.

Korban HaEdah and Penei Moshe both are strongly influenced by Bavli here, and they explain that where the Yerushalmi says that all agree that hakorban is permitted, this is not hakorban, but is really either ha korban as two words, or with a kametz under the heh. That is, Ritvah and Nimukei Yosef's explanations of the Bavli. But there, the Bavli explicitly said הא קרבן. There is no such element in the Yerushalmi. And furthermore, it is extremely unlikely that after the Mishna itself set up the three cases of hakorban, kekorban and korban as being forbidden (according to all), stating הקרבן כקרבן קרבן שאוכל לך אסור, the Yerushalmi would then use exactly these three words, hakorban, kekorban, korban, with the exception that hakorban is really the special two-word or kametz version. And to do that without any comment or elaboration?! No, these explanations are obviously incorrect.

The possible answer, to my mind, is firstly predicated on realizing that the Yerushalmi's discussion is based on the resha of the Mishna rather than the sefa. The resha is the dispute of Rabbi Yehuda and the Chachamim, stating:

האומר קרבן עולה מנחה חטאת שלמים תודה שאני אוכל לך אסור

ורבי יהודה מתיר

Meanwhile, discussion of hakorban, kekorban, korban is based on the sefa, which states:

הקרבן כקרבן קרבן שאוכל לך אסור
לקרבן לא אוכל לך ר"מ אוסר

What the Yerushalmi is doing is stating that this dispute of hakorban, kekorban, korban of the sefa is not an issue in the resha. Rather, in the resha, both Rabbi Yehuda and the Chachamim agree that hakorban is permitted and kekorban is forbidden. The resha only speaks of korban.

This is no resolution, though! For the resha's case appears almost identical to the sefa! The resha includes the case of קרבן שאני אוכל לך, and this is practically the same as קרבן שאוכל לך of the sefa. Yet the Yerushalmi claims that in the resha, korban is a matter of dispute, while in the sefa, everyone (including presumably Rabbi Yehuda) agrees. And what is more bothersome to commentators is that the sefa forbids according to everyone in the sefa in the case of hakorban, while in the resha the Yerushalmi is filling in that everyone permits.

My suggested answer to this is that in fact, the case in the resha is different from the sefa. Because the Yerushalmi has a slightly different girsa of our Mishna, which undermines the question. The Mishna in Yerushalmi reads:

האומר קרבן עולה מנחה חטאת תודה שלמים שאיני אוכל לך אסור
רבי יהודה מתיר

הקרבן כקרבן קרבן שאוכל לך אסור לקרבן
לא אוכל לך רבי מאיר אוסר

The key change is that while the Mishna in Bavli, and Rif, has sheAni, the Mishna in Yerushalmi has sheAini. This is a contraction of she + `i + ani. Thus, rather than "that I," it means "that I will not." This changes the pronunciation from the positive to a negative.

Meanwhile, the sefa reads sheOchel, so it is a positive.

This can well account for the distinction in ruling between the resha and sefa, just as the positive/negative distinction causes distinctions in ruling elsewhere in Nedarim.

In the Yedid Nefesh commentary, he actually has the word שאיני, with the yud, but still translates it into Hebrew as if it read שאני, perhaps thinking of the Bavli's Mishna or influenced by the commentaries of Pnei Moshe/Korban haEdah, who give the two-word or kametz answer (he chooses the two-word resolution).

This Yerushalmi is not at odds with the local Bavli. The Bavli is only speaking about the sefa. It contradicts the girsa we have of the Mishna, but this might be a typographical error in our Mishna. Or, as Rav Ashi says later by shevuot, the word sheOchel (it seems only in that place) means she + `i + ochel. We would need to carefully analyze this, though, and compare with other Mishnayot, braytot, and gemaras.