Illustration Credit: Rivka Tsinman

When the Torah says to eat some matzah on the first night of Pesah, how much do you think you need to eat? Is it enough to put a tiny crumb of matzah in your mouth? Do you have to eat a whole box of matzah?

Actually, there’s a required measurement called a shiur. It’s a very old tradition that the minimum amount of food that can count as “eating” is something the size of an olive, a כְּזָיִת (kezayit). So, just about any time the Torah says you have to eat something, it means at least a kezayit. If you ate a kezayit of matzah, you did your job; if not, not!

And the same goes for the Torah holding you responsible for eating things that are forbidden, like hametz on Pesah. Back when Jewish courts might have punished people for breaking rules, they would only have stepped in when someone actually ate an kezayit of hametz.

This conversation about shiurim connects to a pasuk in our parashah about some animal parts that we aren’t allowed to eat.

Based on what we learned above about shiurim, you might think that it’s allowed to eat a tiny taste of heilev or blood.

R. Yohanan thought that actually, no, heilev and blood are different! R. Yohanan notices in our pasuk that the word כׇּל (kol, any) appears twice (we bolded them). Why’s that? Why not just say, “don’t eat heilev and blood?” He answers: The word “kol” teaches that even the smallest amount is not ok! For heilev and blood he says that the principle is, חֲצִי שִׁעוּר אָסוּר מִן הַתּוֹרָה—the Torah forbids eating even less than a kezayit.

Reish Lakish disagreed—he thought that the Torah did not forbid such small amounts, but that they were still forbidden by Hazal.

Rambam writes that tasting even a tiny amount of a forbidden food is forbidden by the Torah, but punishments are only given to those who eat more than a shiur (Ma’akhalot Asurot 14:2).

-------------------

-------------------