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1)

(a) According to Rebbi Meir, the Chachamim did not consent to the people preparing the wheat into flour and roasted wheat-kernels to sell in the market, before the Omer - because one may come to eat from them.

(b) Rebbi Yehudah was not concerned that people might eat Chadash prematurely - because the mere fact that they were only permitted to pick the crops with their hands (instead of with a scythe, like they did during the rest of the year), would serve as a reminder not to eat the crops yet.

(c) The grinding and sifting too, was only permitted in an unusual way - the former using a small hand-mill, the latter, sifting using the back of the sieve.

(d) Rebbi Yehudah is strict by Chametz, because throughout the year, it is permitted, so it is easy to forget that it is Pesach and eat it; and he is lenient by Chadash because it is the new produce which has not yet become permitted to eat, so one is not as likely to forget and eat it.

3)

(a) Even though Rebbi Meir is strict in Menachos, because he may come to eat the new crops before the Omer, he will nevertheless be counted among the Chachamim who are lenient here with regard to searching for Chametz *after* Chametz has become forbidden - because it makes little sense to suspect someone who is searching for Chametz in order to *destroy it*, of then taking it and *eating it*.

(b) It is laughable to say that Rebbi Yehudah only permits flour and roasted kernels because neither is edible - since that is true only once it is has been roasted in the oven; but how about *before* that stage, when the ears of corn are still soft and perfectly edible.

(c) Although Rebbi Yehudah is strict in our Sugya, forbidding anything that one uses regularly, since he may come to eat it - this does not apply to Shabbos, where, on principle, he is lenient, because, due to the stringency of Shabbos, people tend to be more careful with regard to it.

(d) Rebbi Yehudah forbids tying the broken rope of a well with a bow, not because one may come to make a knot, but because, according to him, a bow is considered a knot. In that case, someone who ties a bow on Shabbos is Chayav.

(a) The Rabbanan are stringent on Shabbos, in the case of the earthenware lamp - because it is easy to confuse one lamp with the other; but they are lenient with regard to tying a bow (when the rope used to draw water from the well snaps) - because one does not tend to confuse a bow with a knot, nor do they consider a bow to be a knot.

(b) People may well not confuse a bow for a knot, but they will confuse one kind of rope (i.e. that of a weaver) with another (an ordinary one).

(a) The reason Rebbi Yehudah forbids letting blood by a sick firstborn animal, even in a location where the wound will heal (which is not considered a blemish) - is because, seeing as a person tends to become confused when his money is at stake. Consequently, if a man is permitted to let the blood of an animal in a location where it does *not* make a wound, we are afraid that he will come to do likewise in a location where it *does*.

(b) The Rabbanan argue that, if a man is not permitted to let blood at all on his sick animal, then he will become even more confused, and subsequently let blood in a location where it makes a wound.

(c) Rebbi Yehudah permits Kirtzuf by an animal on Yom-Tov - because it is only when it is to save the animal from dying that Rebbi Yehudah maintains that a person becomes confused, but not when it is only to alleviate pain.

(d) Kirtzuf means brushing the animal using a comb with thick teeth, which does *not* cause a wound; Kirud means brushing it with a comb with sharp teeth, which *does*.

6)

(a) Rebbi Yehudah maintains that one will confuse Chametz (on Pesach) with Chametz (the whole year round), but one will not confuse Kirtzuf with Kirud.

(b) The Rabbanan hold that one easily confuses Kirtzuf with Kirud.

(a) Rebbi Yehudah agrees that Bi'ur Chametz takes place at the beginning of the sixth hour - he disagrees however, with Rebbi Meir's time of eating Chametz: according to him, one may eat Chametz only until the end of the *fourth* hour.

(b) The two Pasul Todah Chametz-loaves were placed on the covered seating shelters that surrounded the Har-Habayis. When, at the end of the *fourth* hour, the first one was removed (in full view of the residents of Yerushalayim), everyone knew that they had to stop eating Chametz; and when the second one was removed at the end of the *fifth*, they knew that they had to start burning it.

(c) Raban Gamliel holds that Chametz of Chulin could be eaten until the end of the *fourth* hour (like Rebbi Yehudah), and that of Terumah until the end of the *fifth* (like Rebbi Meir) - because the Torah calls Terumah 'Kodesh', and it is forbidden to destroy any form of Kodshim.

(a) If two witnesses agreed that a murder took place on a certain day of the week, but disagreed on the date i.e. one said that it occurred on the second of the month, and the other, the third, their testimony is accepted - because it is highly likely that one of them simply did not know that the previous month had been one of *thirty* days (and not a regular month of *twenty-nine*).

(b) If the one says that it took place on the third of the month, and the other, on the fifth - since there is no way that they can have been referring to the same day, their testimony is invalid.

(c) Rebbi Yehudah, who normally accepts even a two-hour discrepancy in the witnesses testimony, agrees that, if one says that the murder took place in the fifth hour, and the other, the seventh, their testimony is invalid. This is because in the fifth hour, the sun is still in the east, whereas in the seventh hour, it is in the west (and in the days before time-pieces were invented, people tended to keep time by the position of the sun.

(a) According to Abaye (in whose opinion, Rebbi Meir does not allow the witnesses any margin of error whatsoever), if one of the witnesses, for example, says that the murder took place in the *second* hour, and the second witness, in the *third*, we assume that the murder really took place at the moment in time when the second hour ends and the third begins, so that both witnesses are actually testifying about the very same moment.

(b) And according to Rebbi Yehudah (who allows a margin of error of half an hour), if one of the witnesses says that the murder took place in the *third* hour, and the other witness, in the *fifth* - then we assume that the first witness was referring to the *end of the third hour*, and the second, the *beginning of the fifth*, and that the murder actually took place in the middle of the fourth hour, allowing each one a margin of error of half an hour.

(c) In the second Lashon of Abaye - Rebbi Meir allows a margin of error of a fraction, and Rebbi Yehudah, an hour plus a fraction. According to Rebbi Meir, the murder now took place either at the end of the second hour, or at the beginning of the third, and one of them erred by a fraction of a second. Whereas according to Rebbi Yehudah, it took place either at the end of the third hour, or at the beginning of the fifth, and one of the witnesses erred by an hour and a fraction.

(d) Rava refutes Abaye's explanation on the basis of the Pasuk in Mas'ei "ve'Shaftu ha'Eidah, ve'Hitzilu ha'Eidah", from which Chazal derive that one should do everything possible to save the accused from death. In that case, how can we possibly give the witnesses a minimum margin of error and then presume that they must have been referring to the same point in time? Should we not rather presume that they were referring to different times and disqualify their testimony, in order to put this Pasuk into practice and save the defendant?