1) What's the punishment for not doing these things?
I can't find a clear statement in the talmud itself, though that doesn't mean it's not in there somewhere. According to Maimonidies (the Rambam), who wrote the *Mishneh Torah* to codify Jewish law for "regular folks" in the 12th century and is widely understood to have recorded the traditional interpretation (not an innovator), the penalty in a human court is just that he has to make restitution (he isn't even hit with the double payment for theft). However, in the divine court, it's worse than even adultery, for which the (divine) punishment was being "cut off from the people":1
The punishment for the person who uses false measures is greater than the punishment for licentious sexual behavior, for this is a sin between a person and his colleague, and this is a sin between a person and God.
Whoever denies the mitzvah of just measures is considered as if he denied the exodus from Egypt, which is the first of God's commandments. Conversely, one who accepts the mitzvah of just measures is considered as if he acknowledges the exodus from Egypt, which brought about all of God's commandments. (source)
The talmud reports, and I saw but have lost track of an article saying this continued to the 19th century, that communities had inspectors who made the rounds of shops inspecting weights and measures. (Sort of like government health inspectors in restaurants today, I imagine.) According to the torah (Deuteronomy 25:13-15) even mere possession of dishonest weights and measures is a violation of torah law. I don't know how the inspectors handled it if they found problems, but if they couldn't confiscate them I strongly suspect that they made the matter known in the community.
1 The word for this is karet, and it seems to boil down to "God is really not ok with what you did". Adultery (for example) could also be punished in a human court, and if all the (stringent) requirements of witnesses, warning, and so on were met, that would be a death-penalty offense. Often a human court cannot prosecute a case because there aren't sufficient witnesses or witnesses disagree, but God knows the truth.
2) How old do we think the torah is?
Biblical scholars think most of it was assembled in the 6th-7th century BCE. (That's torah specifically, meaning the five books of Moses.)
The talmud consists of the mishna and g'mara, both of which were oral tradition before finally being written down. The mishna was written down by Yehudah HaNasi c. 200 CE, and the (Babylonian) g'mara was written down by Rav Ashi and Ravina c. 400-475 CE. (475 is when Ravina died, so that establishes an upper bound. Rav Ashi was head of an important academy from 375-427, so probably started the work in that period.) Some scholars think it had some later edits, possibly as late as 700.
3) Are there actual words for "wholesaler" and "retailer" in the talmud? Or how are those ideas described?
Yes. I haven't looked up the words in a talmudic dictionary so I could be missing some nuances, but הסיטון is a wholesaler, and מקנח is a storekeeper. The original source is translated as "producer" in the Soncino translation (from which I prepare the daf bits) but "homeowner" on Sefaria, so I looked more closely at the Hebrew: ובעל הבית, literally "master of the house".
4) Is there some cost to the cleaning of scales and weights, such that everyone isn't just required to do it all the time? Is there some reason it's desireable to minimize the cleaning?
I don't know, and it's a good question. Given how severe the transgression seems to be, at least under heaven, you'd think that people would be fastidious about this. Was it hard? Super-inconvenient somehow?
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Date: 2017-04-23 03:29 am (UTC)I can't find a clear statement in the talmud itself, though that doesn't mean it's not in there somewhere. According to Maimonidies (the Rambam), who wrote the *Mishneh Torah* to codify Jewish law for "regular folks" in the 12th century and is widely understood to have recorded the traditional interpretation (not an innovator), the penalty in a human court is just that he has to make restitution (he isn't even hit with the double payment for theft). However, in the divine court, it's worse than even adultery, for which the (divine) punishment was being "cut off from the people":1
The talmud reports, and I saw but have lost track of an article saying this continued to the 19th century, that communities had inspectors who made the rounds of shops inspecting weights and measures. (Sort of like government health inspectors in restaurants today, I imagine.) According to the torah (Deuteronomy 25:13-15) even mere possession of dishonest weights and measures is a violation of torah law. I don't know how the inspectors handled it if they found problems, but if they couldn't confiscate them I strongly suspect that they made the matter known in the community.
1 The word for this is karet, and it seems to boil down to "God is really not ok with what you did". Adultery (for example) could also be punished in a human court, and if all the (stringent) requirements of witnesses, warning, and so on were met, that would be a death-penalty offense. Often a human court cannot prosecute a case because there aren't sufficient witnesses or witnesses disagree, but God knows the truth.
2) How old do we think the torah is?
Biblical scholars think most of it was assembled in the 6th-7th century BCE. (That's torah specifically, meaning the five books of Moses.)
The talmud consists of the mishna and g'mara, both of which were oral tradition before finally being written down. The mishna was written down by Yehudah HaNasi c. 200 CE, and the (Babylonian) g'mara was written down by Rav Ashi and Ravina c. 400-475 CE. (475 is when Ravina died, so that establishes an upper bound. Rav Ashi was head of an important academy from 375-427, so probably started the work in that period.) Some scholars think it had some later edits, possibly as late as 700.
3) Are there actual words for "wholesaler" and "retailer" in the talmud? Or how are those ideas described?
Yes. I haven't looked up the words in a talmudic dictionary so I could be missing some nuances, but הסיטון is a wholesaler, and מקנח is a storekeeper. The original source is translated as "producer" in the Soncino translation (from which I prepare the daf bits) but "homeowner" on Sefaria, so I looked more closely at the Hebrew: ובעל הבית, literally "master of the house".
4) Is there some cost to the cleaning of scales and weights, such that everyone isn't just required to do it all the time? Is there some reason it's desireable to minimize the cleaning?
I don't know, and it's a good question. Given how severe the transgression seems to be, at least under heaven, you'd think that people would be fastidious about this. Was it hard? Super-inconvenient somehow?