Sanhedrin 9:6 - 10:1

הגונב את הקסוה – one of the service vessels (see Talmud Sanhedrin 81b), from the language (Numbers 4:7): “and the libation jugs.”

המקלל בקוסם – who blasphemes the name [of God] in the name of idolatry.

והבועל ארמית – a heathen woman.

קנאים פוגעים בו – those who are zealous with the zealousness of God would kill him. And it would be a heathen woman the daughter of those who worship idols, and at the time of the act, and before ten [men] of Israel (i.e., the community) , and if one of these conditions is missing, it is prohibited to kill him. But, his punishment is explained by the prophet (Malachi 2:12): “May the LORD leave to him who does this no descendants [dwelling in the tents of Jacob and presenting offerings to the LORD of Hosts].” And we flog him four times from the words of the Scribes: because of her being a menstruant woman, because she is a maid-servant, because she is a heathen and because she is a harlot.

פרחי כהונה – boys whose hair of their beards begin to flower on them.

בגזירין – logs of wood.

רבי עקיבא אמור בחנק – it is stated here (Numbers 1:51): “Any foreigner who encroaches (the Tabernacle) shall be put to death,” and it is stated there (Deuteronomy 13:6): “As for that prophet or dream-diviner, he shall be put to death…” Just as there, [his death] is by choking, so also here by choking.

וחכמים אומרים בידי שמים – It is stated here, “he shall be put to death” (Numbers 1:51) and it is stated further on (Numbers 17:28): “Everyone who so as much as ventures near the LORD’s Tabernacle must die…” Just as further on, it as at the hands of Heaven, so here too at the hands of Heaven. And the Halakha is according to the Sages. But death at the hand of Heaven is less than from extirpation, for extirpation has upon it a punishment after death if he did not repent appropriately. But[regarding] death at the hands of Heaven, there is nothing after it at all. And Rashi wrote in the chapter “With what do we kindle [Shabbat lights]” (chapter two of Tractate Shabbat, 25a): that death at the hands of Heaven, his days are shortened and he does not go childless. Extirpation has two [things associated with it]: His days are cut off and he goes (i.e., dies) childless. And those who are liable to death at the hand of Heaven on the matters of the Sanctuary and the holy things are eleven, and they are: He who eats eatables forbidden pending the separation of sacred gifts, a ritually impure Kohen who eats pure priest’s due, and the foreigner (i.e., the non-Kohen) who eats priest’s due, and the foreigner, the impure and the ritual impurity of one who immersed during the daytime but does not attain ritual purity until the evening – who served [in the Sanctuary] , and those [Kohanim] lacking atonement, those [Kohanim] lacking priestly garments, and who did not sanctify their hands and feet and those who are intoxicated with wine and had overgrown hair. Some of them it says [the punishment of] death regarding them explicitly and some of them our Rabbis learned from the received tradition by verbal analogy and by juxtaposition.

כל ישראל יש להם חלק לעולם הבא – even those who were convicted for death by the Jewish court because of their wickedness, they have a share in the World to Come. And the World to Come spoken of here is the World to Come after the Resurrection of the Dead, who would be destined to live and to stand with their bodies and souls living eternally, like the sun, and the moon and the stars, as is brought in the Gemara in this chapter (Sanhedrin 90b), the dead who are destined to live do not return to the dust. And in the World to Come, there is no eating or drinking, and even though it has a body and inner-body (i.e., membrum), but the Righteous sit and their crowns are on their heads and they enjoy the splendor of God’s presence. And because all Israel is not equivalent in this, but rather the great according to their greatness and the small before his smallness. Because of this, it is taught that they have a share [in the World to Come].

האומר אין תחיית המתים מן התורה – In the Gemara (Sanhedrin 90a) it states, and so much why, as it is taught: he denied the Resurrection of the Dead. Therefore, he will not have a share in the Resurrection of the Dead. And from here, I prove that the World to Come that is mentioned in this Mishnah is not the world in which the souls are placed at this time, but rather, the world of the Resurrection of the Dead as I have mentioned.

אפיקורוס – that despises the Sages and all the more despises the Torah itself.

בספרים החיצונים – the books of the sectarians, such as the books of Aristotle the Greek and his colleagues. And included in this – a person who reads the chronicles of the heathen kings, “songs of sensuality” [=erotic poems], and “writings of desire” [=novels] that have no wisdom in them or purpose other than a waste of time alone.

והלוחש על המכה – and with spitting alone that he has not share in the World to Come, for he does not mention the name of Heaven on the spitting (Sanhedrin 101a).

וההוגה את השם – of four letters like it is written.