Yoma 80 - One, who tries to get a little, will succeed

We have seen that to transmit ritual impurity, the food must have at least the volume of an egg. But, how do we know this?

Since the Torah said, “Any food that is eaten,” we understand that we are talking about food coming from another food. And what is it? - Chicken egg: it is food, and it comes from another food, a chicken. But maybe it is a young goat, which comes from its mother, who is also food? - No, it does not just "come," but it requires slaughter. But perhaps it is an egg of a bar-yuchani bird, which is as big as sixty cities? - No, because we have a rule: one, who tries to grab a little, succeeds in that, and may even be added more, but one who tries to grab a lot - he may not be given anything at all, and so we have to limit ourselves to a chicken egg. But perhaps the Torah meant an egg of a tiny bird?

The last question is indeed irrefutable, and we abandon this complete chain of questions and answers. Rather, “Any food that is eaten” implies that it is eaten in one gulp, and the Sages estimated that the throat cannot hold more than a hen’s egg.

Back to measures of food for which one bears responsibility if he eats it on Yom Kippur: solids in the amount of a large date, and liquid - a full cheek. How can we have one measure that depends on an objective average large date and another - on his personal cheek capacity? - The Sages estimated that this much would assuage the suffering of the fast, and less than that would not. This is even true for a giant called Og, whose full cheek was huge but whose limit of solid on Yom Kippur would also be a large date.

Art: A lady seated in an interior, with a maidservant and a girl holding a chicken and basket of eggs By (after) Tibout Regters