The Gemara challenges this: And are there no more cases or threats of excommunication? Surely there are additional cases as in the baraita taught by Rav Yosef: Theodosius of Rome, leader of the Jewish community there, instituted the custom for the Roman Jews to eat whole kids, young goats roasted with their entrails, on the eve of Passover. Shimon ben Shataḥ sent a message to him: If you were not Theodosius, an important person, I would have decreed ostracism upon you, as it appears as if you are feeding Israel consecrated food, which may only be eaten in and around the Temple itself, outside the Temple.
The Gemara asks: And are there none in the Mishna? Isn’t there that which we learned in the mishna: One who cut an earthenware oven horizontally into ring-shaped pieces and put sand between the pieces, Rabbi Eliezer deems the oven ritually pure, i.e., it is no longer susceptible to ritual impurity as it is not considered an intact vessel and cannot become ritually impure. And the Rabbis deem it ritually impure as the oven continues to serve its original function. And this is called the oven of akhnai, snake.
And it was taught in a baraita: On that day, they gathered all of the ritually pure food items that had come into contact with the oven that Rabbi Eliezer had declared ritually pure, and burned them before him, and because he did not accept the decision of the majority, in the end they “blessed,” a euphemism for ostracized, him.
In the mishna, a distinction was made between those who are before the coffin and those after the coffin. Our Rabbis taught in a baraita: Those involved in eulogy must slip away from the eulogy one by one while the deceased is laid out before them and recite Shema elsewhere. And if the deceased is not laid out before them, the eulogizers must sit and recite Shema while the bereaved sits silently. They stand and pray and he stands and justifies God’s judgment, saying: Master of the Universe, I have sinned greatly against You, and You have not collected even one one-thousandth of my debt. May it be Your will, Lord our God, to mercifully repair the breaches in our fence and the breaches of Your nation, the House of Israel.
וְאָמַר רַב יוֹסֵף: מַאי קְרָאָה — שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״כִּמְעַט כִּסְדוֹם הָיִינוּ״, מַאי אַהֲדַר לְהוּ נָבִיא — ״שִׁמְעוּ דְבַר ה׳ קְצִינֵי סְדוֹם״.
And Rav Yosef said: What is the verse from which it is derived? As it is stated: “We almost became like Sodom...” (Isaiah 1:9), after which what did the prophet reply to them? “Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom...” (Isaiah 1:10).
We learned that some who come to console the bereaved are exempt from Shema as a means of honoring the deceased. The Gemara expands the discussion to raise the general question: To what degree does preserving human dignity takes precedence over mitzvot enumerated in the Torah? Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: One who discovers diverse kinds [kilayim], i.e., a prohibited mixture of wool and linen, in his garment, must remove them even in the public marketplace. He may not wait until he reaches home. What is the reason for this? As it is stated: “There is neither wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord” (Proverbs 21:30). From here, the general principle is derived: Anywhere that there is desecration of the Lord’s name (chillul hashem), one cannot defer responsibility out of respect to their teacher.
Rav Kahana replied to them: A great man has spoken, do not laugh at him. The Sages based all rabbinic law on the prohibition of “you shall not deviate”; however, due to concern for human dignity, the Sages permitted suspension of rabbinic law in cases where the two collide.
The Gemara cites an additional proof from a baraita: Come and hear: With regard to the laws of returning a lost object, it is stated: “You shall not see the ox of your brother or his sheep go astray and ignore them; return them to your brother” (Deuteronomy 22:1). The baraita explains that the seemingly extraneous expression and ignore them must be understood to give license that at times you ignore lost objects and at times you do not ignore them.
How so? If he was a priest and the lost object was in the cemetery, or if he was an elder and it is beneath his dignity to tend to a lost object of that kind, or if he had more work to do than another person and he does not want to set it all aside when another person is available to tend to the lost object. Therefore, with regard to those cases it is stated: And ignore them to permit one to refrain from returning the object. Why? Let us say here, too: Although handling the lost object would be beneath his dignity, “there is neither wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord.”
The Gemara answers: There it is different, as it is written: “And ignore them,” indicating that under certain circumstances one is permitted to disregard a lost object. In that case, there is a biblical directive that creates an exception to the prohibition: “You may not disregard” (Deuteronomy 22:3). We found a case in which human dignity overrides a Torah prohibition. The Gemara suggests: Let us derive a general principle that human dignity takes precedence over all mitzvot in the Torah from this case. This possibility is rejected: We do not derive halakhot pertaining to prohibitions from monetary laws, and the case of the lost object merely entails a monetary loss, unlike other prohibitions.