A man should not break bread over a dish,¹ wipe the plate with a piece of bread, or gather the crumbs and leave them on the table, because such action is objectionable to men.² One should not wipe the plate with a piece of bread and leave it on the table, because such action is objectionable to men. A man should not bite off a piece of bread and return it to the plate; similarly he should not bite off a piece of bread and give it to his fellow, because not all tastes are alike. He should also not drink from a cup and hand it to his fellow because of danger to life.³ Once R. ‘Aḳiba was staying at the inn of a certain man who handed him a goblet of wine from which he had already drunk. R. ‘Aḳiba said to him, ‘Take and drink it’. [The host] again handed him another goblet of wine from which he had previously drunk, and R. ‘Aḳiba said to him, ‘Take and drink it’. Ben ‘Azzai said to him, ‘How long will you give [R. ‘Aḳiba] goblets of wine which had previously been tasted!’

footnotes: ¹ Lest crumbs fall into it and fastidious persons would not eat from the dish. ² Following the text of GRA; also in the next sentence. ³ The man may be fastidious and yet be forced to drink from it. It is permitted only after he had poured out some water from the cup to cleanse the rim; cf. Tamid 27b (Sonc. ed., p. 9).

It is also related of R. ‘Aḳiba that he was staying at the inn of a certain man [57b] who took a piece of bread and used it to support his plate.⁴ R. ‘Aḳiba snatched [the bread] and ate it. [The innkeeper] said to him, ‘Master, have you no bread to eat other than that on which I rested the plate?’ He replied, ‘I imagined that you would be scalded with tepid water;⁵ but now⁶ [I see] that you are not scalded even with hot water’. A man should not drink his goblet and place it upon the table; but he should retain it until the waiter comes and then hand it to him.⁷

footnotes: ⁴ Displaying disrespect for food. ⁵ i.e. I gave you a plain hint that this must not be done. ⁶ Because of the question. ⁷ He may stain the tablecloth.

Rabbi [Judah the Prince] said the following five things [concerning bread]: we may not place raw meat on bread,⁸ we may not pass a cup [full of wine] or a plate [of soup] over bread, we may not throw bread, we may not rest a dish on bread and we may not sit on articles of food because it would crush them.⁹ A guest may not take his portion and give it to the attendant, lest something untoward happen to [the rest of] the meal;¹⁰ but he should take [his portion], keep it in front of him and later hand it to the attendant.

footnotes: ⁸ So as not to spoil it; this is the reason in all the cases mentioned. ⁹ It is disrespectful even if he does not make it repugnant. H reverses the order of the paragraphs. ¹⁰ And the guest will have had nothing to eat.

Guests may not give anything [from what is set before them] to the host’s son or to his servant or deputy unless they have received the host’s permission to do so. It once happened that in a time of scarcity a man invited three guests to his house and only had three eggs¹¹ which he set before them. When the host’s child entered and stood before them, one of the guests took his portion and gave it to him; the second guest did the same and so did the third. When the father came in and saw him with one egg in his mouth and holding two in his hands, he picked him up to his full height and flung him to the ground so that he died. When the mother saw her child dead she got up from [her seat] upon the roof¹² and threw herself down and died. On seeing this, the father also stood on the roof and threw himself down and died. R. Eliezer b. Jacob said: Because of this three souls perished.

footnotes: ¹¹ Some read ‘food of the size of three eggs’. ¹² The text in Ḥul. 94a (Sonc. ed., p. 529) states that she went up to the roof.