מכות · Makkos

About Masechta Makkos · מסכת מכות

Makkos learns three things: eidim zomemim - false witnesses shown to have been elsewhere, who receive what they planned to do to another - the arei miklat, the cities of refuge for one who killed by accident, and malkus, the lashes beis din gives for transgressing a lav.

The first perek learns how zomemim are punished, and here the Mishnah says that a Sanhedrin that executes once in seven years is called destructive - Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah says once in seventy - while Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva said that had they sat in the Sanhedrin no one would ever have been put to death. The second perek learns who goes to a city of refuge, the roads to them kept open with signs reading 'miklat', and that the killer stays there until the death of the kohen gadol - which is why the mothers of the kohanim gedolim brought food and clothing to the exiles, so they would not pray for their sons' death.

The third perek lists those who receive lashes, how many - thirty-nine - and that one who was lashed is again 'your brother'. Makkos ends with the 613 mitzvos and how the prophets brought them to eleven, six, three, two and one - 'the righteous shall live by his faith' - and Rabbi Akiva, who laughed at the ruins of the Beis HaMikdash, because the prophecy of its destruction had come true and so would the prophecy of its rebuilding.

From the pages of Makkos

A student exiled to a city of refuge takes his teacher with him, for the Torah says the exile must 'live' there, and a student without his learning has no life; and there Rebbi says, much Torah I learned from my teachers, more from my friends, and from my students more than from them all. The Mishnah teaches that eidim zomemim are punished only if the one they testified against was not yet put to death - 'as he planned to do', not as was done - and Makkos closes with the Mishnah of Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya: Hashem wanted to give Israel merit, so He gave them much Torah and many mitzvos.

This page holds 140 shiurim on Masechta Makkos from 9 maggidei shiur; the most come from Rabbi Akiva Teichtal (48), Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer (32) and Rabbi Eli Stefansky (23). 131 of them learn the whole daf and 9 are short reviews, and 1 are in Hebrew. 23 dafim have their own shiurim here, each in its own row above, and “Learn in the Daf Room” opens that daf with its text and its shiurim side by side.

Masechta Makkos in the Daf Yomi

The 14th Daf Yomi cycle learned Masechta Makkos one daf a day for 23 days, from daf 2 to daf 24, from April 10, 2025 to May 2, 2025; the 15th cycle, which opens with Berachos on June 8, 2027, reaches it on September 11, 2032. Masechta Makkos is in Seder Nezikin, the fourth of the six orders of the Mishnah, and in the order of the Daf Yomi it comes after Masechta Sanhedrin and before Masechta Shevuos. On each of those days the Daf Room opens the day's daf with its text and every shiur on it, and the rows above keep the shiurim of every daf of the masechta for anyone who learns at his own pace.

The perakim of Makkos

Masechta Makkos has three perakim, from daf 2a to daf 24b. Each perek below opens its first daf in the Daf Room, where the Gemara’s text and every shiur on that daf sit together.

1. Perek 1 כיצד העדים 2a – 7a
2. Perek 2 אלו הן הגולין 7a – 13a
3. Perek 3 אלו הן הלוקין 13a – 24b