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Babylonian Talmud Eruvin 20a
May 30, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
We’ve seen the idea that carrying from one domain to another is prohibited on Shabbat. This idea is usually (though not always) expressed as “carrying from a public to a private domain” or vice versa. Here we see an additional question rising out of this basic law: What if one stands in one domain and imbibes water from another domain? Is one’s body another domain? Is it part of the domain that one’s feet are in? Is it part of the domain that one’s head is in? Perhaps the Shabbat domains end altogether at one’s lips? And what is the spiritual message about the Shabbat and the body that we are supposed to take away from this?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 86b
May 23, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
On Shavu’ot we recreate the revelation of Torah. Though we see in the Torah that revelation occurs over a long period, and in many places in the wanderings of the Israelites, nonetheless, the ultimate revelatory model in the Bible is the giving of Torah at Mount Sinai / Horeb in Exodus 20. It is this revelation we seek to commemorate on Shavu’ot. However, there are two unexpected things about this festival. It has no fixed date in the Torah—instead it is linked with the barley harvest; and second, the Torah never explicitly connects it with the Sinai event—though when we calculate the dates given in Exodus 19, the revelation at Sinai (or at least the surrounding events) must have coincided with the regular dates of the festival, early in the month of Sivan, at the time of the barley harvest.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 113a
May 16, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
We have seen this source before. When last we saw it, I mentioned that some of our Sages felt that objects which could not be used on Shabbat in any permitted way should be utterly outlawed for the entire twenty-five-hour period of Shabbat. This is the prohibition that came to be known as muktzeh(things placed to the side). If an object has no use on Shabbat, it is in this category and, generally, may not be picked up and moved to another location on Shabbat. This is different than the prohibition on carrying from one domain to another, which we have been discussing the last few weeks. This later prohibition, termed hotza’ah (literally, carrying out), applies to all objects.
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Mishnah Eruvin 10:1
May 9, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Our Sages considered it proscribed labor to carry any burden of value from one domain to another on Shabbat. As we noted last time, it is not the weight of an item that constitutes its significance in the Rabbinic mind, but the value that people ascribe to it. Some items have value because of their utility (food, for example), while others have value due to their sacred nature. One such sacred item is a pair of tefillin. In this mishnah, we see that one is prohibited from carrying tefillin from one domain to another (here, from the outdoors to indoors) on Shabbat, even to protect them from harm. Rather, the mishnah suggests, put on the tefillin and walk indoors. In this way, one preserves the sacred object without violating Shabbat.
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Mishnah Shabbat 7:3
May 2, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
I mentioned last week, in passing, that one violates the prohibition of carrying from domain to domain on Shabbat if one carries an object of value. How do we measure the value of objects?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 153a
Apr 25, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
If I am traveling on Friday afternoon and am unable to reach my home before Shabbat begins, what am I to do with my burdens? I am not allowed to carry in a public domain on Shabbat, as we have seen previously. As far as the Talmud is concerned, carrying anything of value constitutes labor. So, should I lay my burdens down and lose all the valuables I was carrying when Shabbat began? Is this some kind of “punishment” for not having planned my trip more carefully?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 2b
Apr 18, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
The Tosefta above is an odd text. It tells us that there are four Shabbat domains. We are prohibited from carrying from one type of domain to another on Shabbat. For instance, we may not carry anything of significance from our house (a “private domain”) to a major street (a “public domain”) on Shabbat. So far, so good. The odd thing here is that the Tosefta seems to provide only two of its four domains. Are there not two more domains that the Tosefta omits?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 133a
Apr 11, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Some mitzvot require us to violate Shabbat and festivals. For instance, the Torah requires that brit milah, the covenant of circumcision, take place on the eighth day of an Israelite boy’s life. The eighth day is its required time, even though that day may fall on Shabbat or a festival. The same is true with regard to the mitzvah of bringing the Paschal sacrifice—our Israelite ancestors were required to slaughter their Paschal lambs and offer their blood upon the altar on the fourteenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan and eat them on the night of the fifteenth, no matter whether one of these days was Shabbat or not.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 141a
Apr 4, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
We have learned that one is not allowed to carry from a private space (such as a home or synagogue) to a public space (such as a street or walkway) on Shabbat. A range of complex Torah and Rabbinic prohibitions and exceptions are wrapped up in this general mitzvah. Here, Rava presents his vision of one such exception. In his view, the Torah does not prohibit carrying children in and out of doors on Shabbat. However, one may not strap a diaper bag to the child and claim to merely be carrying the child, with the bag along for the ride. Carrying the bag in and out of doors is prohibited, says Rava, regardless of the child’s role. If one carries the child without the bag, one has not violated the Torah’s vision of Shabbat.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 128b
Mar 28, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
As Jews, what are our responsibilities to our animals? The Torah requires that we preserve not only our own animals from pain, but our enemies’ animals as well (Exod. 23:5). Other obligations aside, we are not to pass by a struggling animal without giving assistance. What are the limits of this obligation to prevent animal suffering on Shabbat and festivals? We have seen that we may violate Shabbat for the sake of human life. May we do so for animal life as well?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 122b
Mar 21, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Shemuel visited Avin of Turan’s house. A non-Jewish [acquaintance of Avin’s] came and lit the lamp [on Shabbat]. Shemuel turned his face away [from the light]. When he saw that [the non-Jew] had brought a document and was reading it, [Shemuel] said, “He lit it for his own benefit!” So he turned his face back towards the lamp.
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Mishnah Yoma 8:5
Mar 14, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
This passage comes from Yoma, the tractate dealing with the laws of Yom Kippur. The prohibitions against work on Yom Kippur are very similar to the prohibitions against work on Shabbat. The forbidden labors for both of these days are divided into the thirty-nine Torah-prohibited categories we saw in Mishnah Shabbat 7:3 called אבות מלאכות (avot melakhot). Excavating a ruin would ordinarily be forbidden on Shabbat and Yom Kippur. The specific category under which it would be forbidden might vary, depending on the intent of the excavator (as we have seen in our discussions of intent). If one is actually doing the demolishing, it would fall under the category of soter (סותר or demolishing). If one were cleaning or leveling an already demolished building, it would fall under the category of boneh(בונה or building).
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 103a
Mar 7, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
I have mentioned previously that the thirty-nine Torah-prohibited categories of labor (the avot melakhot) assume their meaning based on conventional definitions of the act they describe. For example, though cooking is prohibited as one of these thirty-nine categories, frying an egg on the hood of a car on a hot summer day would not be a Torah-prohibited act, since people do not conventionally define this as an act of cooking.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 113a
Feb 28, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Some of our Sages felt that objects which could not be used on Shabbat in any permitted way should be utterly outlawed for the entire twenty-five-hour period of Shabbat. This prohibition, termed by the Talmud, Issur Tilltul (the prohibition on moving an object), eventually came to be known as muktzeh(things placed to the side). If an object has no use on Shabbat, it is in this category and, generally, may not be picked up and moved to another location on Shabbat.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 102b
Feb 21, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Of the thirty-nine categories of prohibited labor that the Mishnah lists, one of the most puzzling is “the hammer blow.” Often this category is invoked to demonstrate that the final act of production of an object is an act forbidden in its own right—in other words, it is the final hammer blow that this category prohibits. But in this text we see quite a different understanding of this prohibition. Here the act of knapping away at a piece of marble is seen as violating the category of the hammer blow. This is likely because the act is literally taking blows at a chisel with hammer, even though no actual blow of the hammer finishes the marble sculpture: the smoothing and sanding process does that.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 106a
Feb 14, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Among the thirty-nine Torah-prohibited labors of Shabbat is trapping an animal. One violates this prohibition whether one captures the animal with one’s hands and body, or with a net or corral. Here the Mishnah describes a case in which an animal has gone into a doorway and one blocks the door with one’s body to keep the animal trapped. In such a case, one is accounted as having violated Shabbat—he has trapped the animal using his body. However, if one merely sat in the doorway to rest, partially blocking the animal’s way out, one has not violated the prohibition. Only a second person, sitting and thereby fully blocking the door would be liable.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 41b
Feb 7, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
As we have seen, cooking is one of the thirty-nine Torah-prohibited Shabbat labors (avot melakha). It seems clear to us that bringing water to a boil is cooking. But there’s a gray area. Under what circumstances may we put cold water into a container of water that has already been brought to boiling?
Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 73a
Jan 31, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
One who performs any of the forbidden labors on Shabbat is held criminally liable. If one, however, does so inadvertently (either because one forgot that it was Shabbat, or because one did not know that the act was forbidden), the Torah requires a sacrifice for each violation.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 12b
Jan 24, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
The light from an oil lamp flickers when the fuel begins to run low. At this point, normally, the reader would tip the lamp to move the viscous oil to the wick in order to extend the time the lamp can burn on its first filling of oil. This act is forbidden on Shabbat. On Shabbat, the lighting of a fire, or extending, or shortening its combustion is prohibited by Torah. Reading by the light of an oil lamp is prohibited by our Sages on Shabbat, lest one tip the lamp out of habit, in a momentary mental lapse. All of this background is encoded in the Mishnah’s terse statement: “Nor should he read by the light of an oil lamp.”
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Babylonian Talmud, Betza 3a
Jan 17, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
In the past few weeks, we have seen that there are two different types of prohibitions on Shabbat: Torah prohibitions and Rabbinic prohibitions. We have seen that there are a number of reasons why our Sages instituted prohibitions beyond those of the Torah. For instance, they prohibited a number of activities which are similar or could be confused with Torah prohibitions, acts which could lead to violations of Torah prohibitions, and acts which they deemed not in consonance with the “spirit of Shabbat.” But sometimes, as is the case in our passage, there will be a disagreement in the Talmud about whether a particular prohibition devolved from the Torah or was instituted by our Sages.
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