Shabbat 100 - A nut on the water in a box in a cistern

In order to transgress Shabbat by "carrying," one must pick the object up in one place, move it four steps, and lay it at rest in a new place. Since one should not carry on Shabbat, one should NOT do so; thus, we have defined what one should NOT do.

If one takes water from a container with water, he has picked the water up from its (water's) natural resting place. That is an honest "picking up", and for that he will be liable on Shabbat. 

If one picks up a nut (I am thinking walnut) that is floating on the surface of the water, then he has not violated Shabbat because this is not the nut's natural resting place.

What is that nut is floating on the water that is in a box, and the box is floating on the water in its turn? The nut is at rest in the vessel, and he is liable? Or maybe we look at the box and see it floating on the water, and he is not liable?

The answer is "silence" or "teiku." Some say that the four letters of teiku stand for "Tishby iteretz kushiot veibayot", that is, "Eliyahu will explain all hard places and questions."

Art: Still Life of Fruit and Nuts by Giuseppe Ruoppolo

Shabbat 99 - Creating new areas on Shabbat

On Shabbat, there is a public area, like a street, and a private area, like a home, and one is prohibited from carrying objects from one to the other. Bringing into the house is forbidden, and taking out is forbidden. There are precise definitions of what a public area is, but you can think of it as a desert where Jews lived.

There are thus two major types of areas: public and private. In addition, there are many areas that are not as populous as a public area in the desert, but the Sages prohibited carrying there, because one might then come carry in a real public area. These are called "Karmelit." The root of this word is "Karmel," which means a field, cultivated or not.

To make yourself work hard, you can think of the following question. If you have a ditch nine tefachim (handbreadth) deep, it is not yet a real private area. One is allowed to carry things there. However, if he takes earth from that pit, he makes it into a private place. Has he violated Shabbat? When he started digging, it was not a private area, but by the time he finished, it was! The major question is when the area acquires the new status.

Art: Peasant Woman Digging by Van Gogh

Shabbat 98 - What precisely is allowed on Shabbat and what not?

When we derive Shabbat laws, for example, what and how we can carry on Shabbat, we compare everything to the building of the Temple. But why the Temple, of all things? The Temple existed to rectify all of Creation. Study its laws and their deeper meaning, and you will see it - but for now, you will have to take my word for it.

For example, at first it seems obvious to the Talmud that if one wanted to throw something eight amot in the public area (amot means elbows), and threw only four amot, then it is the same as if one wanted to write the name Shimon, and wrote only Shem, which is also a name, then he has violated Shabbat.

Many things require explanation here. What is a public area? That is similar to the Temple building site, which is visited by 600,000 people daily and has no roof or walls. And where did they throw objects when building the Temple? That is what they did with construction materials. And what is the size of the public area? - Sixteen amot, just as the size of the construction site that could fit the carriages used by the Levites.

But later, the Talmud changes its mind about what it thought was obvious. It has to define "carrying" or "throwing" as a sequence of two acts: picking up the object in one place and then letting it land in another. With this definition of carrying, logic becomes much clearer.

Art: Peasant Women with Brushwood by Jean-Francois Millet

Shabbat 97 - What Tzelafchad did on Shabbat

"And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks upon the sabbath day." - Who was he, and what exactly was he doing? He could be carrying the wood, cutting it, or tying it into sheaves, which would all be prohibited labor on Shabbat. But what does it matter to us now? Well, it does matter. Of 39 labors, one is really not so strict - there was such a tradition. Since they did execute him in the end, the above is not non-strict.

Rabbi Akiba deduced that this man was Tzelafchad. Rabbi Yehudah ben Beteira rebuked him on two accounts. If it was Tzelafchad, why did you, Akiba, reveal what the Torah wanted to hide? And if it was not him, you are maligning a righteous person. By the way, you should not suspect good people of wrongdoing. What if you did? - Give them a blessing.

The Talmud discusses various ways of prohibited throwing on Shabbat: from a house to a house with a street in between, or from a street to another street with a house in between. It makes a difference if we look at the object flying through the street as temporarily resting there. We might also consider a house as if fully filled with soil,  and view the object as landing in the house.

Art: Man Carrying Sticks by Louisa Anne Beresford

Shabbat 96 - Throwing things on Shabbat

We know that carrying things on Shabbat is not permitted if we are carrying them from the home (private domain) to the street (public domain). What about throwing? - This is also prohibited. In effect, one uproots from the home and lands it in the street, so it has the two elements of the transgression.

What if he hands an object over or throws it from one home to another, with the public street in between? Here, Rabbi Akiva makes him liable, while the other Sages do not. What is the argument about? Rabbi Akiva says that there is another principle: an object flying in the street is as if resting there. Thus, we view it as if having landed in the street. The Sages disagree with this principle.

But why is handing over forbidden at all? All kinds of labor needed for constructing the Temple are forbidden on Shabbat. And why - because the Temple is the microcosm of Creation. Since the Levites were handling beams from one wagon to another in building the Temple in the desert, this labor is forbidden.

Art: Girl Carrying a Basket by Winslow Homer

Shabbat 94 - Carrying a live person on a bed on Shabbat is allowed!

When a person carries foodstuff in a container, he really needs the food, and the container is there only for the food. Therefore, he is not violating Shabbat by carrying the container. Furthermore, if the amount of food is less than the violation limit (volume of a dried fig), he has not violated the Shabbat at all.

In the same way, if he carries a live person in a bed, he has not violated Shabbat because of the principle that a "live person carries himself," nor is he liable for carrying the bed because it is secondary to the person. "Live person carries himself" is explained thus: a person adjusts his weight and body position, and in this way, helps his carrying.

Finally, if one carries a corpse or an animal carcass or part of it - he is liable. Rabbi Shimon exempts him because of the principle of "work that is not needed for its own sake." That is, he is not interested in having the corpse in the street; rather, he just wants it out of this home. For that, says Rabbi Shimon, he is not liable on Shabbat.

Art: Man Carrying a Boy by Paul August Renoir

Shabbat 5 - Airspace, is it the same as resting on the ground?

So, after all, why is the poor man liable for violating Shabbat when he brings an object from the street into the hand of the householder inside? Complete Shabbat violation includes taking an object from a significant area of four by four cubits; a hand is much smaller.

The Talmud tries to ascribe this rule to Rabbi Akiva, who considers being in the airspace the same as resting on the ground. By extension, an object in the hand is resting on the ground. But it considers such attribution too tenuous. 

Then, it tries to say that it is the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah the Prince, who seemingly did not require the area of four by four. That does not work either because Rabbi Yehudah only talked about an area with a roof, and we have no roof in the street.

It tries to change the ruling, saying it should be "basket in his hand." The problem is that the rule needs to mention a basket, and it does not.

Finally, the Talmud concludes that because the hand can grasp things, it is considered by the person as if it were four by four "arms" (amot) - and that is why the poor man is liable.

Art: Breton Woman with a Basket by John Singer Sargent