Chapter One of Tractate Shabbat – Lesson 2

Table of Contents

• The exceptional status of the labor of carrying and its appearance in the Torah
• The criterion of significance: creativity and meaning versus inferiority
• Tosafot, Nachmanides, Rashba, and Tosafot in Shevuot: inconsistency and exertion
• Halakhic implications of an “inferior labor”
• A conceptual proposal: carrying as exposing the essence of human action
• An explanation for the distinction between private domain and public domain in carrying
• Beyond defining the labor: the Mishnah “the acts of carrying on the Sabbath,” poor person and homeowner, lifting up and setting down

Summary

General Overview

The lecture presents the labor of carrying as unusual compared to the other Sabbath labors: on the one hand because it takes up enormous space in the sources, and on the other because medieval authorities (Rishonim) define it as an “inferior labor,” and therefore the Torah writes it explicitly. Several major directions are offered for understanding this inferiority, including the lack of creation in the object, a lack of coherence in the definitions between domains, and a criterion of exertion in a broad sense. From that, halakhic ramifications are presented that continue even after the Torah prohibited carrying on the Sabbath. Later, a conceptual view is proposed according to which carrying comes to remind us that human action in the world mainly consists of moving and placing things in different locations while making use of the laws of nature. Finally, the lecture begins the transition to the next class, defining the labor of carrying through the Mishnah, “the acts of carrying on the Sabbath,” and the fine points of lifting up and setting down according to Rashi and the Talmud.

The exceptional status of the labor of carrying and its appearance in the Torah

The lecturer states that the labor of carrying takes up more space than the other labors in Maimonides, in the Talmud, and elsewhere, especially if you include both Eruvin and Shabbat. The lecturer presents the position of medieval authorities (Rishonim) according to which carrying is an “inferior labor” and less significant than other labors, and in that way they explain why the Torah writes carrying explicitly, whereas the other labors are learned from the Tabernacle and are not written as an explicit list. The lecturer notes that the Torah explicitly wrote kindling and carrying, while in the Talmud there is discussion about which verse carrying is learned from, but no discussion of why it had to be written. So the medieval authorities (Rishonim) complete the picture through the claim of an “inferior labor” and a condition of a “criterion of significance” beyond the mere fact that the action existed in the Tabernacle.

The criterion of significance: creativity and meaning versus inferiority

The lecturer defines the significance of a labor as a combination of uniqueness and meaningfulness, or degree of creation, and emphasizes that being present in the Tabernacle alone is not enough, because walking and wearing clothes also existed in the Tabernacle and are not forbidden on the Sabbath. The Or Zarua explains that carrying is inferior because “originally it was an object, and now too it is an object” — there is no change in the object, only a change of place. From this it follows that, in his view, a significant labor is measured by added value and change in the object. A question is raised about heating water in the sun, and the lecturer answers that the degree of meaningfulness is a necessary but not sufficient condition, because there are additional criteria such as the normal manner and change.

Tosafot, Nachmanides, Rashba, and Tosafot in Shevuot: inconsistency and exertion

In Tosafot, a fundamental difficulty is raised regarding the distinction between carrying from a private domain to a public domain and transferring from one private domain to another, because he does not understand the difference in the definitions of prohibition and permission and sees in this a lack of internal coherence. The lecturer compares this to the image of the red heifer as the paradox of “it purifies the impure and defiles the pure” in order to illustrate that this is a question about internal consistency, not necessarily about the very possibility of creating. In the formulation of Nachmanides, Rashba, and Tosafot in Shevuot, a criterion of “exertion” appears, through a comparison between a heavy burden from one private domain to another, which is permitted, and a light burden from a private domain to a public domain, which is forbidden. From this the lecturer concludes that for them exertion is not only physical exertion, but requires conceptual expansion to mental resources, attention, and skill. The lecturer emphasizes that the Or Zarua focuses on what is produced in the object, while Nachmanides and his school focus on what is required from the person, as part of the obligation of rest upon the person and not upon changing the world as such.

Halakhic implications of an “inferior labor”

The lecturer brings four implications, and emphasizes that they are stated in practical Jewish law even after the Torah prohibited carrying on the Sabbath, so the inferiority remains legally meaningful. The lecturer cites the Talmud in tractate Beitzah about the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel regarding carrying on a Jewish holiday, and brings a version in Tosafot that learns from the verse, “And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day,” excluding the Jewish holiday “because carrying is an inferior labor.” He then brings Tosafot HaRosh on our passage, who explains that carrying is not an important labor, and therefore on a Jewish holiday, regarding which it says, “you shall do no labor,” carrying is not forbidden. The lecturer sharpens the point that according to Tosafot HaRosh, the Torah did not introduce the novelty that carrying becomes labor; rather, it introduced the novelty that specifically on the Sabbath even what is not really labor is forbidden, and therefore on a Jewish holiday carrying is not forbidden. Opposed to this he sets another possibility, according to which the Torah lowered the threshold and turned it into full-fledged labor, which fits Maimonides but requires a different explanation for the Jewish holiday.

The lecturer brings the Ritva in Eruvin in the name of Rabbeinu Yonah, who permits telling a non-Jew to bring something from place to place because there is no improvement in the object itself, whereas in heating water and cooking there is “something newly produced, some improvement in the body of the thing,” and therefore they were stricter. The lecturer brings the Pnei Yehoshua, who argues that the requirement that one’s animal rest was not stated regarding carrying, but regarding “proper labors,” and emphasizes that even though carrying is forbidden on the Sabbath, there is still a practical distinction between it and other labors in certain contexts. The lecturer cites the words of Rabbah in Shabbat 102 about “if he threw it and it came to rest in the mouth of a dog or in the mouth of a furnace, he is liable,” and presents the question of the later authorities (Acharonim) based on the principle that “all destructive acts are exempt.” He explains in the name of several later authorities (Acharonim) that in carrying there is no element of improvement in the object, and therefore destructiveness does not exempt in that case, which creates a practical consequence in the stricter direction.

A conceptual proposal: carrying as exposing the essence of human action

The lecturer argues that the Holy One, blessed be He, creates something from nothing, whereas human beings at most create something from something, and human practical action is reduced to moving and placing things in the right locations so that the laws of nature will do the rest. He illustrates this with cooking as an action in which a person places the pot on the fire and nature acts, and with chemical mixtures in which a person combines ingredients and the chemistry acts. He expands this by saying that copyright teaches us that innovation resides in information and not in the object itself. The lecturer cites Midrash Tanchuma, Tazria, about Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva with the stalks of wheat and the baked loaves, in order to illustrate that the human being refines raw materials by means of laws of nature that were already created, and he cites Vayikra Rabbah and the idea of “Who has preceded Me, that I should repay him?” according to which even human commandments are based on what was first given to the person.

The lecturer proposes that the labor of carrying comes to remind us that in all the other labors a person may feel as though he is “playing God” and creating, but in truth in those labors too the person’s part is similar to carrying: moving things from place to place while using nature. He suggests that on the Sabbath, as a remembrance of creation, the Torah emphasizes through carrying that the human being is not God even though he rests on the seventh day, and he hints that this difference may explain why carrying may not be forbidden on a Jewish holiday if a Jewish holiday is not built on that same axis of remembrance of creation.

An explanation for the distinction between private domain and public domain in carrying

The lecturer suggests that, in order not to forbid every movement on the Sabbath in a way that would require frozen stillness, the Torah defines “significant movement” specifically when there is an essential change between the place of origin and the destination, and therefore a distinction is required between private domain and public domain. He connects this to the verse, “Let no man go out from his place on the Sabbath day,” as emphasizing departure from a place of one character to a place of another character, and suggests that this may resolve Tosafot’s question about the difference between private domain to private domain and private domain to public domain. In a discussion with the female students, a proposal comes up to see the other labors too as significant movements along axes that are not only spatial — such as the movement of ink from the pen to the paper as a transition between essential states — and the lecturer accepts this as a continuation that does not erase the Or Zarua, but adds that carrying requires an alternative criterion of essential relocation when there is no change in the object.

Beyond defining the labor: the Mishnah “the acts of carrying on the Sabbath,” poor person and homeowner, lifting up and setting down

The lecturer opens the next class by defining the labor of carrying through the Mishnah, “The acts of carrying on the Sabbath are two, which are four inside, and two, which are four outside,” and explains that this refers to eight cases: four Torah-level and four rabbinic, where “inside” is attributed to the homeowner and “outside” to the poor person. He notes Maimonides’ explanation in his commentary on the Mishnah that the use of a poor person and a rich person is meant for linguistic brevity, and he cites the Bartenura, who explains that a poor person and a rich person were chosen in order to teach about a commandment that comes through a transgression, in the context of giving charity on the Sabbath. The lecturer formulates the ground rules of the topic as a mapping of who did the lifting up and who did the setting down in every act of taking out or bringing in, and raises the question of the status of setting down in the hand as opposed to setting down in a place, and the question of lifting up when the object was already in the hand beforehand.

The lecturer emphasizes that according to Rashi, in the cases in the Mishnah it is not enough that the object stopped in the hand; setting it down in a place is required. He points to the Talmud on page 3 regarding “his fellow loaded it onto him,” where lifting up the body counts as lifting up, but “it is not comparable to his hand,” because “his body is stationary; his hand is not stationary.” The lecturer concludes that the gaps between hand and body, and between lifting up and setting down, are central points for the continuation of the topic, and he asks the female students to continue with the preparation sheet so they can focus on understanding the cases before moving on to the more fundamental questions.

It’s recording, right? You can see that it’s recording. Yes, fine, I see it. Okay, so we’re actually in… last time I spoke and gave a kind of general introduction to the categories of labor on the Sabbath, to the laws of the Sabbath, a bird’s-eye view, you could say, and I began dealing with the labor of carrying. And I said that the labor of carrying has a somewhat unusual status, a bit exceptional compared to the other labors, with two aspects that seem to contradict each other, though not necessarily really. One aspect is that this is a labor that occupies a very, very large amount of space compared to the other labors. In Maimonides, in the Talmud, in other places as well, it’s the labor that takes up the most space by far, it seems to me, by a great margin, a huge margin, if you count both Eruvin and tractate Shabbat. And on the other hand, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain to us—quite a few of them explain to us—that carrying is an inferior kind of labor, an unusual kind of labor, less significant than other labors, and that’s how they explain, for example, why the Torah bothers to write the labor of carrying explicitly, whereas the other labors are learned because of the analogy to the Tabernacle, or from the fact that they were done in the Tabernacle, but they do not appear explicitly in the Torah; the Torah does not explicitly list the labors. What does appear, as I said, is kindling and carrying, plowing and harvesting, though those get taken in the direction of the Sabbatical year. But with carrying and kindling, that’s what is written. Regarding kindling, the Tannaim really do disagree about why it appears there, and special laws are derived from it, because there really is no reason for it to appear. Regarding carrying, there is silence. The Talmud doesn’t address the question of why the labor of carrying needs to be written in the Torah. The Talmud does address the question of from which verse we learn the labor of carrying—that’s the Talmud in the chapter HaZorek, which we’ll get to later, not today, in future classes—but that does appear. Tosafot and the medieval authorities here mention it; I assume you’ve already seen it: whether there is one verse or two verses from which carrying is learned. But nobody addresses the question why verses are needed at all. Why not learn it, like all the other labors, from the fact that it was done in the Tabernacle like all the other labors? Since the Talmud doesn’t deal with that, the medieval authorities complete the picture, and they claim that it’s because this labor is an inferior labor. And if it had not been written explicitly in the Torah, even though it was done in the Tabernacle, we would not have learned it from there. Why not? Because as I said, in the Tabernacle they also walked around, they also wore clothes. That doesn’t mean that on the Sabbath it is forbidden to walk or forbidden to wear clothes. In other words, the mere fact that something was present in the Tabernacle cannot by itself play a decisive role. There also has to be a criterion—what I called a criterion of importance. Meaning, you have to assume that this is a significant labor, and if it was in the Tabernacle, then it can be counted as a primary category. But carrying is not a significant labor, so even if it was in the Tabernacle, on its own we would not have thought that it belongs among the forbidden labors. Therefore the Torah writes the labor of carrying, because it is an inferior labor. And I said that importance includes both uniqueness and significance, or the degree of creativity in the labor. Those are two parameters that operate on the level of the labor’s importance. That, broadly speaking, is the picture.

After that we started talking a bit about the question of why carrying is an inferior labor. And I referred you there to some of the medieval authorities—Nachmanides and Tosafot, Rashba too, I don’t remember whether I pointed you to him, and Or Zaru’a—who discuss why carrying is an inferior labor. In Or Zaru’a it says: at first it was an object, and now it’s still an object. Meaning, nothing happened to the object, and therefore this does not look like a significant act of creation. The subtext of his words is basically that the criterion for a significant labor on the Sabbath is the degree of creativity, or what impact, what added value, your action produces in the object. What was it before, and what is it now. And because in carrying there is no such added value—the object looks exactly the same even after you carried it, it just changed location—Or Zaru’a says this is an inferior labor, not a significant act of creation. From any such explanation you can also learn not only why carrying is an inferior labor, but also what a non-inferior labor is, what the criterion is for a significant labor on the Sabbath. Through that, you can also understand why carrying is an inferior labor. So according to Or Zaru’a, from his explanation of carrying we can understand that the criterion for a significant labor is probably a labor that contains some act of creation, or some added value to the object, and in carrying that doesn’t happen, so it is an inferior labor.

Wait, can I ask a question? According to Or Zaru’a, would heating water by means of the sun, by solar heat, apparently be forbidden? Because the same effect on the water is produced whether by fire or by the sun. Right, but you’re assuming that the criterion of the labor’s significance is the only criterion. But there are other criteria too—for example, if it’s not done in the usual way. That it was in the Tabernacle? Right, whether it was in the Tabernacle or not done in the usual way, or things like that. It could be that the usual way is what they did in the Tabernacle. Maybe when we talk about atypical performance we’ll discuss that another time. But the point is that beyond the criterion of what counts as a significant labor—as I said last class too—there are other criteria without which I still won’t be liable. If I’m not doing it for the normal purpose, if I’m doing it… But in the case of an atypical act, in the case where it’s heated by the sun—heating by the sun is not a labor that you do. No, heating by fire also isn’t really a labor that I do; the fire is what does it. Wait, but if this is Or Zaru’a’s criterion, then what would he say about that? That’s what I’m asking. I’m saying that Or Zaru’a’s criterion only defines what a significant labor is, but a person’s liability for a labor—the fact that it’s significant—is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. Meaning, if the labor is significant, then we can start the discussion; that still doesn’t settle the whole issue. Because if I do a significant labor but not in the normal way, then I still won’t be liable. Okay? So it’s a necessary condition but not a sufficient one. Yes, yes. Okay.

That’s Or Zaru’a. In Tosafot, he says: what difference is there between carrying from a private domain to a public domain and carrying from one private domain to another private domain? In Tosafot it seems that his emphasis is not on the question of how significant the act of creation is here, but rather he doesn’t understand the distinction in the labor’s definitions—what is permitted and what is forbidden. What’s the difference between this and that? As far as I’m concerned, say that carrying from a private domain to a public domain is significant—but if so, then carrying from one private domain to another private domain is also significant. What’s the difference? What difference does it make from where to where I’m taking it? So in Tosafot it seems that the focus is not on the fact that carrying is an inferior labor in the sense of lacking significant creativity; that’s not what bothers him. What bothers him is the internal contradiction. He says, bottom line, do you think this is a significant act of creation? Fine, I’m willing to go with you—but then carrying from one private domain to another should be the same too. What’s the difference? Why does it matter from where to where I take it? So in Tosafot, the focus seems not to be that carrying is an inferior labor because it lacks significant creativity, but because of internal incoherence. You tell me this is forbidden and that is permitted—why? I don’t see what the difference is between them, why assume that this is forbidden and that is permitted. There’s some lack of comprehensibility in the internal definitions.

It’s a bit reminiscent of the red heifer, where the Sages say that the red heifer is something paradoxical, because it purifies the impure and renders the pure impure. So the question is not how the red heifer manages to purify the impure—that I’m willing to understand—but if it purifies the impure, then how does it render the pure impure? Meaning, there is some internal contradiction in what the red heifer does. Someone else could come and ask: wait a second, how can the sprinkling of the ashes of the red heifer purify an impure person at all? How does that work? That would be the parallel to Or Zaru’a—something that is itself not understandable, how this whole thing works. But that question is already… while the question of internal consistency—if it does this, then it should do that too; if this is forbidden, then that should be too—that’s a different kind of question in Tosafot. And what Tosafot is basically saying is that what bothers him about carrying, why it is an inferior labor, is that its definitions are hard to understand and not internally consistent. It’s hard to explain why the definitions are exactly these and not others. But it could still be that there is some kind of significant creation here.

What happens with the other labors? Open question. In Tosafot one could say that really the criterion is like Or Zaru’a: a significant labor is a significant act of creation, and in that sense perhaps carrying too is a significant labor, and perhaps it is an inferior labor simply because there is no internal consistency in its definitions. Or alternatively, the opposite: perhaps Tosafot says no, significant creation is not the important parameter; maybe effort is the important parameter—that’s Nachmanides’ formulation, effort is the parameter. Effort is the important parameter. But still, even if effort is the important parameter, in carrying there is the same effort whether you move from one private domain to another private domain, or from a private domain to a public domain. So I don’t understand how that is consistent. In other words, from Tosafot it is hard to extract what his criterion is for a significant labor. That remains an open question, because regarding carrying he does not need the significance of the creative act, and therefore I don’t know what he thinks about the definition of significant labors in general. Okay? Only regarding carrying he formulates it differently from Or Zaru’a.

In Nachmanides’ formulation—and also in Rashba, and in Tosafot in Shevuot too, I think—that language does invoke effort. They say: you carry a heavy burden from one private domain to another private domain, and that’s fine; and you carry a light burden from a private domain to a public domain, and that’s not fine. So what do we see in that formulation? On the one hand, we see that effort is a significant parameter. I’m not sure the conclusion is absolutely compelled, but it points in that direction. In contrast to Or Zaru’a, who refers to the degree of creativity, this formulation refers to—or at least also introduces—the issue of how much effort there is in the action I’m performing. So he says, practically speaking, if you tell me this is significant effort, then only forbid heavy burdens, regardless of which domain they are moved from and to. But you tell me that from a private domain to a public domain even light burdens are forbidden, and from one private domain to another private domain even heavy burdens are not forbidden. So what’s your criterion? Right? That’s the formulation.

So here it somewhat sounds like the important criterion is not the degree of the labor’s creativity, but perhaps the effort, perhaps something else—I’m not exactly sure what. And in carrying, none of the criteria work. Okay? So once again, in the subtext, when I ask myself from what that authority says about carrying, what can I infer about how he views the general category of labors? In Nachmanides’ formulation—Nachmanides and Tosafot at least—it seems that effort is no less significant than the degree of creativity. And he would have been willing to accept it if you had forbidden heavy burdens, as long as that applied both from one private domain to another private domain and from a private domain to a public domain. As long as consistency were preserved, he wouldn’t care if you distinguished between a heavy burden and a light burden. Why? Because he apparently understands that the foundation is effort. He says, but here we see that effort is not the foundation, therefore this is an inferior labor.

So this is the antithesis: it seems to me that Nachmanides in this formulation, and Rashba, and Tosafot in Shevuot, stand at the opposite pole from Or Zaru’a. Because Or Zaru’a speaks about the degree of creativity, and they speak about effort. Tosafot here is in an unclear place between them—possibly even together with one of them. Because he invokes only the internal contradiction, but he doesn’t tell us what actually defines a significant labor: is it effort? is it creativity? Here it remains open; you can place him here and you can place him there.

I maybe think only this: if we nevertheless formulate it such that if someone truly sees the basic criterion in the degree of creativity, then I would not expect him to write what Tosafot writes here. If you want to explain why carrying is an inferior labor, and you think like Or Zaru’a, then Or Zaru’a’s explanation is the natural one. Carrying is an inferior labor because you haven’t really done anything. Why get into this complication of internal consistency? Why is private-to-public forbidden and private-to-private permitted? You have a much more significant, much more relevant question: after all, there is no significant act of creation here at all. From this perhaps one could infer that Tosafot here also does not really focus on creation. Again, logically it could be that he is with Or Zaru’a, because he only speaks about the internal contradiction and doesn’t tell us what matters in his view—creation or effort. But I’m saying that if creation really were important in his view, I would expect that to be the obvious explanation. If someone asked him why carrying is an inferior labor, I would immediately expect him to say: because nothing was created here. So if Tosafot really agrees with Or Zaru’a that the degree of creation is the important parameter, I would expect him to say that carrying is an inferior labor because of that—because there is no significant creation in it. And if he doesn’t invoke that, but instead says that the problem is simply the lack of consistency—why should I care whether it is into this domain or that domain?—then it somewhat seems from here that he probably also does not see creativity as a significant parameter.

I’ll say… can I ask for a second? I got a little stuck on the issue of effort. I didn’t understand who thinks that effort is a criterion at all. After all, we said that when a person carries a heavy object within a private domain, even if it’s a lot of effort, it’s still permitted. I didn’t quite understand who claims that effort is a criterion. Nachmanides. Nachmanides says this, and Tosafot too. Precisely because of what you said, carrying is an inferior labor, since the normal definition of labor is the degree of effort. Since in carrying we see that effort is not a relevant parameter—as you correctly said—that is exactly the reason, therefore it is an inferior labor. But there are many, many labors that involve no effort. The intention is not only physical effort. Exactly, and that was going to be my next sentence, and I also said it last time. Obviously they do not mean effort in the sense of hard labor. Right? Because if so, a large portion of these labors do not involve hard work. I mentioned cooking; we can talk about many things. These are not hard labors. It seems to me that the concept of effort here probably has to undergo some kind of conceptual expansion. Meaning, we probably need to talk about mental resources, about some sort of exertion that is also intellectual—or I don’t know exactly if intellectual is the right word, because the Sabbath labors are not exactly intellectual investment—but some kind of attention, right? Some sort of craft, a certain skill in doing this rather than that. And in that sense, I think that too must be called effort according to Nachmanides, because otherwise the criterion of effort is very hard to understand. I see, now I understand, thank you.

Why can’t we say that Tosafot calls it an inferior labor because in his view it is neither creative nor effortful, and it has no definition of a forbidden labor—as shown by the fact that from one private domain to another private domain it is permitted? Meaning, basically there is nothing in the labor itself, but when the labor is done between two different locations—so the parameter is not the labor but the location. That is exactly what I said. What I said about Tosafot is that in order to explain why carrying is an inferior labor, Tosafot invokes a discussion that is related neither to effort nor to creativity, but only to an internal contradiction in the definitions of the labor. So he definitely doesn’t agree with Or Zaru’a. No, so what I’m saying is this: on the logical level, in Tosafot you could take him either toward Or Zaru’a or toward Nachmanides. Because he doesn’t tell us what, in his opinion, counts as a significant labor. He says: whatever significant labor may be, carrying is still an inferior labor, even if it were significant, because there is an internal contradiction in its definitions. But what is a significant labor? It could be effort; it could be creation. I only added the comment that if it were creation, then I would expect him to say what Or Zaru’a says and not need the internal contradiction. Therefore I nevertheless think that Tosafot here really does not make the matter depend specifically on the degree of creativity. Even though on the logical level one could reconcile him with that approach, I would expect him to say it if that were what he thought. Because the natural explanation for why carrying is an inferior labor—ask anyone, stop them and ask what is special about carrying, why is it an inferior labor?—everyone will immediately tell you Or Zaru’a, because we didn’t do anything to the object; we just moved it from here to there, so what? Okay? So I would expect anyone who thinks that way to say so. So I do not learn this from what Tosafot does say; I learn it from what Tosafot does not say. And the fact that he doesn’t give Or Zaru’a’s explanation but needs another explanation is a bit of a hint that he does not agree with Or Zaru’a. And what he does say can fit either with Or Zaru’a or with Nachmanides.

Now one more point. As I said earlier regarding effort: effort—let’s call it mental effort, not necessarily effort in the sense of strain. So I said there are many labors in which clearly there is no effort in the sense of strain, and therefore the medieval authorities who speak of effort also mean effort in a broader sense than mere exertion. But then you’ll ask me: so what, in the end, is the difference? Then we come back very close to Or Zaru’a’s conception. Because after all, if so, what is intellectual effort or mental effort? Basically that means complexity or a certain degree of creativity. So aren’t we sneaking Or Zaru’a back in through the back door? In the end, it seems we’ve returned to the same definition. I say no. There can still be a difference in the sense that the medieval authorities who speak of effort are referring to what the person does in the matter—what intellectual or mental efforts he must invest in the action he is performing. Or Zaru’a is referring to what is produced in the object. Now, it may be that these overlap—not may, they do overlap, because after all everyone agrees about the list of the primary categories of labor. So in that sense they overlap, but they overlap for different reasons. Meaning, a complex labor: from Or Zaru’a’s point of view, that is a significant creation, because the object looks different after I have worked on it. I assess it in light of what happens in the world. In contrast, according to Nachmanides and his camp, who make it depend on effort—even if I speak about mental effort—they are not talking about what was produced in the object. That is only a sign, not the reason. What was produced in the object is only an indication that doing it probably required mental effort from me. Then the problem is with me. I did not rest on the Sabbath. Because after all, the obligation is an obligation of resting on the person; there is no claim against the world that it did not transform itself on the Sabbath. In the end, the focus is on us: we are supposed to rest on the Sabbath. Therefore those medieval authorities say: what counts as resting? Let’s look. If something significant was produced, then apparently I invested mental resources in it. And since that is so, I did not rest. So they too refer to significant creation, but for them it is only a sign, not the reason the labor is important. A sign because significant creation requires mental resources from me. In contrast, Or Zaru’a perhaps understands the Sabbath obligation to rest as an obligation not to alter the world significantly on the Sabbath—not focusing on what it demands of me, but on what happens in the world. Now true, it also requires mental resources from me, that’s true, but the focus of what matters here, what is relevant in defining the labor as a significant labor, is what happened in the world, not what it demanded of me. Okay? So in that sense we still see that there is a difference between Or Zaru’a’s formulation and Nachmanides’ formulation, even though in practice they converge on the same list. Yes.

But according to Or Zaru’a, that would mean there are many other labors I can do that have prohibitions attached to them. Just as a random example, I can take books and go out with them to an open area, or take things—objects for which I don’t make any essential change, I just move them from place to place. And because of that this is an inferior labor, because I didn’t make any change in those objects. I’m talking about labors other than carrying. The labors other than carrying are not inferior labors; they are significant labors. Why? Because there a change is produced in the object. Precisely because of what you’re saying, carrying, where I made no change at all in the object, is an inferior labor. Okay. Okay, so let me finish this general issue of the labor of carrying. I want to bring a few practical ramifications of the claim that this is an inferior labor, and again, I didn’t refer you to these ramifications on the prep sheet because I didn’t want you sinking into side discussions. So I’ll say it here myself. One second. Hello, hello, can you hear me? I suggest that whoever asks a question maybe press the space bar, because then it opens the possibility to ask, but when you release the space bar it goes back to muted, because otherwise there are noises coming in here that interfere, okay? There are a lot of noises and I really can’t hear well today. Okay, so I’m saying, I hope it should somehow come in through one of the microphones that isn’t muted, I think. No, but they’re all muted. Do you hear noises now? I don’t hear anything. We hear them. So I don’t know. There’s a kind of wind noise. So maybe something—I don’t know, perhaps the fan here is doing that? I don’t know. Now it’s quiet. Now it’s quiet? Yes. So now you’re testing me, I see. Wait a second, and now? I’m turning on only one; I had two. Yes. No, it’s okay now, now too. You can put it farther away, then it’ll be easier. There’s a little fan, it’s just on the laptop. Now there’s one, not two, okay? Now it’s quiet. Okay. Fine then, a lousy fan. Thank you very much. It requires significant effort. Okay, we’ve truly been spared air-conditioner questions in the classroom only to get fan questions at home. Yes, exactly. The wonders of Zoom.

All right, so I want to bring a few ramifications, and as I told you, I didn’t refer you to the sources so you wouldn’t get bogged down in side issues, so I’ll present them myself. Maybe actually I’ll share them with you anyway. Okay. The Talmud in tractate Beitzah—I’ll bring four ramifications. The Talmud in tractate Beitzah says: Beit Shammai say, “One may not carry out neither a child, nor a lulav, nor a Torah scroll into the public domain,” and Beit Hillel permit it. Right, can one carry these things into the public domain on a Jewish holiday or not? We’re talking about a Jewish holiday, not the Sabbath. So later the Talmud explains what the dispute is. Beit Shammai prohibit and Beit Hillel permit. What is the dispute? Rava objects there and so on: perhaps they are disputing whether carrying was equated to the Sabbath and not equated to a Jewish holiday. One master holds: carrying was equated to the Sabbath and carrying was equated to a Jewish holiday; and one master holds: carrying was equated to the Sabbath but not to a Jewish holiday, as it is written, “Do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day”—on the Sabbath, yes; on a Jewish holiday, no. Meaning, he explains that Beit Hillel hold that there is no prohibition of carrying on a Jewish holiday… Beit Hillel, sorry. And Beit Shammai say there is a prohibition of carrying on a Jewish holiday. Okay? That’s the dispute. And therefore it is not speaking specifically about a child or a lulav or a Torah scroll, but in general. According to Beit Hillel, one may carry from a private domain to a public domain on a Jewish holiday; only on the Sabbath is it forbidden. And according to Beit Shammai, it is forbidden both on the Sabbath and on a Jewish holiday. From where do Beit Hillel learn this? It says: “Do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day.” On the Sabbath, yes; on a Jewish holiday, no. So only on the Sabbath, but on a Jewish holiday there is no problem and one may carry.

Tosafot… can I ask? What? Can I ask something? Yes. Maybe it’s too much to get into the sugya here, but then why does the Mishnah—or why does their quotation—refer specifically to those three cases? Because it makes sense that they would have a specific law. It’s talking about a child, which is not exactly an object and maybe there’s a need there, and the other two are perhaps burdens or something, a lulav and a Torah scroll, maybe for the sake of a commandment. For the sake of a commandment, exactly. One can make distinctions here. Look there in the Talmud. But here, at least according to Rava, at this stage of the Talmud the assumption is that it’s a general issue. There are other suggestions there in the Talmud. So yes, according to this approach these are examples that were chosen because they are common examples of things we carry from private to public domain, or maybe you’d say that there is a rabbinic prohibition on things one does not need; it can be explained in all sorts of ways. But for our purposes that is less important.

Tosafot there says: “And there are books that read the verse from Jeremiah: ‘Do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day’—on the Sabbath, yes; on a Jewish holiday, no—and it excludes it explicitly because carrying is an inferior labor.” What does that mean? There is a dispute over which verse this is that the Talmud brings. From which verse is this learned? According to Tosafot’s version—and that is also the version we have—it is a verse in Jeremiah, not a verse in the Torah. Now that is a problem, because when you want an exemption from a Torah prohibition, you need a source from the Torah, a biblical source. A source from the Prophets is not enough, unless it is merely explanatory, but here this is a novel law, not just an interpretation of a word or something like that. So this is problematic. Therefore Tosafot says: it excludes it explicitly because carrying is an inferior labor. In other words, the exclusion is not because of the verse in Jeremiah, but because carrying is an inferior labor. Then I ask, why? Or: so what if it is an inferior labor? It still exists on the Sabbath, so why shouldn’t it exist on a Jewish holiday too? Tosafot HaRosh here also says something similar. Tosafot HaRosh is a collection of Tosafot written by the Rosh; there were different kinds of Tosafot collections, so this is what is called Tosafot HaRosh, as distinct from the rulings of the Rosh.

But wait, then what’s the answer? I mean, so what if it’s an inferior labor—why shouldn’t it apply on a Jewish holiday? Okay, I’ll come back to that in a second. I’m just saying that Tosafot HaRosh here also says the same thing: “And furthermore we say in the first chapter of Yom Tov: carrying was equated to the Sabbath and not equated to a Jewish holiday, and the reason is because it is not considered an important labor, and regarding a Jewish holiday it is written: ‘You shall do no labor.’” Here he already gives a more interesting reason. It’s not just that it is an inferior labor. He doesn’t even mention the term, but clearly he means it. He says it is not considered labor at all. That is a very major novelty. Because once the Torah tells me, and writes the labor of carrying, after all carrying is an inferior labor. If the Torah had not written it, we would have thought it was entirely permitted; we would not have forbidden it. But the Torah did write it. What does that mean? After the Torah wrote it, did it teach me that carrying too is labor, even though we would have thought it was inferior? Is that what the Torah’s novelty is—that carrying too counts as labor? If that were so, then it should also be forbidden on a Jewish holiday, because on a Jewish holiday labor is forbidden, and if this too is labor then it should be forbidden there as well.

Tosafot says we must say that the novelty we learn from the Torah when it writes the labor of carrying is not that carrying is labor. It is not labor. Even though it is not labor, the Torah forbids it on the Sabbath—that is the Torah’s novelty. The novelty is not that this too is called labor even though it is inferior. No, it is inferior and therefore it is not labor, and that remains the case. The novelty is that despite not being labor, it is nevertheless forbidden on the Sabbath. Where does the difference emerge? We see that it is forbidden on the Sabbath. On a Jewish holiday, what is forbidden is labor. In order to forbid carrying—after all, carrying is not labor—you need a source. But we have no source regarding a Jewish holiday; we have only a source regarding the Sabbath. Therefore on a Jewish holiday carrying is not forbidden. Here then is one practical ramification, a halakhic ramification, of the claim that this is an inferior labor. Because until now, we’ve spoken about carrying being an inferior labor only as ad hoc explanations: why the Torah needed to state verses, why there are definitional problems here, why there are problems in the categories and so on, why both carrying out and bringing in had to be in the Tabernacle, all the things the medieval authorities bring—but there is no halakhic ramification. It is all just retrospective explanations for why various things were needed. Here I’m showing you a halakhic ramification. According to the conception that carrying is an inferior labor, basically that is why on a Jewish holiday there is no prohibition of carrying.

And the novelty—and it is a big novelty, and not all the medieval authorities will agree with it—because even the authorities who say that carrying is an inferior labor do not have to say that after the Torah wrote the labor of carrying, it still remains an inferior labor. It could be that once the Torah wrote it, that means that in the Torah’s eyes carrying too is labor. Though fundamentally it is an inferior labor, the Torah lowered the bar; it said that even an inferior labor counts as labor. Tosafot HaRosh does not learn that way. Tosafot HaRosh understands that the Torah did not lower the bar; rather it said that carrying is an exception, something different. Carrying, although not labor, is also forbidden—but where the Torah said it, it said it regarding the Sabbath. On a Jewish holiday it did not forbid carrying, so carrying is not forbidden. Clear? Can I ask, Rabbi? What we learned there in Maimonides’ introduction to his Commentary on the Mishnah is that he specifically says that the point is to emphasize that it is labor, why they begin with this labor. Does Maimonides also mean that in the initial assumption one would have thought it is forbidden but not labor, and so he wants to say that it is labor? Nice, I liked that. Everyone agrees in the initial assumption; the dispute is only in the conclusion. The question is whether after one would have thought… Maybe in Maimonides’ statement there he doesn’t mean to say that it is forbidden but not labor. Rather, if it’s not labor, maybe it’s not forbidden either? No, Maimonides does not go with Tosafot HaRosh. I understand that he doesn’t, but in the initial assumption what does Maimonides mean there in that interpretation? He says that you would have… perhaps his initial assumption is that it is neither labor nor forbidden. So I’m saying: that is everyone’s initial assumption. Let me explain again. That is the initial assumption of all the medieval authorities who say that carrying is an inferior labor: that if the Torah had not written the labor of carrying, we would not have forbidden it. But here… wait, wait—but here Tosafot HaRosh seems to say that it is forbidden but not labor. Wait a second, Nechama, listen. The Torah came and wrote the prohibition of carrying. The question is: what did it teach us? Here the medieval authorities differ. There are authorities who understand—only in the conclusion, not in the initial assumption—that the Torah taught us that carrying too is labor. You would have thought it was inferior? Not so; the threshold is lowered, even this kind of labor counts as labor. If so, that seems to be Maimonides’ view. If so, then that cannot be the explanation for why on a Jewish holiday there is no prohibition of carrying, and other explanations must be sought. Okay? But according to Tosafot HaRosh, the Torah did not come to tell us that carrying too is labor. No, no—it remains as in the initial assumption: carrying is not labor. The Torah came to tell us that even though carrying is not labor, it is nevertheless forbidden on the Sabbath. But it is forbidden on the Sabbath; we have no source extending that to a Jewish holiday. On a Jewish holiday only labors are forbidden, and we have no source that adds carrying to them. Therefore on a Jewish holiday there will be no prohibition of carrying. Clear? The difference between the authorities is the question what the novelty is in the conclusion. Without the verse, everyone agrees that it is an inferior labor and I would not have forbidden it. But after the verse, the question is what was added.

Maybe I’ll qualify that slightly anyway: according to Tosafot it’s not exactly like this, because Tosafot says carrying is an inferior labor only because of an internal contradiction in its principles. So it sounds from there that according to Tosafot one could understand that even without the verse, one would still understand that carrying was forbidden—only perhaps one wouldn’t know that it is specifically from a private domain to a public domain, because Tosafot does not see carrying as an inferior labor in the sense that it is not creative enough or things of that sort. So Tosafot may be exceptional. But for my purposes, Maimonides versus Tosafot HaRosh: they both agree that in the initial assumption this thing is not labor; the question is what the Torah added when it said it is forbidden. Clear? That is the first example.

So here this is very important, a very important point. It’s not just a practical ramification; it adds another principle to our picture. Because now the question arises: after carrying was forbidden, do we still treat it as an inferior labor or not? Or was that only the initial assumption—that we wouldn’t have forbidden it because we would have thought it was an inferior labor—but once the Torah forbade it, that’s it, it no longer has the status of an inferior labor? Tosafot HaRosh claims no—even after carrying was forbidden, it still has the status of an inferior labor. Meaning, it is not labor. Okay? But for the Sabbath itself that won’t necessarily be a practical difference. For the Sabbath itself it might be a practical difference if there is something in the laws of the Sabbath that requires specifically labor. One has to think whether there’s anything like that; I’m not sure. For example—well, we’ll soon see. In the next practical ramifications we’ll see it. And where does the issue fit in—does it fit in here at all—that this is, say, a frequent labor or not a labor, something frequent that a person does and maybe doesn’t really notice? I didn’t understand the question. Is the fact that it is a labor a person does very frequently and without much attention, that he is not aware of really doing anything—he went out wearing or carrying something? No, that is called unintentional involvement. There perhaps he would be exempt, but all labors have an exemption for unintentional involvement. Carrying is not unique in that. Carrying is taking something deliberately and intentionally from a private domain and transferring it to a public domain. If he does that in a way of unintentional involvement, that is not specifically characteristic of carrying. Any of the labors can be done in a way of unintentional involvement, and then you would be exempt. In fact it is even permitted—according to Rabbi Akiva Eiger it is exempt; according to most halakhic decisors it is actually permitted.

The second ramification appears in the Talmud in Eruvin. Sorry to stop for a second, but I didn’t understand the practical ramification. I mean, maybe I did but I’m not sure I understood correctly, so can you go back for a second—what is the practical ramification of learning this from a Jewish holiday? What I understood is that according to Tosafot this labor is an inferior labor, but according to Tosafot HaRosh it’s not labor at all. So what’s the practical ramification? I didn’t understand what the point is. Do we still define it as labor? According to Tosafot HaRosh it is not called labor. Right, but on a Jewish holiday the practical ramification is that on a Jewish holiday it is not forbidden. And according to Tosafot HaRosh the practical ramification is that on a Jewish holiday it is not forbidden, and according to Tosafot it is not forbidden because it is called an inferior labor, and when it says “you shall do no labor,” that means labor and not inferior labor on a Jewish holiday. No, I didn’t understand. Then why does Tosafot say it is forbidden that… permitted… why according to Tosafot, if Tosafot says it is an inferior labor, why is it permitted on a Jewish holiday? Tosafot HaRosh I understood; Tosafot I didn’t understand. For a different reason. What I only want to argue is that anyone who does not learn like Tosafot HaRosh needs another source to explain why on a Jewish holiday there is no prohibition of carrying. Or as you said: they did not forbid inferior labor—but for that too one needs a source. Where is it written that inferior labor was not forbidden? Or for some other reason, I don’t know. We have a source—I mentioned that there are different versions regarding which verse is cited there. Some of the medieval authorities have a version there with a Torah verse, and then there is simply a Torah verse saying that on a Jewish holiday it is permitted. Clear? But still, for our purposes what is important is that one needs an explicit source that exempts it; you cannot learn it merely from the fact that it is not labor. According to Tosafot HaRosh, by the very fact that it is not labor, it is obvious that on a Jewish holiday it is permitted. One could say that according to Tosafot HaRosh there are thirty-eight labors plus carrying. Exactly, exactly.

Now Ritva in Eruvin brings in the name of Rabbeinu Yonah—yes, “the saintly teacher” there means Rabbeinu Yonah—and he argues the following. There is a sugya there where the Talmud permits instructing a non-Jew—when we tell a non-Jew to do a labor. That is forbidden, but almost always only by rabbinic decree. Okay? Instructing a non-Jew is forbidden. So the Talmud there says that when we want to perform circumcision on the Sabbath—we do perform circumcision on the Sabbath—but we need to arrange to bring the things needed for the circumcision. So the Talmud says: instructing a non-Jew is possible if I tell him to bring hot water from outside the eruv, but I cannot tell him to heat the water; that I cannot do. What is the difference between the two? So he says: here is labor! He says in the name of the saintly teacher of blessed memory, I found that he explains: “Anything that we do through a non-Jew in which some improvement is produced in the object itself is called something that involves an act, whether of Torah law or rabbinic law, such as heating water or cooking or baking and the like, and in this they were stringent to say ‘tell the non-Jew to do it.’ But in a matter in which no improvement at all is produced, but merely bringing from place to place, in this they permitted instructing a non-Jew, even for a Torah prohibition.” That is how he explains it.

So here is another ramification, and it really fits Or Zaru’a’s view: where there is no significant creation in the object, that is the inferiority of the labor of carrying—and here is the consequence. There is a halakhic ramification. Instructing a non-Jew, which is itself prohibited—there is a rabbinic prohibition on telling a non-Jew to do labor—that applies only when I tell the non-Jew to do labor that is not an inferior labor but a proper labor. But if I tell the non-Jew to do an inferior labor, then according to Ritva there is no prohibition of instructing a non-Jew. That is the second ramification.

The third ramification is from Pnei Yehoshua, a similar ramification regarding the rest of one’s animal. I mentioned this in the introductory class: there is a prohibition against my animal doing labor on the Sabbath. Not that I do labor with it—that is a different issue—but when my animal on its own does labor. My animal goes and carries from a private domain to a public domain, or, I don’t know, even traps something. Let’s say even that. I violate a Torah prohibition. You should know that. When the animal incidentally does things for its own needs, that is permitted; that is called acting for its own life-needs. The Talmud says that is for its needs, its sustenance. But if an animal goes and does labor, and it is my animal, then I have violated a Torah prohibition. Therefore, for example, when I lend an animal to a non-Jew, and the non-Jew uses it for labor on the Sabbath, he himself may be permitted to do so. But if the animal is my animal, it is forbidden for it. The well-known story about the donkey of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair—sorry, not Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa—Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair, yes, who refused to do labor after they sold him to a non-Jew. It didn’t realize they had sold it; it thought they had only lent it out. It was used to not doing labor, and from its perspective it was right—it just didn’t know it had been sold.

In any case, Pnei Yehoshua says the same thing we saw in Ritva above: the rest of one’s animal was not said concerning carrying. It was said only concerning proper labors, not inferior labors. Therefore in this matter they did not forbid the rest of one’s animal regarding carrying. And note: all these ramifications are ramifications even after the Torah’s novelty that carrying is a labor forbidden on the Sabbath. True, the Torah did innovate that carrying is a labor forbidden on the Sabbath, and still we say: right, the Torah innovated and lowered the threshold, but it did not erase the gap between proper labors and inferior labors. There are things regarding which this distinction still remains, such as instructing a non-Jew, such as the rest of one’s animal, and the like.

Another interesting ramification, the fourth one here: the Talmud on page 102 in Shabbat says: “Rabba said: if one threw something and it came to rest in the mouth of a dog or in the mouth of a furnace, he is liable.” Meaning, if I throw something in the public domain—I mentioned that throwing something four cubits in the public domain is a derivative of carrying—one is liable for that on the Sabbath, it is a Torah prohibition. What happens if I throw it and it lands in the mouth of a dog or in a furnace with a burning fire? Basically the thing is going to be eaten or destroyed. So what happens there? The Talmud says that person is liable; there is a Torah prohibition there. So the later authorities ask: but the Talmud says that all destructive acts are exempt. Meaning, if you performed some Torah labor but the result is something damaged or ruined, then even though you did a Torah-level labor, you are exempt, because labor must be done in a constructive way, not in a destructive way. If it is destructive, you are exempt. So the later authorities ask: what is going on here? You threw something, and in the end it reached a dog or a furnace and it is going to be ruined, to be destroyed. Why here… but the dog eats? No, no, it’s not dog food, that’s not what I meant. The dog ruins it for me. I meant I intended to move it from place to place and the dog ruined it. Yet I am liable. They ask why I’m liable, since in the end this led to damage. Why obligate me for such a thing?

So several later authorities say this is the point: in the labor of carrying, since—as Or Zaru’a says—the labor of carrying brings no improvement at all in the object. All the other Sabbath labors produce some sort of improvement in the object itself, but in carrying no improvement is made. So what follows? In labors whose whole basis is producing an improvement in the object, if you did something destructive you are exempt, because that is not the proper manner of the labor, not the regular form of that labor. But in carrying, there is no improvement in the object to begin with. This is a practical difference in the stricter direction. Therefore even if you caused damage, that does not exempt you, because carrying is not a labor intended to fix something. So if it damages, that does not create an exemption. It is not required that it be done in order to improve. Notice that this is already a stricter ramification. Because this is an inferior labor, a stricter consequence comes out here: even if I ruin something, it is still forbidden—not that it becomes permitted. Usually the ramifications of an inferior labor are lenient—it is less forbidden. Here, in a kind of reverse twist, the ramification comes out stricter.

And all these ramifications—note—are practical halakhic ramifications. Meaning, these are stated after the Torah’s novelty that carrying is forbidden on the Sabbath, and still, despite the Torah’s novelty that carrying is forbidden, it still has the status of an inferior labor, and that has the consequences I listed here. There may be more, but these are the consequences I’ve gathered at the moment. Even though the last ramification is a little strange, because really I did the act and only afterward it got eaten. No, no—when one places it in a place where it will be destroyed, the claim is that this does not even count as placing it down. If you placed it in a place that is going to destroy it, then that already no longer counts as placement; it’s as if the act never really occurred. That is basically the claim—or at least that is what those later authorities are assuming when they make that comment. One can argue with it, okay.

All right, in any case let’s finish this introduction to carrying. It took me a long time. Let’s finish this introduction to the labor of carrying in order to suggest a proposal as to what the meaning of this labor actually is. It won’t fit all the possibilities I raised here, only some of them. I want to suggest the following. If we look at what human beings do in the world—because after all, the labor from which we desist on the Sabbath, try to stay on mute as long as you’re not speaking, okay—when the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world in six days, and on the seventh day we are told to rest, that means we are supposed to cease creating things in the world, okay, to stop doing things in the world. Now there is a very basic difference between the ways in which the Holy One can act and the ways in which we can act, indeed one that is essential to us as human beings. Why? The Holy One created the world out of nothing. He created things. To create means to make something from nothing. We at most can form, not create from nothing. We cannot make something from nothing. So what does it mean to form? To form means to take something and give it a different shape—something from something, not something from nothing. Okay, that is what human beings do.

Notice that the most far-reaching and revolutionary things, the most blatant interventions in creation, are in fact something from something, not something from nothing. Think, for example, about cloning, artificial fertilization, all those things that are always portrayed as if we are playing God, as if we are creating a world ourselves. We are not doing any such thing. If you look at how it is actually done, all we really do is take something, place it in the right location, and let nature do what it is supposed to do, what it knows how to do. What we do is simply move a thing from place to place. That is all we do. A human being cannot do anything other than move things from place to place. Nothing. Meaning, all the actions I can think of—at least all the actions I manage to think of—are really only acts of putting something from one place into another. What about writing and drawing? Same thing. I placed ink in this spot and that spot. I transferred the ink from the pen onto the paper. But there is a creation of something new here. Of course there is a creation here, but I’m saying that although we call it the creation of something new, when we look microscopically at what I actually did, what I really did was simply move things from place to place.

But even in creation—wait, Rabbi—the thing receives in our eyes of course a completely different status, someone created something highly significant here. Obviously. But I’m saying that in essence what we do is only that. We can move things, place them in the right place. When you cook, for example—or you, all of us cook, let’s not be chauvinistic, all of us cook, okay—we place the pot or saucepan on the fire, and then the fire cooks. Did I cook? I didn’t do anything. I cut things up, put them in the pot, and put the pot on the fire. From there on, nature does the rest. What I’m supposed to do is only place the right things in the right places, gather them together. When I do chemical mixtures or things like that, what am I doing? Taking ingredients and putting them together; chemistry does everything else. So it seems to me that basically… but I think Nurit meant something more spiritual, like creating ideas. But that is not what is forbidden on the Sabbath. On the Sabbath the prohibition concerns actions, labor, so I’m talking on those levels. When we create something in the world, in the end all we do is move a thing from place to place. That is all we do.

This insight leads me to say that the Holy One can create things out of nothing, while we can only move them from place to place. There are two midrashim—I’ll mention them, I’ll bring them here. In Midrash Tanchuma on parashat Tazria, the wicked Turnus Rufus asked Rabbi Akiva: whose deeds are more beautiful, those of the Holy One or those of flesh and blood? He said to him: those of flesh and blood are more beautiful. Human deeds are more beautiful than the deeds of the Holy One. The wicked Turnus Rufus said to him: but look at the heavens and the earth—can you make anything like them? Can you create heaven and earth? What do you mean, that a human being can produce deeds more beautiful than the Holy One? Rabbi Akiva said to him: don’t ask me about things that are above creatures, over which they have no power; rather ask me about things that exist among human beings. He said to him: then why do you circumcise? Rabbi Akiva said to him: I already knew you were going to say that to me; that is why I prepared the ground and told you in advance that the deeds of flesh and blood are more beautiful than those of the Holy One.

That’s what he says. “Bring me ears of grain and cakes,” said Rabbi Akiva. Yes, bring me ears of grain—that’s produce—and cakes made from that produce, and he asks him: these are the deeds of the Holy One, the grain, and these are the deeds of flesh and blood, the cakes. Which do you consider better, the grain or the cakes? Obviously the cakes are far better, so the deeds of flesh and blood are better. The same with flax stalks and clothes made from them—raw material and the result. And so on, that is the midrash. And that also points elsewhere in relation to what a woman does for a man. Okay, but I’m saying that also in the context of marital relations, from egg and sperm, there too in the end… But the point here is: obviously when a person does this, he doesn’t really do it by himself. He does it by using the laws of nature, which were also created by the Holy One. Otherwise we couldn’t make the baked good out of the grain. Rather, the Holy One gave us a world in which there are laws of nature. We can grind, use fire, cook, mix in water. All those things in the end are also deeds of the Holy One. What we do is take the deeds of the Holy One and improve them. How do we improve them? We merely move them from place to place and arrange for the natural interactions that will bring us where we want to get.

And that is basically what we are doing there. Maybe one more interesting note: there is a very well-known midrash in Vayikra Rabbah. Why does this emerge specifically from carrying? In principle this idea is true of everything, no? Why specifically from carrying does this point arise? Wait, I haven’t gotten to carrying yet; we’ll get there in a second. The claim is that in Vayikra Rabbah we see, for example, “Who has preceded Me, that I should repay him?” The Holy One says in Job: “Who has preceded Me, that I should repay him?” Who did something before I did, so that I owe him reward? There is no such person, says the Holy One. Rabbi Tanchuma explained the verse about a bachelor who lives in the city and pays a scribe—not important now, in short there is a whole list there and I don’t want to go through it because it’s long. Everything we do for the Holy One, we merely use what He has already given us first. We circumcise our son—He gave us the son beforehand. We put a railing around our roof—He gave us the house beforehand, and of course also the materials with which we make the railing, and the understanding to make the railing, and all those things. So in the end everything we credit to ourselves really belongs to the Holy One. We are only using what He gave us and merely moving it from place to place. That is basically the claim.

Therefore what I want to argue is that the essence of human action is moving things from place to place and placing them in the right location, in contrast to the action of the Holy One in the six days of creation, which was creation out of nothing. He created the things and before that they did not exist. He did not merely move them from place to place. Now there is an interesting Nachmanides on Song of Songs—sorry that I’m wandering into the realms of thought and aggadic literature; I usually don’t do that. Nachmanides on Song of Songs writes—he brings this because he was a Neoplatonist—and he basically said no, creation out of nothing is an impossible thing; it cannot be. Therefore even the Holy One did not create from nothing; He created the world from primeval matter, as Plato held. There was some sort of unformed primordial matter, and the Holy One gave it form. So there is a kind of denial of creation out of nothing based on the assumption that creation out of nothing is something impossible. All that is possible is to make something from something. Nachmanides in Genesis says otherwise, and there are contradictions there; never mind, I think they can be reconciled too. But I just want to show you how impossible it appears to us to create something out of nothing. The claim is that indeed what we do is always something from something; it is always movement.

Now I come back to us. When we look at the primary categories of labor through Or Zaru’a’s lens, we create something new. We have the feeling that we are really the Holy One. Yes, as people always say, you are playing God—you clone, or you… that is the great discomfort people have with such intervention by scientists or by people in nature. There is a very great discomfort: this is the role of the Holy One, or of nature—even among atheists—and we are not supposed to interfere. I myself have never understood those discomforts; in my view they are complete nonsense, both religiously and in secular moral terms. But such discomfort exists, that is a fact. And what these labors actually reflect—the labors on the Sabbath—is indeed all those places where we create something significant. Then the labor of carrying comes and tells us: friends, notice, carrying too is labor. Here I answer Merav. Carrying too is labor. What does that mean? Carrying comes to show us that in all the other labors too, all we do is merely move a thing from place to place. We live under the illusion that we are playing God, but we are not. In the end, all the labors we do are inferior labors. The result in the object is a result that the Holy One produced through the laws of nature; we only move things from place to place. In all the labors, that is the case.

Now true, in the labor of carrying the result does not exist. But that is not because of us; it is simply because the laws of nature do not do anything to the object that is moved from place to place, so it remains as it was. But our part in the matter is the same in all the labors as it is in the labor of carrying—there is no difference. Therefore the Torah comes and says, specifically on the Sabbath—and by the way, that may be why not on a Jewish holiday, because on the Sabbath the Torah wants to emphasize: we do indeed rest like the Holy One did from the six days of action, but remember, you are not God. All you can do is move things from place to place. So from your perspective, carrying too is labor. Because in the end, in all the other labors, all you are doing is carrying things about. On a Jewish holiday it is not a remembrance of the act of creation; the rest of a Jewish holiday is something else. Therefore on a Jewish holiday we desist only from significant creations, not from carrying. The Sabbath is a remembrance of the rest of the act of creation, so here we are reminded that we are not God despite all the comparisons we make there. He too works six days and rests on the seventh; we too work six days and rest on the seventh. But what we do in our six days and what He does in His six days are not the same thing. During our six days we only do carrying out and bringing in, that is all we do. Everything else He does in the six days. I think that is the idea of the labor of carrying.

Now we need to… now let’s move to Tosafot. Tosafot says: what is the difference between one private domain to another private domain and a private domain to a public domain? Here too I have an idea. And the idea is this. If my conception were correct—if my proposal in Or Zaru’a were correct—then there really would have been reason to forbid moving something from one private domain to another private domain as well. After all, all we do is move things from place to place, so what difference does it make? So the Torah comes and says the following, and this may be the explanation according to Tosafot. The Torah wants to define places that are substantially different from one another in order to define the action as an action of movement. Because if I simply forbid moving things, then I would basically have to sit frozen and not move and do nothing the entire Sabbath. That is impossible. When they wanted to forbid us from moving things, they had to qualify it and define when movement is significant. Now what is movement? Movement is changing the location of the object, right? From one place to another. I want the first place, the point of departure, and the destination, to have different characters. Then I will define that movement as significant movement. What do I mean by different character? Basically there is private domain and public domain—or public to private, in both directions. Therefore that is what I call significant movement, when I change the character of the place, not merely move from place to place. If it is from one private domain to another private domain, or within the same private domain, what difference does it make? I have not made a significant change. I moved it, yes. But if I want to define, even within the world of movements, what significant movement is, then I need to define places that are different from each other, the source and the destination. And the definition we find is private domain versus public domain.

How do we arrive at that definition? Because the Torah says, “Let no man go out from his place on the Sabbath day.” Meaning that the Torah’s emphasis is on going out. Going out is from the house to the courtyard or to the street. And from here the Sages learned that the difference between places probably lies in the question whether it is a private domain or a public domain. That is the difference the Torah defines as the parameter for defining significant movement: private domain versus public domain. Therefore the Torah defines the labor of carrying only from private domain to public domain—or bringing in from public domain to private domain—because there must be a substantial difference between the places. And for the physicists, look afterward at my summary; there are notes there that may also say a few things to you about entropy. But I don’t…

I want to ask something for a second. First of all, if we said that basically all we want to define is what movement is, then there are actions that are in the private domain, and if every labor is really only movement, then every labor that takes place in the private domain should apparently be… should actually be permitted, because all we are doing is moving things around in the private domain. I put the pot on the fire; I am only doing an act of movement. I want to go back a bit to what you defined. I’m having a bit of trouble accepting that everything we do in this world is movement. Because that is a technical action, but behind it there is the whole issue of creation, and into that enters the level of intellect. No, and that’s an explanation… in moving an object from place to place, let me finish, these questions came up earlier so I’ll answer again. Look, I am not denying that there are creative people, and that they contribute something by using their minds. I am only claiming that in the labors of the Sabbath what is forbidden to us is action, not thought. Therefore with the labors of the Sabbath I look at the question what was produced in the world, not what impact or added value came from the thought of the creator. I am not denying that there are wise and creative and brilliant people, obviously, no question about that. I am just saying that in terms of defining labor on the Sabbath, I ask what happened to the object. And in terms of what I did to the object, it was movement from place to place. I only need to think where to move it and when to move it and how to move it, because that makes all the difference. And of course I do that with my head, with my intellect.

So why is cooking, in the end, the act that actually comes out in practice, the deed itself, done by moving something from one thing to another. There is each person’s creative thought—maybe that remains a kind of something-from-nothing, I don’t know what definition you’d give it. But the action of implementing the thought, the deed itself, is something from something; we move things around. Yes, but the deed is only movements. So then why is cooking apparently forbidden on the Sabbath? I merely moved something within a private domain. I’ll answer, I’ll answer. What I want to say is this. Basically what we do is only movements, okay? Therefore the thought invested is only in the question from where to where, and when, to move. That is exactly the labor of carrying. The labor of carrying tells me: it is forbidden to move, provided that it is from a place of character X to a place of character Y. The from-where and the to-where, when you define them as different places—that is the labor of carrying.

Now what I want to claim is that this is only the labor of carrying. The other labors we are supposed to look at in the way you are looking at them, the way we usually look at them all the time, as our own creation. Therefore there it is forbidden even within the same domain, because there we created—only the labor of carrying comes to remind us that this ordinary perspective that accompanies us through the other thirty-eight primary labors is not really the true, precise perspective. There is something that the labor of carrying reminds us of: that even in the places where we feel most creative in the world, in the end it is the Holy One who created. We only move things from place to place and use the laws of nature intelligently. Therefore this characterizes only the labor of carrying. The other labors will be forbidden within the same domain itself, because in the other labors the perspective is as if this is not movement, as if we really create, and creating is forbidden. The labor of carrying comes to tell us that in the other labors too, what we do is only movement—but that is a different perspective.

Okay, I think one can also look at the other labors as only movement, only that this particular form of movement is forbidden. It is forbidden to transfer the ink onto the paper in this particular way; it is forbidden to write letters. Right, an interesting proposal. Instead of moving the ink from the pen to the paper, that is movement significant enough on its own, and I don’t need it to leave a private domain and enter a public domain, because clearly something very significant is produced here from our point of view. This means that the transfer of the ink from pen to paper involves two places whose transition is significant enough even without their being private and public domain. Clearly, look—something new was produced here. But perhaps that too is from one domain to another, maybe from one state to another, not only from one place to another. Yes, yes, of course. That’s exactly what I mean. So movement can function along several axes. When the movement is along the spatial axis, then it has to be from private domain to public domain. That is what defines a significant difference between places on the spatial axis. But if it is along substantive axes, like the movement of ink from pen to paper, then that too is a significant transition even if it takes place wholly within the private domain itself. That doesn’t matter. Clear?

So then that too is definitely an interesting proposal. I looked at carrying as though it comes to pull us out of our everyday perspective on the other thirty-eight primary categories of labor, but Nechama says no, perhaps even with that perspective on the other primary categories of labor we can continue looking at the other primary categories through the same lens, except that where something significant is produced, we see it as significant movement. In carrying nothing significant happens to the object—so how do we define that movement as significant movement? If we changed place in a substantial way. From private domain to public domain, that’s a dramatic difference, so the movement is movement significant enough that even if it created nothing at all in the object, the movement itself counts. And movement is inferior—so what makes it inferior? What? If the change is so dramatic, then it isn’t inferior. It is inferior because it does not create something in the object. Dramatic enough, but it creates no change. Our impact is only movements, but the product is different. Meaning, the laws of nature—if I put something on a fire that is extinguished, or put something on a fire that is lit, the outcome is completely different, even though I performed the exact same action. Clear? So here a significant change occurred, and then I don’t care whether the fire and I are both in a private domain, because in the end, after my act of movement, the object is significantly different. But if nothing at all happens to the object, then in order to define the movement itself as a significant act I need movement between two places that differ significantly from one another, and that is private domain and public domain. So I need Or Zaru’a; I can’t erase him. Exactly. So I’m saying, this doesn’t replace Or Zaru’a, it only adds to him. That is exactly my claim.

Therefore I say that in different approaches—but for example, when we talk about effort, then what I described here seems not really connected to the issue. Someone who sees the important parameter in the Sabbath labors as effort, I’m not sure—maybe mental effort, if we move there, then yes, we’d need to somehow translate this. But again, I don’t want to drift too far, because this is already much more than what I usually do. I generally don’t go into philosophical and aggadic issues and things like that. But here I think this really is an idea that captures well the notion of the Sabbath labors and of carrying, why it is an inferior labor, why it is nevertheless forbidden, and why specifically on the Sabbath and not on a Jewish holiday. There is also—why there is no problem of destructive action in carrying, because in carrying one doesn’t need to improve; one only needs to move. All the things we saw earlier seem to me to fit nicely with the interpretation I proposed here. So think about it. If you accept it, good, and if not, also good.

Okay, I still want to manage to move a bit into the third link in our chain. That is to say: I spoke about the introduction to the Sabbath in general, then I just finished the introduction to the labor of carrying. That will be the second file sent to you. What I’m going to do now is begin the third file, the third class, and that is the definition of the labor of carrying—carrying out, bringing in, and the definitions of the labor. So first maybe I’ll ask where you stand with the prep sheet. Did you finish it, the sheet I sent? Not yet? The question is simply how much—I don’t want to go through it, or certainly not most of it, so the question is how much of a base you already have from it for next time as well, or whether I need to add a bit. We finished it, but we didn’t understand all the points, roughly the sections. We stopped at Rabbi Akiva Eiger there; we read him. Okay, good, so I’ll add a bit more for next time, but next time we’ll continue with this issue anyway, so think of it as if I’m now starting class three, okay, basically. Because I had planned to get further with it today, but it went too slowly.

Okay, so regarding Maimonides in his Commentary on the Mishnah, which I told you to read as an introduction to the definition of the labor of carrying and the four domains, I’m not going to go through it here. I hope you managed with it, that it was clear. All in all he writes fairly clearly, I think, and there one can manage, right? So he gives you a kind of general introduction. As far as I’m concerned that’s fine; I’m not going to go through it. I want to begin reading the Mishnah. “The acts of carrying on the Sabbath”—I’m reading in the Mishnah. You know what? Let’s put it in here so you won’t have to look in some nearby book. “The acts of carrying on the Sabbath are two which are four inside, and two which are four outside.” Here, this is the summary file I’m already using, so it will be sent to you afterward.

How so? We are basically going through the acts of carrying on the Sabbath, and the Mishnah says this is divided into “two which are four inside” and “two which are four outside”—all together there are eight. Four are Torah-level and four are rabbinic. The structure of the Mishnah is that the first two are the “two which are four inside,” meaning the two transgressed by the householder, and the last two “which are four” are the two transgressed by the poor man standing outside. Okay? “Inside” is the householder, “outside” is the poor man. “Two that are Torah-level which are four” means there are another two added to them at the rabbinic level, and similarly both for the householder and for the poor man. That is also the structure of the Mishnah.

So now the Mishnah opens and says as follows: “The poor man stands outside and the homeowner inside.” So first of all, the question already arises—I mentioned this on the sheet—why are we talking about a poor man and a homeowner? So in Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah, if you saw it, he says it is because they wanted to give shorthand names, code names, instead of constantly saying “the one standing inside” and “the one standing outside,” he says “the rich man” and “the poor man.” Fine, just to make it easier to talk about; it doesn’t really matter. But there are other medieval authorities who explain differently why the Mishnah speaks of the poor man and the householder, like Bartenura. Why? What bothers them about Maimonides’ explanation? Because one could have spoken about “the one inside” and “the one outside”; that’s no longer than “the rich man” and “the poor man.” The one inside does this and the one outside does that—what’s the problem? Why do we need to talk about rich man and poor man? Therefore some are not satisfied with Maimonides’ answer and say that it comes to teach that it should not be a commandment—meaning the commandment that I need to give charity should not become a stumbling block. Bartenura, for example, writes: “The poor man extended his hand, and in it was a basket or pouch in which he receives loaves from the householder, and for that reason it chose to discuss carrying in the language of poor man and rich man, so that incidentally it teaches us that a commandment that comes through a transgression is forbidden and one is liable for it.” They wanted to speak here of the rich man and the poor man in order to teach us something else: that if someone gives charity but does so through violating the Sabbath—carrying from a private domain to a public domain to the poor man, but for a good purpose, in order to give charity—then they tell me: this is a commandment that comes through a transgression; it is forbidden to do it, and that commandment is worth nothing.

Here too one could ask—and Tosafot Yom Tov already asks this—I told you that the later authorities comment on this Bartenura with all sorts of interesting remarks. “A commandment that comes through a transgression” does not need this Mishnah to teach it to us; the Talmud is full of the law of a commandment that comes through a transgression. We know this. Why should this Mishnah have to teach it? There were possibilities to say that here the law of a commandment that comes through a transgression would not apply for various reasons, and therefore perhaps it would be possible here. So the Mishnah is not coming to teach me the basic law of a commandment that comes through a transgression, but rather that this law applies even here, where we might have thought otherwise. And to explain that one needs to get into the law of a commandment that comes through a transgression. Yes. Rabbi, why does he emphasize that there was a basket or pouch in the poor man’s hand? Why not just say that he gives it into his hand? Why did he have to say that the poor man has a basket or pouch in his hand, and that the rich man puts it there rather than in his hand? Is that to teach the continuation? Or could it relate to the question of what one has to do with it, what counts as placing it down or not? The resting of his hand and the resting of his body. We’ll get there, we’ll get there.

So at the beginning of the Mishnah—I’m now moving on with the Mishnah itself, let’s leave the side comments aside—these are the two acts of the poor man. We begin, okay? “The poor man stretched his hand inside and placed something into the hand of the householder, or took something from it and brought it out—the poor man is liable and the householder is exempt.” Okay, these are the two Torah-level actions of the poor man. If the poor man stretches his hand in and places something in the hands of the householder, or stretches his hand in and takes something from the householder, then the poor man did both the removal and the placement, both in bringing in and in carrying out. Here “bringing in” is from the public domain to the private domain, and “carrying out” is from the private domain to the public domain. In the case where the poor man does both the removal and the placement and also the transfer from domain to domain, then he is Torah-level liable and the other person is exempt. Clear? That is regarding the poor man.

Here there is room to wonder whether the poor man—for example, when the poor man takes something from the householder and brings it to himself, after he has brought it to himself, does he need to place it down somewhere? Or does the very fact that his hand stopped already count as placing it down? The same question applies to removal: when the poor man takes the thing and gives it to the householder inside, did the poor man remove it? After all, it was only in his hand; he merely began to move his hand, brought it into the house, and put it into the hand of the householder. So he certainly did the removal. The question is whether he did the placement. Another question that came up in discussion: if he takes something and eats it. Again I’m coming back to eating. That is, he doesn’t place it down, but he did something with it. Does that count as placement—he placed it in his mouth? Yes, okay.

But wait, Rabbi—if he took it from the hand of the rich man in the second case, and we say that is a joint action and both are exempt, then the placement is not… When he takes it from the hand of the rich man, then he removed it and he placed it—everything was done by the poor man. “Two people who did it” is when the rich man places it in the hand of the poor man, so the rich man removes it and the poor man takes it outside and places it. That is called two people who did it. But what does “two people who did it” mean? That the rich man removed it from somewhere, held it in his hand—no, not held it in his hand, but placed it in the hand of the poor man. If he is holding it in his hand, then the poor man, who takes it from his hand, is the one who removes it. This is an important point, and it is very confusing here in the Mishnah, so I’m lingering a little on these diagrams so that we’ll keep our bearings when we read all the different cases and all the pathologies that arise here.

So what are the players on the field here? There is a rich man and a poor man. The rich man stands inside and the poor man stands outside. There is an act of bringing in—that is from outside inward. There is an act of carrying out—from inside outward. Every act, whether bringing in or carrying out, involves removal and placement. Bringing in involves removal outside and placement inside; carrying out involves removal inside and placement outside. And now we have to start discussing who did the removal and who did the placement in each case. That is basically the discussion, okay? It’s the whole game here: who did the removal and who did the placement—and of course also who did the transfer.

Wait, a question. Why specifically a poor man and a rich man? Why not just two people? So I answered that before. Maimonides said just so we’ll have names; Bartenura says in order to teach “a commandment that comes through a transgression,” giving charity and so on. Okay, sorry.

This question—whether the poor man, say, if the poor man puts his hand in, removes from the householder and brings it to himself, whether he needs to put it down in order for it to count as his placement too, or whether the fact that his hand stopped already counts as placement—that’s the question. And Rashi explained that if he doesn’t need to put it down, then what can he do with it? He has to place it somewhere. He put it in his hand and just stood there. Until when? Until when he feels like it? He took the thing and held out his hand. Until the end of the Sabbath? Never mind, never mind discussing that; he took the thing and kept it in his hand until the end of the Sabbath, fine? I didn’t understand. He kept it there for one second in his hand—that’s not important, those are technical questions, not interesting. As far as I’m concerned, let him remain like a pillar of salt for twenty-four hours. We are asking a principled question if… no, no, no, one has to place it down. Transfer is not placement. For example, if he transfers it to the private domain but keeps walking continuously until the end of the Sabbath, never stopping, then there was no placement. If he hitchhikes? No, he stopped—but he stopped with it in his hand, not that he placed it in another place. And the question is whether that counts as placement. So in Rashi—I told you to look in Rashi—see Rashi’s wording: “or he took from it and brought out the object and placed it in the public domain.” Why does he add that? Because if it remained in his hand, that still doesn’t count as placement. “And placed it in the public domain.” No, Rashi is not satisfied with the fact that he held it in his hand and it stopped there. “For he performed removal in the private domain and placement in the public domain.” Rashi emphasizes: it is not enough that it stops in his hand; it also has to be put down.

The same in another Rashi, in the case of the householder—that was regarding the poor man. See? “And the householder took from it and placed it inside.” “And the householder thereby performed placement.” Before he spoke about the poor man; now he speaks about the householder. Meaning, Rashi claims that the stopping of the object in the hand and its remaining there does not itself count as placement. Okay? That is not called placement. In order for it to be placement, it has to be placed somewhere else. Okay? There seems to be a question here. Taking from the hand counts as removal, but placing into the hand does not count. No—placing into the hand certainly counts as placement, because the hand itself performed the placement. The hand that placed and the hand in which it was placed belong to different bodies. If I place it in your hand, that is definitely placement. But if you take your own hand and merely stop moving, then you stopped moving but you didn’t place it anywhere. The question is whether that counts as placement. Rashi says no.

I have a question regarding the parallel to removal. About removal, would we also say the same thing: that he has to take it from somewhere and then remove and transfer it? Or if it was already in his hand from before the Sabbath, would that not count as removal? Same question. The question is also regarding removal: is it enough just to begin moving the hand and that counts as removal, or must removal be from some location? Although in the diagrams here that really depends when. For example, when the poor man brings in, the question is when the removal occurs, because he merely began to move his hand. But it could be that it was already in his hand beforehand. Here Rashi no longer mentions that the poor man took it from somewhere, right? He simply stretches out his hand and places it into the hand of the householder. The question is why Rashi doesn’t mention it. Try it. In removal Rashi does not mention it; in placement he does. Okay?

Now this brings us to the Talmud—which I won’t get into here—on page 3, I hope you saw it, I referred to it on the sheet. The Talmud there says: Rav asked Rabbi, “If one’s fellow loaded him with food and drink and he carried them outside, what is the law?” Meaning, someone put some load on me while I was in the private domain, and now I begin walking and pass with it into the public domain. Does that count as if I removed and placed it? “Is the movement of his body like the movement of an object from its place, so that he would be liable? Or perhaps not?” Rabbi said to him: he is liable. Liable, yes. Meaning, it does count as removal. But the Talmud adds another thing: “And it is not comparable to his hand.” When he does it with his body—say it’s a load on his back and he starts walking—that counts as removal. But with his hand, when the hand starts moving, and it had already been in the hand before and now starts moving, that is not called removal. Why? “What is the reason? His body is at rest; his hand is not at rest.” When the hand is standing still, that is not considered serious rest, because the hand can move even while the body stands still. When the body stands still, the object is truly at rest. When the object is in the hand, it is not considered to be at rest there, because at any moment it can be moved. Just think naturally how we see these things. When the object is in the hand, it is not considered to be at rest. Therefore there is a difference between the body and the hand.

Note that all this here is speaking about removal. What about placement? There are major disputes among the medieval authorities here, and I’m not going into them, as I said, because we’ll get to it when we reach the sugya there. I am only drawing your attention to this issue because the disputes there will touch on what Rashi writes here. Because Rashi here takes care to emphasize that the placement of both the poor man and the householder must be from the hand to another place. So first, he says this about placement and not about removal; and second, he says it about the hand and not about the body. And the Talmud indeed says that with the hand there really is no status of removal or placement. But then why does he say it only about placement and not about removal? Regarding removal too it should be so. The beginning of the hand’s movement should not count as removal if it is the hand, just as in placement it does not count. Rashi doesn’t say that. On the other hand, Rashi does say that the hand differs from the body. The movement of the body does count as removal. Yes. But regarding placement, Rashi says that in the hand it does not count as placement. So we need to understand hand versus body, and removal versus placement. There is a dispute among the medieval authorities, both in Rashi there and in Rashi here, and it depends on versions and understandings of the Talmud there. But I’m pointing it out here so that you’ll remember, because we’ll get to it when we discuss the Talmud there on page 3. Here I only noted it with a few comments in the summary for whoever wants.

Can I ask something? Yes. Regarding what Ruti asked before, what is actually Rashi’s logic—that if someone puts it in my hand, or if I move my hand and my hand comes to rest, what difference is there between the two? I mean, according to Rashi it doesn’t count as placement if it’s me, but if someone else put it there then it does count as placement? If I move my hand and simply stop it at some stage, according to Rashi that is not placement. Because to place an object means to take it and place it in another location than the one in which the placer is holding it. But here I myself am holding it and I myself stopped; that is not called placement. If I put the object into your hand, then the object was placed in a location other than my hand; that counts as placement. But the problem is not that the hand is not a place. That is not the point. The point is that the object begins and ends in the same place, so that is not called placing it down. Because the placement cannot be in the private domain in the case of the poor man? In the domain of the placer, the domain of the carrier. I see. When the poor man comes and takes the object from the rich man in the private domain, the very fact that he took it still isn’t placement; only if it reaches the public domain. No, that is obvious. In any case. Even in the public domain, if he stops his hand when it is already in the public domain, that too will not count as placement. He has to place it somewhere else. So the placement is relative to the hand from before? Again? Because in the end it does come to rest in the hand of the poor man, but it comes to rest in the private domain. When the poor man comes and takes the object in the private domain, it comes to rest in his hand. Obviously. But removal and placement both in the private domain are nothing. You need removal in the private domain and placement in the public domain in order to be liable, or vice versa. And in the public domain there was no placement here because the hand carrying it is also the hand into which the object came to rest. To place something—think in plain English too—to place something means to take it and put it onto a specific place. Perhaps the essence of carrying is the placement? Again? Perhaps the main component of the labor of carrying is placement? That is the discussion of the next stage, which we are not reaching—maybe next time. We’ll see it.

Okay? So we’ll stop here. I’ll send you a bit of additional material for the next session, but continue with the order of the sheet here, and whoever didn’t understand should try to go over it again, maybe with a little help from what I said now, maybe helping one another, so that we can get oriented in the various cases and with the Mishnah and begin talking about the essence and not only keep dealing with what is happening in each case. Okay? Thank you very much, Sabbath peace. Thank you very much.