Shabbat Tractate, Chapter 1 – Lesson 30

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s why I explained earlier that there’s a flow here. We’re talking about rainwater that falls onto a pit that’s full, but it doesn’t stay there; afterward it slides to the side and goes out. So there’s a flow here. There’s some portion of the water that can be defined as a separate part, resting on the water that fills the pit, and then afterward it slides off to the side. Now of course there are water molecules that also mix together, but broadly speaking there’s some body of water here that, overall, you can say lands on the pit and then slides off to the side. So that is defined.

[Speaker D] No, no, if it’s a picture of something going outward above it, that’s a different story, but on—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I’m talking about. That’s why I prefaced it earlier and explained it that way. Yes, yes.

[Speaker E] Why are you distinguishing between a nut that someone placed there and a nut that was already resting on the water?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not distinguishing. I’m only saying that in principle, if I read the statement that way regarding water, then seemingly I should read “nut” that way too.

[Speaker E] Yes, but with a nut it wouldn’t be like that. It’s different from water, because with water—rainwater definitely just fell on its own. A nut, on the other hand, could be that someone placed it there, and it could also be that it was just sitting there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so what? I’m asking now: if someone placed the nut, that’s what parallels someone pouring water, or rainwater falling onto the previous water. When I first read the statement itself, even before the discussions, when I read the statement simply—if I say “that is considered their placement,” the meaning is not that they are lying there, but that the one who placed them performed an act of placing. So with the nut too, that’s how it should be read.

[Speaker E] So that’s what I’m asking—why does it matter? Wait, no.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now you can say that logically, though, the same law would also apply if the nut had always been sitting there. Could be. That we can discuss—we’ll see it later. But first of all I’m saying, when you read the statement, it’s talking about someone placing a nut. It may be that regarding a nut there won’t be any difference. But in terms of the meaning—what does “resting,” “that is considered their placement,” mean? “That is considered their placement” means that when I placed them, that was an act of placement—not that they are considered resting in terms of the end result. Right? That’s how we explained it with rain, so that’s how it should also be explained with the nut. Now why am I saying all this? That’s how I would learn the Talmudic text. Let’s see whether that shows up in the halakhic decisors. I asked you to check the decisors.

[Speaker D] We learned it differently. Meaning, for a moment, I think throughout the whole learning process, it never even occurred to me—the idea of “I placed the nut.” Meaning, this is a topic that now opens up the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m saying: I start from the discussion about the water. Once I understood that this is what the meaning of the placement of the water is, I assume it has to be the same with the placement of the nut too, because this statement sets up a contrast between water on water and a nut on water, so it probably has to be in the same situation; otherwise it’s not a good contrast.

[Speaker E] The decisors don’t address rain at all—they deal with water in a pit.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—that’s my problem here. In Maimonides’ wording, in the Rif—and in the Rif it doesn’t appear at all, and not in the Shulchan Arukh either—it appears in Maimonides and in the Rosh. Look at Maimonides: “If one was standing in one of two domains and extended his hand into the second domain and took from there water from above a pit full of water and carried it out, he is liable, because all the water is considered as though it were resting on the ground. But if there was a vessel on top of the water and produce inside the vessel”—that’s the doubt discussed later—“and needless to say if the produce was floating on the water,” which is exactly the case of the nut, “and he carried them out, he is exempt.” In Maimonides it’s quite clear that he’s not talking about rainwater at all. We’re talking here about a pit full of water, and I took water from the upper part of the pit, or I took a nut floating on the water in the pit—that’s what Maimonides is talking about here. Meaning, Maimonides did not understand the Talmudic text as speaking about rainwater landing in a pit, but simply about water inside a pit. And then the whole question we asked earlier comes back: so how is this an explanation of Rabbi Avin’s statement? What does it have to do with it? So it’s very strange. Same thing—look at the wording of the Rosh. The Rosh says: “Rava said: water on top of water, that is considered its placement; a nut on top of water, that is not considered its placement.” Again, no hint of rain and nothing of the sort. So how are we to understand… And with water in a pit, when you take the water from the upper part of the pit, it is considered as though it had been resting there and you removed it. That’s the novelty. How does that fit with what Rabbi Avin said about receiving rainwater? I don’t know. Unless I say—maybe there are two possibilities. One possibility is to do to Maimonides and the Rosh what I did to the Talmudic text. After all, the wording in the Talmudic text too—we saw earlier: “And Rava follows his own reasoning, for Rava said: water on top of water, that is considered their placement; a nut on top of water is not”—that wording appears in the Rosh and in Maimonides too. And how did I explain Rava? That when he says “water on top of water,” to receive the—

[Speaker B] rainwater,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it’s not just ordinary water in a pit, because it’s not correct to call such a thing “water on top of water”; that’s just one body of water. When I talk about water on top of water, what that means is water from another source landing on the water in the pit. And then, in effect, the wording of Maimonides and the Rosh perhaps also hides that meaning behind it, and they too are really talking about rainwater or other water—it doesn’t matter—that was placed on top of the water in the pit. And the question is whether it’s considered resting or not. I’m saying this is a bit difficult, because they should have added some explanatory word. I would have expected some explanatory word. But maybe that’s what they mean—I don’t know, because otherwise it’s really hard to read the Talmudic text. Another possibility is to say something else. Maimonides and the Rosh are ruling decisors. A decisor is supposed to tell me what the Jewish law is; they’re not commentators on the Talmudic text. There’s a very clear division among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and the later authorities (Acharonim) between commentators and decisors. Commentators explain to me what the Talmud means. Decisors tell me what the law is—what’s permitted and what’s forbidden. Now when you want to state the law, it’s enough to say that if you take water from above a pit and carry it out to the public domain, you are liable. Why? Because according to the Talmud’s conclusion, that’s true whether the water had always been there or whether it came down with the rain. There was an initial assumption in the Talmud that if it came down with the rain maybe it would be different, but that’s the novelty—the novelty is that no, even if it came down with the rain, water on top of water is considered its placement. So once we’ve said that novelty, there’s no point in getting into the issue. So Maimonides and the Rosh say something simple: when you take water from above a pit and carry it out, you are liable, without getting into the question of where the water came from—whether it came from the rain or whether it had been sitting there—because as a matter of Jewish law it really makes no difference; there is no distinction. There was an initial assumption there that might have led us to distinguish. But as a decisor who wants to tell me what’s permitted and forbidden, he can use general language and say: this is forbidden, forbidden, period. And then automatically you understand—nobody is going to think to say, no, but with rainwater it’s different, because Maimonides didn’t distinguish. Whenever you take water from a pit, you have violated a prohibition. He didn’t say only if it came from—or didn’t come from—the rain. So what comes out is that in any case, that’s why Maimonides doesn’t bother to mention that we’re dealing with rainwater, because clearly according to the conclusion it’s not important: whether it’s rainwater or not, you are always liable.

[Speaker B] “Always” is just a particular case of water.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. As a decisor, as distinct from a commentator on the Talmudic text, you can understand that a decisor is simply coming to tell me what’s permitted and forbidden. And if he says what’s forbidden—taking water out of a pit is forbidden—fine, he stated the law correctly.

[Speaker E] According to that, I understand that the ruling according to the decisors who rely on the Talmud is that if I put out my hand and catch it, the way we imagined at the beginning with the statement—where I simply put my hand out and water falls onto it—I’m exempt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s obvious. On that there’s no dispute. Everybody agrees, because that’s what the Talmud itself says. That’s why the Talmud says that Rabbi Avin’s statement, which says one is liable, cannot be referring to a case where you extended your hand and received the rainwater. Because there the law is, as we see in the Mishnah with the homeowner, that you are exempt. That’s explicit, that’s clear. The whole discussion is only about the pit. Okay? All right? The only question is whether there’s a difference between a pit that rain fell into and one that it didn’t. So I’m saying: according to the Talmud’s conclusion, the novelty is that there’s no difference. Even if the upper water came from rain and was not resting on the pit, it’s the same law. So if that’s the case, then Maimonides as a decisor, or the Rosh as a decisor, really has no reason to distinguish. So they state the law generally, because the law really is generally true. Any water from a pit—when you take the water, you violate a prohibition. And why should they care to explain to me what the initial assumption in the Talmud was and what the novelty is and what the answer is? They’re not commentators on the Talmud; they’re decisors. The decisor states what is forbidden. And then it may be that Maimonides and the Rosh really do mean what I said earlier. Look at Rashi. You see here? Rashi says, on the “you might have said”—after we established the interpretive setup, the Talmud asks, so what’s the novelty? You might have thought that water on top of water is not considered its placement; it teaches us that it is considered its placement. Right? So the Talmud asks, what does “you might have said” mean, and what does Rashi say? “You might have said it is not considered their placement, such that removing it would count as removal, because they move and go on.” What does that mean? We see two things here in Rashi. “You might have said it is not considered their placement, such that removing it would count as removal.” The whole problem with his removing the rain being not considered a removal is because the rain is not considered at rest. According to Rashi. But in a pit, where it is considered at rest, because it is considered their placement, then automatically its removal is also a removal. This is already explicit—what I said in the previous lesson. That the whole problem of whether this is removal or not is not the question of passivity versus activity, but the question whether the water is considered at rest. So there was an initial assumption that the water is not considered at rest; automatically, the removal would not count as a removal. It teaches us that water on top of water is considered their placement. They are considered at rest, and therefore their removal is also a removal. Not because of activity and passivity, but because the water is considered at rest. So here it’s written in the clearest way possible. Now more than that. Look at Rashi’s addition: “because they move and go on.” What does “because they move and go on” mean?

[Speaker D] That they move and don’t stand still.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They don’t stay in one place. But after all, the water fell into the pit and now it’s standing in the pit.

[Speaker E] Maybe he’s referring to what we said—that the pit was full?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah—so that’s the proof I want to bring. From this Rashi it seems that really the whole interpretive setup we made, the whole explanation I gave earlier for the interpretive setup—that we’re talking about water over a pit, or over water—meaning that the water falls into the pit and then continues to flow, and I catch it at the side—that’s what Rashi says here. There was an initial assumption that this would not count as placement—why? Because they are moving and going. Meaning, after the rainwater falls into the pit, it continues to be moving. Because if it comes to rest in the pit, then there’s no room for what Rashi says here: it came to rest in the pit, and now it’s resting there. What does “because they move and go on” mean? Okay? So it seems that Rashi is really saying that we’re talking about rainwater that is moving above the pit. According to the—now according to the Sefat Emet, what would we have to say? Because according to the Sefat Emet—the Sefat Emet too read the Talmud and Rashi, and in the Talmud and Rashi here it says explicitly like me, that the whole discussion is about whether the water is considered at rest. This is not a discussion about whether I am doing an active act of removal or a passive act of removal; rather, if the water is at rest, then when I take it, that’s an act of removal. If the water is not at rest, then when I took it, that is not an act of removal. Let me remind you that the Sefat Emet’s question doesn’t even get off the ground according to what I’m saying. The Sefat Emet from the previous lesson—what did he ask? After all, I extended my hand into the courtyard, so in effect I was active. Why isn’t that removal? It isn’t removal because the water I took was not at rest. So what’s the question? Okay? So how would the Sefat Emet understand the Talmud here? It seems to me that the only way to understand it—and we’ll see in a moment, I think he writes this explicitly—is that he understands that the problem is not that the water is not at rest in the sense of not at rest, but that it is not resting on a four-by-four place. He brings in here the problem of a place measuring four by four, not the basic question of whether it is resting or not. According to the Sefat Emet, there is no requirement that the water itself be at rest. Rather, there is a requirement that when it is there, it can only be there in a private domain. We discussed this in the previous lesson. But it needs to be on top of a place of four by four. That’s the point. And the Sefat Emet will say: the novelty with water on top of water is that you might have thought that water on top of water counts as though the upper water is not on a place of four by four. Why? Because in the end there’s no continuous place of four by four here; you’re resting on top of water, and water molecules are moving all the time. So the upper water is not resting on a place of four by four. That’s what you might have thought. It teaches us that this does count as their being at rest. And then if you remove that water, it really is considered removal because it is resting.

[Speaker E] I want to ask about that, though. According to the Talmud, before it discusses the pit, why did it start discussing the pit at all? Because of the story of the sloped wall.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, “because of”? A sloped wall is not an option—we went back to the original difficulty and therefore we set it up this way. You can just ask the question; leave aside the “because of.”

[Speaker E] The Sefat Emet claims that with water it doesn’t matter whether it’s moving or not—but the Talmud itself rules out water that is moving.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a different question. I don’t care why the Talmud needed the pit because of the sloped wall; you’re just asking a difficulty. If you say moving water doesn’t bother you, then what’s wrong with water flowing on a sloped wall?

[Speaker E] Yes—how does the Sefat Emet work with the sloped wall?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] After all, the Talmud there distinguishes between a book and water, right? And the Talmud says that with a book, even if it rolls, it is considered at rest, because all I need is presence; it doesn’t need to stand still in the place, it just has to be present in the private domain. Right? I spoke about this in the previous lesson—I brought you that article about Zeno. Yes.

[Speaker B] But—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With water, though, we see that according to the Talmud’s conclusion, that’s not so. With water, standing still is required, not merely presence—because in fact when the water flows on a sloped surface, it is not considered standing. So I want to make the following claim, all for the sake of the Sefat Emet. I want to claim that when water flows on a wall, it is not considered standing, because in the end it will go down off the wall and go somewhere else. But if the water flows on the ground, then it is considered at rest. Why? Even if it’s flowing. Why? Because the whole earth is one continuum. That’s what the Talmud says. What does that mean? All ground is considered one object, one unit. That’s why, for example, the Talmud says that if I want to acquire from my fellow two fields, I may perform an act of acquisition on one of the fields and by that acquire both fields together. Why? Because the two fields are considered connected through the globe of the earth. Meaning, all lands are considered one unit. As distinct from a wall, where the water flows on the wall and then trickles away and leaves the wall. So there the Talmud says: since water cannot come to rest on the wall, unlike a book, the Talmud wants the water to stand there. If it’s flowing on the wall, you can’t say it’s at rest. But if it is flowing on the ground, or on water resting on the ground, then even if it’s flowing, I don’t care, because the whole earth is one continuum.

[Speaker E] I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] think that’s what has to be said, and we’ll see later that in any case we’ll have to say this reasoning. We’ll see it later in the passage. Let’s look—look at the wording of Maimonides.

[Speaker B] I have a not-so-related question. Flowing water—say a stream or a river—for purposes of a mikveh, it’s not considered a mikveh, meaning it’s not considered standing. So it doesn’t fit for me with this assumption that it’s considered at rest because the whole earth is one continuum.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—flowing water depends on where it came from. In principle, yes, there’s the issue of flowing waters and so on, and it can count as a mikveh. In principle, one can immerse in a river. It depends on the situation; there are various limitations, but in principle. And look, for example, at Maimonides’ formulation in that same law. “If one was standing”—I’ll read it again, and now notice with a different emphasis—“If one was standing in one of the two domains and extended his hand into the second domain and took from there water from above a pit full of water and carried it out, he is liable.” Look at the reasoning: “because all the water is considered as though it were resting on the ground.”

[Speaker E] What is that? That’s exactly what we said. Above a pit full of water—the ground—they’re considered standing.

[Speaker B] Water—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Above a full pit—leaving aside for the moment what I said earlier, whether Maimonides means rainwater that fell there and continues to flow, or whether this is literally a pit with water in it—even if we read it simply as a pit containing water—but Maimonides sees it as all the water resting on the ground, right? That’s his conception, and that’s why it is considered at rest. It’s not that the upper water is resting on the lower water; rather, everything becomes one unit, and that unit rests on the ground. That’s a different conception from the conception that the upper water rests on the lower water. Now what problem is that solving? Maimonides apparently understands that if I were to say that the upper water rests on the lower water, then this would not count as a place of four by four, because water is moving water molecules; it does not count as a place with a surface area of four by four. So Maimonides says: why is water in a pit considered at rest? Because we do not view the upper water as resting on the lower water; we view all the water together as resting on the ground. And let’s look at the proof. Let’s keep reading. “But if there was a vessel floating on top of the water and produce inside the vessel, and he extended his hand and took from the produce and carried it out, he is exempt.” Why? “Because the produce did not come to rest on the ground, and it follows that he did not remove it from atop a place of four.” How did “a place of four” get in here? What does that have to do with it? The discussion is about whether it’s at rest or not at rest. According to Maimonides, he sees everything as resting on the ground—why? Because if it were resting on the water and not on the ground, what would be missing here? Not that it isn’t at rest, but that there is no place of four by four. Only if I see it as resting on the ground does that solve the problem that it has to be resting on a place of four by four. This is exactly what I said earlier about the Sefat Emet: according to the Sefat Emet, when the Talmud here discusses whether it is at rest or not at rest, at first glance that is a frontal contradiction to his approach. Right? It supports my approach—that the whole discussion is about whether the water is at rest or not, not about whether I removed it or not. The Sefat Emet will say no: the discussion is about whether I removed it or not. Only beyond the fact that I need to be active in the removal, the removal also has to take place from atop a place of four by four. That’s an additional question. And here, if the water is resting on top of other water, there is a problem—not that it isn’t at rest, but that the place on which it is resting is not a place of four by four. That’s the problem. The Talmud says it teaches us that this does count as resting on a place of four by four, and that’s what Maimonides says—why? Because water on top of water is not considered as resting on the water beneath it; rather, all the water together becomes one unit resting on the ground, and the ground has a place of four by four, it has surface area—it’s not like moving water molecules. In other words, we see in Maimonides exactly as I said earlier: first of all, Maimonides does not mention rainwater, right? He says it’s water in a pit, which itself is already very difficult in terms of the interpretive setup, but maybe it helps the Sefat Emet a bit, because I said that wasn’t plausible.

[Speaker B] What happens with the nut?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, we’ll get to the nut in a second. But this helps the Sefat Emet a bit, because we see that Maimonides is really continuing along with the Sefat Emet, since Maimonides continues with the idea that the whole problem the Talmud is discussing about the pit and about water on top of water is that a place of four by four is lacking—not that it isn’t at rest. It is at rest, but it is resting on a place that does not have enough area, and it needs to have area. So it’s not a requirement that the object itself be at rest; there is another requirement, that it be resting on a place of four by four. So on that, the Talmud is saying—in effect, I’ll now present it this way—how would the Sefat Emet and Maimonides read the Talmud? Not the way I presented it earlier. What we have here is a novelty regarding ordinary pit-water, not necessarily rain—water resting in a pit, as the plain sense of Maimonides indicates, right? Maimonides brings the case of water in a pit; he doesn’t mention rain. Now I put my hand there. The problem with there being no act of removal here is twofold: a) it is not resting on a place of four by four; b) I am passive and not active. So the Talmud says this: if the water came to rest in the pit and I took it, then the problem of passivity is solved, right? I was active—I took water from the pit. It’s not that the rain dropped water into my hand; I was active. But there is still a problem: I was active and removed the water, but from where did I remove it? From a place that is not four by four. So true, you solved the problem of passivity, but there is another requirement for the removal to count as removal: the removal has to take place from atop a place of four by four. And that, after all, is not fulfilled. Rava innovates that water on top of water in a pit does count as a place of four by four, because it is all considered as though resting on the ground. That’s what Maimonides says, and apparently that is also how the Sefat Emet would learn, and that brings me to the next stage: at the next stage, the Talmud now starts discussing placing something on top of water.

[Speaker C] Maybe I missed something, but I thought—without this statement that water is considered as if it’s always spread over all the ground—without that, is it impossible? If I have a large pit, for example, doesn’t that count as four by four?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because water on top of water, in an essential sense, is never four by four, because every water molecule is resting on another water molecule, and the molecules are constantly moving and changing places, so you can’t see this as some kind of slab with a uniform surface area of four by four.

[Speaker C] Meaning only if I say that water is naturally connected to all the ground.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Meaning that all the water is seen as one mass, and that mass is resting on the ground. So I don’t see each water molecule as resting on another water molecule; rather, for me the water is this whole collective, and it rests on the ground.

[Speaker C] Meaning I can’t look that way at a body of water in a vessel or in a pit, only on the ground, where it’s fully connected to the ground. Of course—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] there’s something here. There’s a nice example from an American philosopher named John Searle. John Searle talked about the question of body and soul, and there he tries to propose that the mind is not another substance. It’s not that we have both matter and spirit; rather, we have only matter, and the mind is a property of the physiological collective, or of the neuronal network of the brain. And he wants to explain—what? It’s photons! No, no, not photons.

[Speaker D] No, no, I was just joking.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A property of the collective entity. Meaning that when we combine all the physiology of the body, or the neurons in the brain’s neural network, somehow suddenly a new property emerges, one that is a property of the collective. Each neuron by itself is just a biological thing. It has no consciousness, no thought, nothing like that. But when there is a neural network, suddenly some new phenomenon appears. Philosophers call this emergence—to emerge means to come forth. Meaning there are collective phenomena that emerge when we move to look at the collective plane. The example John Searle gives is water. He asks himself—asks us—how would we define the property of liquidity in water? After all, a single water molecule does not have the property of being liquid. Right? A molecule is not liquid, not solid, and not gas. A state of matter is not the state of a single molecule. A state of matter is the state of a collective of molecules. So he says: look at the property of liquidity, for example—and of course the same goes for hardness, a property of a state of matter in general. Let’s take liquidity. The property of liquidity in water is a property of the collective of the water. It is not a property of each and every molecule. A molecule by itself is not liquid and not solid and not anything—that’s not relevant to it. Liquidity and solidity are questions of the relation among the different molecules, the characteristic of the collective. And from here he wants to claim that there are properties that appear at the level of collective integration. They do not appear on the micro plane. They are properties that characterize the collective, and they have no root on the plane of the individual elements that define the collective.

[Speaker B] The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right—qualitatively greater, not just quantitatively. Meaning it has properties that do not appear on the individual plane. I think his argument fails, by the way. Meaning the analogy he draws between that and body and soul is not correct. This is strong emergence and weak emergence, and you can read about that in my book The Science of Freedom. But this example nicely illustrates the perspective I’m talking about here. Because when we asked the question, we saw each water molecule as a kind of object, and I ask myself what it is resting on. And the novelty according to Maimonides and the Sefat Emet is that we do not see the water molecule as the object. The object is the collective—the whole water, this liquid. Okay? And when I ask what the water is resting on, I’m not asking what this molecule is resting on, on which molecule it rests. Rather, the water as a collective, as a cluster of molecules, rests on the ground, on the pit. That’s what Maimonides says. All right? It is a collective property of the water, not an individual property of a water molecule. The water molecule is not resting on the ground; the water is resting on the ground. But automatically, so is each part of it, because I see them as one body. Okay? So that is apparently how Maimonides and the Sefat Emet should be read. Now this really brings me to the next question. The Talmud basically tells us that water on top of water is considered at rest. Right? That is basically Rava’s novelty. This itself can be understood in two ways, which is really embedded in what I said earlier. One possibility is that we see all the water as a collective resting on the ground, and therefore every part of the water is considered at rest because I don’t see each part separately; for me I look only at the whole collective. Another possibility is that there is really a novelty here: that water resting on water does count as resting. It does count as resting—but it is resting on the water, not on the ground. That initial assumption saying that since water is something fluid and dynamic, it doesn’t count as your resting on it—that is not correct. It does count as resting on it. That’s the novelty. And according to that approach, even according to the conclusion, the upper water rests on the lower water, not on the ground. That is not Maimonides, and apparently not the Sefat Emet either. But it is also possible to understand the Talmud this way: that the novelty of the Talmud is that water on top of water is considered their placement. Their resting on top of the lower water does count as placement. And even so, although I look at the water molecule as a separate object, for me it is at rest. That the water rests on the ground and is seen as one entity. But there is another possibility—to say that Rava’s novelty is that water rests on top of water, and a nut does not rest on top of water. Now according to Maimonides, the distinction between a nut and water is very clear.

[Speaker D] Wait, sorry—in any case the nut is resting on the water. Why can’t it be resting on the water? In what situation?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait—that’s exactly what I’m saying. According to Maimonides, if the reason the water is considered all to be resting is because we see it as one entity resting on the ground, then it’s very clear why that’s not true for a nut. Because a nut floating on water is not one unit together with the water; it is a distinct, separate object, right? You can’t see it as part of the water. So it’s very clear why Rava claims that a nut is different from water. Water on top of water is considered their placement; a nut on top of water is not. But according to the second approach I mentioned, where “water on top of water” means that the water is resting on the water underneath it, and that too counts as resting, then the question really arises—so why not with a nut?

[Speaker E] Because the nut is indeed resting—it’s resting on the water. So why is he exempt? Because it’s not resting on a place of four by four.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the water too is not resting on four by four. What’s the difference between water on top of water and a nut on top of water? Okay?

[Speaker D] So the point is not correct.

[Speaker E] You can’t accept that approach, basically—

[Speaker D] There’s—

[Speaker E] there’s a problem with the approach of water on top of water.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. A lot of times you jump and turn a question mark into an exclamation point. When I raise a difficulty, I’m not making an alternative claim; I’m challenging that claim. Fine—we have to see whether it can stand or not. Right now it seems there’s a difficulty with that claim. Okay. Meaning that with water on top of water—therefore perhaps that’s why Maimonides really understood the Talmud to mean that when we say water on top of water is considered at rest, what that means is that it is resting on the ground, not that it is resting on the water. Then the conception is that it is all one entity resting on the ground, and therefore it’s clear why that is not true with a nut. According to the approach I raised earlier, that the water is resting on top of the water, not on the ground—that we don’t see it as one collective entity—the question arises: then why not with a nut? A nut too is resting on the water. And if the lower water counts as a place of four by four, then why not? So one could perhaps say that still, the fact that the nut is separate from the water also indicates a difference in how we regard whether it is resting on a place of four by four. Because with a water molecule, you can’t say that it is resting on the water molecule beneath it; it is embedded within the water and therefore considered to be resting within the water. Okay. But the nut is something separate from the water. So the nut too is moving around, right? We see it moving on the water; it’s not just standing in one place. A water molecule, of course, is moving too, but we don’t see it moving. From our ordinary perspective, it’s something static. The water is resting, except there is upper water resting on lower water. With the nut, we see with our eyes that it’s dynamic. We see it moving from place to place. So how can you say that such a thing is considered resting on a place of four by four?

[Speaker D] Wait—the molecule doesn’t move, the molecule stays in place; only the wave moves.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the molecules move too.

[Speaker D] The molecules stay on the same longitude line.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, they change place all the time. It’s like a wave, only denser. The molecules are changing place all the time too.

[Speaker D] I think I actually saw some experiment like that, where the water molecules only go up and down in the wave; they don’t move right and left unless the wave pushes them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re talking about the question of what the wave does to the molecule. I’m saying even without a wave. Even if there is no wave, there is constant internal dynamics in the water. What the wave does—the wave really takes the molecule in that kind of wave motion; there are transmission waves, all kinds of waves. But in a vertical wave, then indeed the molecules only go up and down, and what advances is the energy. The molecules don’t move on the x-axis, in their x-axis position. But that’s only a question of a wave. I’m talking without waves. Water itself, in its static state, has motion of molecules from place to place.

[Speaker C] That’s called diffusion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Yes, diffusion, or less sharp and less rapid motion—not like in a gas, not like in a gas, but still it’s a dynamic state.

[Speaker C] And therefore in a solid too, basically. What? In a solid too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not movement from place to place, but oscillations. When there is temperature, there are what are called phonons—acoustic oscillations of the atoms.

[Speaker C] And there too there are oscillations, electrical—various oscillations.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, for our purposes, perhaps even if we understand that the water is considered as resting on top of the water and not on the ground, there is still room to understand why that would not be so with a nut. So that possibility still stands. Now maybe one more note. Later in the passage, when they discuss oil on top of wine, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) already note that this could also be oil on top of water—they discuss wine there because there is terumah in wine; with water, terumah isn’t really defined, only with oil and wine. That’s why they speak of oil and wine. But with regard to the laws of the Sabbath, oil could also be on top of water, not only on top of wine. In any case, what does the Talmud say there? What it says there is—let’s share it—oil floating on top of wine: a dispute between Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri and the Rabbis, as we learned: “Oil floating on top of wine, and a tevul yom touched the oil, he disqualified only the oil. Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri says: both are connected to one another.” Why is that brought in our context? Because we see that in our context too the question is whether the upper water is connected to the lower water. If the question were whether the upper water is resting on the lower water, what would connection have to do with it? After all, in the laws of ritual impurity and purity, what matters is whether the oil and the water are one unit or not—whether they are connected. If our discussion is conducted around the question whether all the water is one unit, as we saw in Maimonides, then I understand why the case of oil on top of wine is brought here, because there too the issue is whether it is one unit or not. But if our discussion is not about that question—if it’s not one unit, every molecule is something else, but the upper water is resting on the lower water—not because they’re connected; they’re not connected, but the upper water is resting on the lower—then what does that have to do with the question of oil floating on wine and connection for the purpose of impurity? For impurity, obviously the question is whether it’s connected or not. There’s no question whether it’s resting on it. Now a place of four by four, or all these discussions, are not relevant.

[Speaker D] But isn’t that similar to a nut resting on the water?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well? So what?

[Speaker D] The oil—the oil resting on the water. And therefore what? Therefore they’re two independent units, each one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, I understand—but why is that important? After all, if my discussion is not about whether it is one unit—according to Maimonides, the discussion in the passage is whether all the water is one unit. According to that, I understand why they brought the case of oil and wine, because there too the issue is whether they are connected, whether this is one unit, and they are not connected—it’s two separate things. But according to the second approach, which says that our discussion is not about whether they are connected—they are not connected, every water molecule is a separate object—I am only discussing whether it is resting on a place of four by four or not. Then what does that have to do with the question of oil on wine and the issue of ritual impurity and purity? There the question is whether it is connected; our discussion is a different discussion. I thought, Yael, that what you said earlier was the solution here, and I think the solution lies in what I said earlier. That is—the nut. After all, according to this approach, if the waters are really not one unit with the water, but merely rest on it—the upper water resting on the lower—I asked: then what’s the difference from a nut? Why is a nut not considered at rest?

[Speaker D] Here too they’re not at rest. What? Here too oil is not at rest.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, leave the oil for a moment. I’m talking now about the nut. I have water on top of water. Now if the claim—according to Maimonides the question is whether it’s connected, I understand. But according to the second approach, the question is whether the upper water is resting on the lower water or not, right? That’s the issue. And then I said: if the conclusion is that upper water is resting on lower water, then why not with a nut? The nut too rests on the lower water. If the issue is connection, then I can understand—the nut is not an inseparable part of the water, it’s not an inherent part of the water, so it is considered a separate object; it is not connected, and therefore it is not resting on the ground as Maimonides explains. But if the issue is whether being at rest on water counts as being at rest, then if water on top of water counts as at rest, why is a nut on top of water not at rest? So I proposed an explanation earlier, and I said that apparently there’s no choice: because of the difference between a nut and water, we have to say that even according to the approach unlike Maimonides—where the issue is whether the water is resting on the water—this is not detached from the question of connection. Since the upper water is ultimately part of the larger whole of water, I’m willing to see it as resting on the lower water even though the lower water is something dynamic—again, it’s not resting on the ground but on the lower water. But since it’s all water, I’m willing to see such a thing as placement, unlike a nut resting on water, where I’m not willing to see it as resting on the water. If that is the approach, then even according to this view one can understand the connection to the question of oil—oil on top of wine. There too the question is whether it is one unit or not. And Yael is right in saying that oil floating on top of wine parallels a nut on top of water. These are two separate things, and the question whether we see them as resting one on top of the other is tied to their separateness. Therefore the discussion of whether these two things are considered separate or not is relevant to us too, not only to the laws of ritual impurity and purity. That, I think, is the explanation according to that view. Now, look at the Meiri. I referred you to the Meiri. And in the Meiri: “Some say this applies specifically when they are situated in a pit but flowing”—yes, “flowing” means flowing, like what we wrote—“and others disagree and say that whenever they are flowing on the ground, the ground is ground, and they are as though resting on the ground.” There is a dispute whether “water on top of water,” what we said—that water is considered at rest—applies also to river water or only to pit-water. That is—

[Speaker D] Like what we said about Zeno’s arrow—that they are present but they are not standing still. Exactly. The question is—but we also just said now that everything on the ground is part of the ground.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you're getting ahead of me. I said we’d get to that later in the lesson, and here we are getting to it. So what I want—but just a second, I’ll get to that. The Meiri first of all brings a dispute: whether flowing water is also considered at rest or not. Okay? Now here we need to understand. First of all, the water in the pit in our passage—I explained that there too we’re talking about rainwater flowing across the pit. They’re not resting inside the pit. In Maimonides that doesn’t seem to be the case, maybe not in the Rosh either, but from the plain sense of the passage that’s what it says. You can see that the Meiri also didn’t understand it that way, right? In our passage we’re talking about a pit, water that is resting inside a pit. Now there’s only a dispute whether that same rule also applies to flowing water, but clearly in our passage we’re dealing with still water. Right? And there’s a halakhic question whether this rule is also true for flowing water or not. So that’s the first point. The second point is what exactly the difference is. Why should there be a difference between flowing water and still water? So it could be—first of all, regarding the question of a slanted wall that Chani asked earlier: how would the dissenting opinion in the Meiri deal with what the Talmud says about water on a slanted wall? After all, the Talmud explicitly says that water on a slanted wall is not considered at rest. And that opinion in the Meiri which says that even river water is considered at rest—why? Flowing water isn’t considered at rest.

[Speaker E] But you judge it together with the ground—you brought that up.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, patience, wait till the end of the lesson, I’ll get to that distinction between ground and wall. “The whole expanse of the earth is one workshop,” and here, according to that opinion in the Meiri, you have to say that when water flows over ground, you can definitely view it as resting on the ground. True, it changes the ground it’s on—every moment it’s resting on a different part of the ground—but all the parts of the ground are one single continuum. On a wall, when it flows, in the end it leaves the wall, so you can’t say it’s resting. So here, in any case, according to that opinion in the Meiri, you definitely have to say that. But beyond that—

[Speaker B] What do you do with flow over paved ground? Is that also considered connected to the ground?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Paved ground, it seems to me, is part of the ground.

[Speaker D] I think that in any case, what is ground? Ground is water and minerals and matter—in other words, water is an inseparable part of the ground.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s already a definitional question, but what you’re really saying is that this whole aggregate called ground—regardless of what it’s made of—is ground.

[Speaker D] It includes water too. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. So that could definitely be an explanation for the view that sees it as resting. But there’s a view that says not.

[Speaker D] There is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A view that says flowing river water is not like water on a wall. Since it’s flowing, it’s not considered at rest. Right? And that view does compare it to the wall. Okay? It doesn’t accept this reasoning that the whole ground is one continuum. According to that view, water has to be resting, not moving. And it’s even clearer according to that view that the discussion is about whether the water is considered at rest, and not about whether my act of lifting is an act of uprooting. Because the whole question is what happens to the water, not what I do. Is the water flowing or is the water still?

[Speaker D] So what did we get to?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is the dispute between the two opinions in the Meiri? So look. The wording of the second opinion is: “And there are those who disagree and say that wherever they flow, it is ground, and they are as if resting on the ground.” Exactly like Maimonides, right? The water rests on the ground, therefore it is considered at rest. Meaning, from that reasoning we can learn what the dispute between the two opinions in the Meiri is. The second opinion understood like Maimonides, that the basis for saying the water is considered at rest is not that water on top of water is considered at rest, but that all the water is one unit, and it rests on the ground. Right? So the Meiri says: if so, then river water is also like that, because the ground isn’t flowing, the ground is stationary, and the water flowing over the ground is resting on something stable and is considered at rest on the ground. The first view in the Meiri can be understood in two ways. One possibility is to say that since the water is flowing, even though still water is considered at rest on the ground, flowing water is not considered at rest on the ground, just as we saw with water flowing on a slanted wall. Because what matters is whether the water is flowing, not whether the ground is moving. And the water here is flowing, so you can’t say it is at rest. According to this, that view compares water on a wall to water on the ground. A second possibility is to say something else: the water that is considered at rest is really resting on the water beneath it, not on the ground. But that you can only say if the water beneath it is itself still. If the thing you are resting on is itself moving, then you can’t say you are resting on something, and therefore in rivers we won’t view the water as being at rest.

[Speaker D] But there are two speeds in rivers—the speed of the upper water and the speed of the lower water.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter. Still, since the lower water is moving, you can’t see it as any kind of table or ground on which the upper water is resting. So notice, there are two possible ways to understand the first view in the Meiri. One possibility still goes with Maimonides, that when we say water is at rest in a pit, the meaning is that it is resting on the ground. Only this view says: yes, but that’s only when the water is stationary, not when it’s moving. What matters to me is whether the water itself, the thing supposedly at rest, is mobile or stationary—not the surface it rests on, but the object resting itself, whether it is at rest or whether it is moving or still. Okay? So that’s Maimonides’ conception. On the other hand, you can understand the first opinion in the Meiri in a way that simply disagrees with Maimonides and says that when we say water in a pit is considered at rest, it is considered at rest on the water beneath it, not on the ground. Not like Maimonides. And that you can’t say in a river. Why? Because in pit water, the lower water is still water, so the upper water stands on something, rests on something stable, solid, in the sense that it remains in place—not solid as a state of matter, but stable. Therefore I’m willing to view it as standing still. But river water—the lower layer is flowing, so the lower layer isn’t stable. Therefore the upper water, not because it itself is flowing, but because what is under it is flowing, cannot be considered at rest, because it rests on lower water that is itself moving. And then it comes out that the dispute between the two opinions in the Meiri is really a dispute between the two possibilities I mentioned before: like Maimonides, that pit water rests on the ground, or like the second approach I suggested, that the upper water rests on the lower water. How should we understand the opinion in the Talmud, the conclusion in the Talmud, that water is considered at rest in a pit? Should we understand it like Maimonides, that it rests on the ground, or understand that it rests on the lower water, and that’s also fine? That’s one way to understand the dispute. A second possibility is that both opinions in the Meiri agree with Maimonides that the placement is on the ground, but according to one opinion that is only true when the water is standing on the ground, not when it is flowing, because if it is flowing over the ground then it is like water flowing over a slanted wall—and according to this approach they do not distinguish between ground and wall, as I said before. Okay? So those are the two possibilities. What would happen, for example—one implication—what would happen if someone took water from the bottom part of the river, not from the top part? There is flowing water in a private domain, I stretch out my hand, draw water from the lower part of the river, and bring it out into the public domain.

[Speaker E] What does “lower part” mean? It’s a relative concept. There’s more water beneath it? Adjacent to the ground. What? Adjacent to the ground. If he takes it along with the ground, then there’s already a problem that he also removed ground.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no required measure for ground.

[Speaker D] No, but here there’s also both being at rest and uprooting.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying—the question, this will be the practical difference. If I understand that all the water—if I understand that—I’m speaking according to the opinion that river water is not considered at rest. According to the opinion that river water is considered at rest, then obviously I transgressed. According to the opinion that river water is not considered at rest, then it depends why. Is it because the lower water is flowing, and therefore the upper water is not considered at rest? But the lower water is at rest, because it is on the ground. The ground is stationary. Then if I took from the lower water, even according to that opinion I would be liable. Right. But if I understand that according to that opinion all the water—sorry, the problem is that the water is not considered at rest because none of the water is considered at rest on the ground, since it is flowing—then even if I took from the lower water, I did not transgress. That will be the practical difference according to the opinion in the Meiri that river water is not at rest. I said there are two possibilities: either to explain it like Maimonides or against Maimonides. The practical difference between those two possibilities will be with someone who took from the lower layer of the water.

[Speaker E] So how would he really know that he took exactly from the lower layer and didn’t take—I really understand Maimonides on this point, but—

[Speaker C] It’s completely theoretical.

[Speaker E] This division of the water is just completely theoretical. Practically it’s not really workable.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What difference does it make? I’m talking now about a hypothetical question. Let’s say I manage to take the lower water. For the sake of discussion—let’s say it’s not practical—but I’m asking a conceptual question in order to understand the view. Fine, that’s good enough for me in order to clarify the passage. Beyond that, it’s also practical. If I take right from the ground, including a little sand even, then you’ll say to me: fine, so I removed sand. So first of all, if I removed several measures, it could be that I’m liable for more. And second, if with the sand by itself there isn’t the required measure for carrying out, then for the sand I’m not liable. But if there is enough water here, then for the water I would be liable. So I can also draw a practical implication, although that’s not what matters to me. For me, even a Platonic discussion is enough—a hypothetical one—just in order to clarify the truth. I don’t care right now whether it has a real practical implication or not. Okay, so the practical difference is regarding someone who takes water—

[Speaker D] From the lower layer of the water.

[Speaker B] Right. According to Maimonides he is liable; according to the second opinion in the Meiri he is exempt. According to Maimonides liable, because it stands on the ground.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the opposite. I’m speaking according to the two approaches in explaining the opinion that in rivers the water is not considered at rest. Within the opinion that in rivers the water is not considered at rest, I said there are two possibilities. Either this opinion also agrees with Maimonides; it just claims that water is considered at rest on the ground only if it is still, but if it is flowing it is not considered at rest on the ground. Right. So precisely according to that view, if I took it, then it’s not at rest. Right. According to the second approach, I’m saying that the upper water is not at rest on the lower water, but the lower water is at rest on the ground. So if I took from there, I would be liable. Yes. The Sefat Emet here is uncertain. He says as follows: “It requires examination whether we are dealing with water deeper than three handbreadths, in which case it is not considered joined by the rule of lavud.” What is the height of the water being discussed? We’re returning—we left the Meiri, I’m going back to our passage, to the pit.

[Speaker D] Four handbreadths.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So there is this rule called lavud. Lavud means that if there is a gap of less than three handbreadths, about thirty centimeters, then in terms of Jewish law it is considered connected. A small gap is considered closed, considered connected. Now the Sefat Emet says: how are we speaking here? If the height of the water is less than three handbreadths above the ground, then you can say that it is all considered lavud, connected to the ground. If we are speaking about water that is more than three handbreadths high, then lavud does not apply. Okay. And that is more than three handbreadths. So the question is: what case are we dealing with? So the Sefat Emet says like this: “It requires examination whether we are dealing with deep water”—if we are dealing with water deeper than three handbreadths—“which is not considered lavud, and therefore were it not for the lower water it would not be considered at rest.” Yes, so if without the lower water it would not be considered at rest, then it is not resting on the ground; it is resting on the lower water. Right. Because without the lower water it is not at rest. So it really is not resting on the ground but on the lower water. “And it comes to teach us that water on top of water counts as placement.” What does he mean? He means the first approach I mentioned earlier: when I say that water rests on the ground—when I say that the water is considered at rest, I don’t mean that all of it is resting on the ground like Maimonides, but that the upper water rests on the lower water. Because if the upper water is more than three handbreadths away from the ground, you can’t say it’s resting on the ground. So what is it resting on? On the lower water. If we’re dealing here with four handbreadths—or if we’re dealing with three handbreadths—then it could be that the upper water also rests on the ground, because of the rule of lavud. Then he says like this—and of course you can argue with this, you understand that, right? If I see all the water as one body, then even without lavud I can still say that all the water is one body and it rests on the ground. Think of a solid object—myself, for example—if I’m standing on the ground, is my head considered as resting on the ground? Of course it is, because my whole body is one entity and it rests on the ground. So therefore you can also establish the case as four handbreadths and still say that the upper water too is resting on the ground. He assumes this is connected to lavud, but according to what I said earlier, it’s not connected to lavud. It is connected to the rule of connection, and the rule of connection is not related to handbreadths. What conclusion does he draw? He says like this: “And according to this, it can be said that in such a case, when it says regarding a nut that it is not placement”—after all, if we’re talking about lavud, then if you tell me—that is, if we’re dealing with water that is more than three handbreadths high, yes? So what happens above three handbreadths? Above three handbreadths you distinguish between water and a nut, right? Why is the water considered at rest? There’s no rule of lavud. Water is connected. As resting on the lower water? Yes. So why is the nut not considered at rest, since the nut too is above four handbreadths? Why is the nut not considered at rest? Because the nut doesn’t have lavud, since it is above four handbreadths, but it also cannot be considered as resting on the water for the reasons we gave earlier. There, you see in the Sefat Emet the suggestion I made earlier without naming it, hypothetically, that even though the upper water is considered at rest not on the ground but on the lower water, we still wouldn’t say that about a nut.

[Speaker E] I understood why. Why do we say regarding water that this is a case of lavud?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is no lavud. There is no lavud. We are above four handbreadths.

[Speaker E] Above four handbreadths, does it make a difference whether it’s water or a nut?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. The difference is what we say the passage is dealing with. If the passage is dealing with water four handbreadths high, then both what the passage says about water and what it says about the nut are talking about that height, right? So regarding water you tell me it is at rest. Why is it at rest? It has nothing to do with lavud, because it’s four handbreadths. So what is it? It is resting on the water beneath it, right? Then with the nut, why is the nut not at rest, since the nut too is on water beneath it? Because the fact is that even if I view the upper water as resting on the water beneath it, there is still room to distinguish between water and a nut. That is exactly the reasoning I said above, because connection still matters. And then what will be the law for water below, water that is less than three handbreadths? There both a nut and water will be considered at rest, by the rule of lavud. True, there is a difference between a nut and water in terms of connection to the water, but in terms of lavud, if the nut is less than three handbreadths above the ground, I view it as connected to the ground. Meaning, if I establish the passage as talking about more than three handbreadths, then it comes out like this: above three handbreadths, the passage said that water is considered at rest, but a nut is not considered at rest. The upper water rests on the lower water; the nut does not rest on the lower water. What happens below three handbreadths? That is a case the passage did not deal with, according to this explanation. But that’s what we say. Why didn’t it deal with it?

[Speaker E] I really didn’t understand what happens above three handbreadths—why there is a difference between water being at rest and a nut being at rest.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s what I explained in the earlier part of the lesson. I said that even in this situation you can’t detach yourself from the fact that the water is still one unit. Even according to the explanation that is not like Maimonides, that the upper water rests on the lower water, I see it as resting on the lower water because at the end of the day it’s all water. But the nut is separate from the water. So I’m not willing to see it as resting on the water. It is something else, and the water is dynamic.

[Speaker D] I have a question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the nut—

[Speaker E] It is physically resting, it’s just that legally it is not considered at rest.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is not resting on the ground.

[Speaker E] It is actually resting on the water.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But even on the water it is not considered at rest. Why? Because the nut is not part of the water, and it is something movable, so for me that isn’t called being at rest. Only with water am I willing to view placement on top of water as placement, because water and water are one unit. So I can view the upper water as resting on the lower water.

[Speaker E] I didn’t understand—if a nut is not considered at rest on water, then what difference does it make whether it is above three handbreadths or below three handbreadths? It shouldn’t matter. And lavud shouldn’t apply at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll explain. If I’m speaking about more than four handbreadths—three handbreadths—then the passage is not dealing at all with the rule of lavud. The passage is speaking about whether the upper water rests on the lower water, and says yes. The upper nut does not rest on the lower water. It has nothing to do with lavud, because it is not part of the water. What would happen in water of less than three handbreadths? I’m asking a question—the Gemara doesn’t deal with this. The Gemara deals with four handbreadths. But I’m asking, what comes out at three handbreadths? At two and a half handbreadths? What comes out is that both a nut and water are considered at rest. Why?

[Speaker D] Wait, I want to ask for a second—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait—why? Because here there is the rule of lavud.

[Speaker E] Lavud to the ground—they relate it to being on the ground.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. That is why the Gemara doesn’t deal with less than three handbreadths, because below three handbreadths there’s no novelty—everything is considered at rest by the rule of lavud. The whole discussion is above the threshold of three handbreadths, where there is a difference: water is considered at rest, the nut is not considered at rest. But if the passage itself is dealing with less than three handbreadths, what does that mean? It basically means that the rule of lavud is apparently not relevant here. Suppose we are dealing with less than three handbreadths, and nevertheless the Gemara says that a nut is not considered at rest, right? I have a question.

[Speaker D] Wait, wait—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Just a second, let me finish the point. So if I’m dealing with less than three handbreadths, then the Gemara is basically telling me: leave lavud aside, lavud doesn’t play a role here. How do I know? Because if lavud applied, then the nut would be at rest, and the Gemara says the nut is not considered at rest—and according to this possibility it is speaking about less than three handbreadths. So why is the water at rest? Because it is connected to the lower water, not because of lavud, but because of connection. That is the difference between the question whether the Gemara is dealing with more than three handbreadths and whether it is dealing with less than three handbreadths. The question is whether the rule of lavud is relevant to water or not relevant.

[Speaker D] Exactly, that’s what I wanted to ask.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the second possibility, lavud is not relevant to water—maybe only to air. Okay, I understand.

[Speaker D] Okay.

[Speaker E] But lavud—what, is it only in air?

[Speaker D] It’s in air, with partitions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who told you it isn’t? That’s the discussion here. It could be that only in a case of air do I view it as closed, but if there is a gap with something in the middle—something solid, but different—who says the water disappears here because of lavud? It’s there. Air—you tell me I view it as though it doesn’t exist. But something that has presence, not absence, but something actually there—who says lavud applies to that?

[Speaker E] If an object is resting on a reed that is less than three handbreadths high, there is lavud, even though that’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who says? Who says so? And even if there is lavud, it is resting on a reed, so that’s something else, because—

[Speaker B] There is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is air on both sides of the reed; it is wider than the reed, so there is lavud from the sides. But if it is resting entirely on a reed, and let’s say the reed is not considered ground for this purpose—because if the reed itself is ground—

[Speaker E] For this purpose—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it is connected to the ground, so it’s like ground. So who says there is lavud? Think about roofing for a sukkah, for example, okay? I have roofing above in the sukkah, and I have valid roofing, and in the middle there is a strip of invalid roofing that is two and a half handbreadths wide. Do I view that as lavud? That’s the question. If lavud applies also to material and not only to air, then it’s a case of lavud and the whole sukkah is valid. But if lavud applies only to air, then it could be that you may not sit under that strip.

[Speaker E] So in practice there is a dispute regarding lavud—whether it applies only to air or also not only to air, not specifically to water but to anything else as well.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The dispute exists in other places too. I’m only claiming that this is what lies behind the two possibilities that the Sefat Emet raises here. Okay.

[Speaker E] Fine, thank you very much.

[Speaker C] Thank you very much, Sabbath peace. Thank you very much.