Q&A: Interpretive Principles Applied to the Mishnah
Interpretive Principles Applied to the Mishnah
Question
Hello Rabbi,
In tractate Shabbat there is a Mishnah with a seemingly redundant repeated phrase (100b):
Mishnah: One who throws an object four cubits into the sea is exempt. But if there was a puddle of water through which the public domain passes, one who throws four cubits into it is liable. And how much is considered a puddle of water? Less than ten handbreadths. A puddle of water through which the public domain passes, one who throws four cubits within it is liable.
Gemara: One of the rabbis said to Rava: Granted, the phrase about passing through it appears twice, and that teaches us that passing through with difficulty is still considered passing through, whereas use with difficulty is not considered use. But why do we need the phrase “puddle” twice? One refers to the summer season, and one to the rainy season. And both are necessary, because if it had taught only one, I might have said that this applies only in the summer, when people do in fact walk through it to cool themselves off, but in the rainy season, no. And if it had taught us the rainy season, that is because since they are muddy anyway they do not care, but in the summer, no. Abaye said: It is necessary, because you might have thought that this is only where it is not four cubits wide, but where it is four cubits wide, people go around it. Rav Ashi said: It is necessary, because you might have thought this is only where it is four handbreadths wide, but where it is not four handbreadths wide, people simply step over it. And Rav Ashi follows his reasoning elsewhere, as Rav Ashi said: One who throws an object and it comes to rest on the pack-saddle of a camel is liable, since the public passes through there.
And my question is: from where did the amoraim know that this is what the Mishnah came to teach? Seemingly there is no connection at all between the repetition and the various inclusions suggested by the amoraim. And more than that, according to them the Mishnah could simply have shortened it and said, any puddle of water through which the public domain passes—one who throws four cubits into it is liable, and then they could have included whatever type of puddle they wanted. Did they really think that this was the Mishnah’s intention? Or were they forced, with no alternative, to explain the redundancy by attaching some legal novelty to it?
Answer
This requires some thought. I’ll suggest a possible direction that needs to be checked. In the version before us, the latter clause says “within it” rather than “into it” as in the first clause (although on page 8 the wording is the same in both places). If there really is a difference in the text, it is possible that the latter clause comes to teach a different law from the first clause: in the latter clause we are speaking about throwing within the puddle, meaning that the thrower is standing in the puddle and the object also lands within the area of the puddle, and that is considered throwing in the public domain. But in the first clause we are speaking about throwing into it, meaning that the thrower is in the ordinary public domain and the object lands in the puddle.
Now take, for example, the first answer: one for the rainy season and one for the summer season. The Gemara explains why both are needed: in the rainy season he does not mind entering it because he is dirty anyway, and in the summer he wants to enter it in order to cool off. There is a difference between these two arguments: in the summer he wants to enter it, whereas in the rainy season he merely does not mind. When he wants to enter it, then clearly the puddle is part of the public domain, since people from the public domain want to go into it. When he merely does not mind entering it, that makes the puddle a public domain, but not necessarily part of the ordinary public domain. Perhaps it has the status of a different public domain. And the practical difference is whether it is forbidden to throw from outside into it. If it is a different public domain, then perhaps throwing into it would not be prohibited on a Torah level, but throwing within it would be, because in the end it is still a public domain. But if it is part of the ordinary public domain, then throwing into it would also be prohibited.
This needs discussion, as do the other answers, but in my opinion this is a direction that may be worth checking.
Of course, there is always the possibility that the Gemara is trying to insert novelties that it considers correct into the Mishnah, without committing itself that this was really the Mishnah’s intention. But this is not a dispute about the Mishnah itself, as some explain the forced interpretations, and as is well known I do not agree. The claim is that the law is certainly correct and agreed to even by the tanna’im, but that it was not really the intention of the authors of the Mishnah, and the amoraim inserted it there only as a literary device in order to teach the law itself. The meaning would then be that any puddle of any type whatsoever—rainy season or summer, four cubits or less than that, etc.—is a public domain.
Discussion on Answer
That’s a big question, not a small one. But the explanation I suggested above solves it. It is not coming to talk about these specific cases, but to introduce the idea that the puddle is both part of the public domain and also an independent public domain of its own (“into it” and “within it”). The cases are only illustrations of the implications. I explained something similar in my article about forced interpretations, so take it from there.
Just a small question:
Does anyone really think this was Rabbi’s intention? There were much simpler ways to put this law into the Mishnah in the hope that readers of the Mishnah would understand it, and this is actually not such a great way to do it.