Q&A: A Labor Not Needed for Its Own Sake in Carrying Out a Zav’s Pouch
A Labor Not Needed for Its Own Sake in Carrying Out a Zav’s Pouch
Question
Hello Rabbi,
There is a Talmudic passage in tractate Shabbat that discusses carrying out a zav’s pouch:
One baraita taught: A zav may not go out with his pouch, and if he went out, he is exempt, but it is forbidden. And another baraita taught: He may not go out, and if he went out, he is liable to bring a sin-offering… Rather, Abaye and Rava both said: This is not difficult: this one follows Rabbi Yehuda, and that one follows Rabbi Shimon.
The Talmud explains the dispute about the zav’s pouch in terms of the dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon regarding a labor not needed for its own sake. I don’t understand why carrying out a zav’s pouch is considered a labor not needed for its own sake here. After all, the zav needs the pouch in every domain he is in, in order to protect his clothes, unlike a corpse, where a person does not need it either in the public domain or in the private domain.
Rashi explained it this way:
This follows Rabbi Yehuda, who says that for a labor not needed for its own sake—where one prefers that it not be done, and does not need its essential purpose—such as here, where he has no need for this discharge, through which this pouch came about—and nevertheless he is liable for it…
But although the zav does not need the discharge, he does need the pouch. Whichever way you look at it: if he does not need the pouch, then this is not a labor not needed for its own sake; rather, there is no act of carrying out here at all, as the Talmud says earlier:
Rather, Rav Hamnuna said: This is not difficult: here it is speaking of a zav who had two sightings, and here of a zav who had three sightings. What is different about a zav with two sightings, that he is liable? Because he needs it for examination. A zav with three sightings also needs it for counting! This was only necessary for the case of that very day. But doesn’t he need it so that his clothes should not become soiled? Rabbi Zeira said: This tanna is the one who holds that prevention of soiling is not considered significant.
Best regards,
Answer
Earlier, the Talmud ignored the aspect of a labor not needed for its own sake, and without that, there really is room to discuss the point that he needs it for counting.
What you are asking applies only according to Rashi’s view. According to Tosafot there, the definition of a labor not needed for its own sake is doing the action for a purpose other than the one it had in the Tabernacle. That is the case here. According to Rashi, there really is a problematic explanation here. He explains that this is not called “needed for its own sake,” independently of the Tabernacle, because he does not need the discharge, just as in carrying a corpse out of its place one does not need the corpse.
It seems to me that this can be understood in two ways, and in each one the explanation is different:
1. He does not need the actual fluid that is discharging, and the pouch is there to protect the clothes from it, not to collect the fluid itself. The use of the vessel is a labor not needed for its own sake, like trapping a snake so that it should not bite him (in Shabbat 3, where one is exempt and it is permitted), and Rashi is innovating here that if the use is a labor not needed for its own sake, then carrying out the vessel for the sake of that use is also in the category of a labor not needed for its own sake. This does not seem to be the plain sense of Rashi’s wording (in the previous passage it does seem that this is what he means; see the comment beginning “that the leak came down”). It seems more likely that he means option 2.
2. He does not need the condition of zav-discharge, and the pouch only serves to protect him from it. Just as he did not want the corpse, but once the corpse is there, it must be removed. The explanation of why this is a labor not needed for its own sake could be like option 1 (the use is to remove something unwanted). But it seems more likely that he means to say that since he does not want the whole situation at all, it is considered a labor not needed for its own sake. This is a situation he was forced into against his will, and an action done in order to escape from it is a labor not needed for its own sake.