Q&A: A Law Given to Moses at Sinai
A Law Given to Moses at Sinai
Question
The Talmud in Shabbat 96b discusses at length how to derive the source of the prohibition of throwing and of carrying four cubits in the public domain, and in the end, after all the proposed derivations are rejected, the Talmud says: “Rather, the rule of every four cubits in the public domain is a tradition that was learned.”
I don’t understand: a law given to Moses at Sinai is either correct or it isn’t. If we weren’t able to bring a source or a rationale for where carrying in the Tabernacle or throwing existed, do we just assume that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai?
Answer
There are quite a few examples of cases where it is decided that something is a law given to Moses at Sinai simply because we did not find a source for it. The law itself was known; the only question was what its source was. If no source is found, it is reasonable to conclude that it is a law given to Moses at Sinai. By the way, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) do this too, not only the Talmud itself.
A side note: “it is a learned tradition” is apparently subject to a dispute between Maimonides and Rashi. The Netziv, in Ha’amek She’elah on the She’iltot, wrote that according to Rashi this means a law given to Moses at Sinai, whereas according to Maimonides it means a tradition—there was once a source, but it has been lost to us.