Introduction to the Mishnah: Tractates Shabbat and Erubin

I'm going to introduce you to the Mishnah.  Don't worry if you don't know Hebrew.  Here's where you can find the English translations: Link 1; Link 2.  Our method will be to review the tractates for a given topic (we'll start with Shabbat) and then we'll do a comparative study with the Tanak and New Testament so that we can discuss which aspects of the Mishnah are in accordance with the Written Torah and its spirit and which aspects may not be in accord.  Eventually, we might even uncover some of the principles for a One Law Messianic halacha.

For now, read through these introductions and then, when time allows, peruse the links above to see the relevant tractates for yourself.  Then feel free to share your initial impressions with everyone.

OVERVIEW OF MISHNAH

"The structure of the Talmud tracks the structure of the Mishna; therefore it is necessary to first understand how the Mishna is structured. The Mishna is divided into six “orders” (seder-sing., sedarim-pl.), each dealing with a subject area: (1) Zeraim (lit.-seeds), laws dealing with agricultural and food laws; (2) Moed (lit.- holidays), laws relating to holiday and Sabbath rituals; (3) Nashim (lit.-women), laws relating to marriage and divorce; (4) Nezikin (lit.-damages), laws of tort, evidence, and other civil and criminal matters; (5) Kodoshim (lit.-holy things), laws relating to the Temple sacrifice and ritual; and (6) Taharot (lit.-purity), laws relating to ritual purity. Each order is divided into tractates (masekhet-sing., masekhtot-pl.). Each tractate is divided into chapters, and each chapter is made of up individual laws called mishnayot (mishna-sing.).17 Although the Talmud’s trac- tates and chapters track the tractates and chapters of the Mishna, it is important to note that the Talmud does not contain a tractate for every Mishna tractate," (Hollander).

INTRODUCTION AND OUTLINE TO MISHNAH TRACTATE SHABBAT:

"This tractate takes up three principal concerns.  The first is preparation of the Israelite for the Sabbath, with special attention to designating proper materials for a lamp, proper modes of keeping food warm, and appropriate clothing to be worn on that day (chapters 2 through 6).  The second is abstaining from servile labor, with special attention (in chapters 8,9,10,11) in particular to transporting an object from private to public domain.  The third is effecting certain permitted acts of labor (chapters 16 through 24), e.g., preparing certain kinds of food on the Sabbath for humans and for beasts, performing a rite of circumcision, and the like.  This third unit, moreover, pays some attention to prohibited acts, e.g., handling objects which may not be used, and therefore also may not be handled, on the Sabbath.  The tractate as a whole speaks of (1) preparing for the Sabbath, then of (2) what may not, and (3) what may, be done on the Sabbath," (Neusner, The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Vol. 11: Shabbat).

"m.Sab.1-4:  Start of the Sabbath:  lights and fires

In order to avoid accidentally breaking the Sabbath, the rabbis instituted several safeguards, such as not taking out tools during the Sabbath, not starting jobs just before the start of the Sabbath, and making sure a lamp is lit and food is tithed before the Sabbath begins.  There was much debate about whether you could initiate cooking and other labor just before the Sabbath began so that it would finish by itself during the Sabbath.  The prohibition on taking out developed into prohibitions of bringing in, lifting and eventually carrying.

m.Sab.5-11:  During the Sabbath:  moving goods

Taking out goods 'from your place' was only one of 39 types of labor, but it was very difficult to avoid, so it attracted much debate.  The rabbis had to define what and how much could be taken out, and concluded that you could not even wear something that could be used as a tool or was heavy.  The minimum prohibited amount was whatever would complete the smallest task, such as one mouthful of animal feed.  You could bypass the prohibition by moving an object without taking it out, e.g. by throwing it.  The term 'your place' was understood as 'your private domain' -- the definition of which is discussed mainly in the tractate Erubin.

m.Sab.10-24:  Other labor:  writing, healing, saving, lifting, commerce etc.

'Labor' was defined as any completed task which endured, and this could be as small as writing two meaningful letters, or anointing with medicine.  Emergency labor was permitted, such as midwifery, circumcision, rescuing a Torah scroll from a fire, or rescuing other necessities such as food for one day.  Lifting objects is permitted, so long as you do not take them out of the domain, but tools cannot be lifted except to perform a task they were not designed to perform.  Commerce and hiring cannot be enacted, or even contracted, on a Sabbath," (Brewer, Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament).

INTRODUCTION AND OUTLINE TO MISHNAH TRACTATE ERUBIN

 "This tractate is the most difficult in the Jerusalem Talmud, both from the viewpoint of its contents and from the viewpoint of the numerous errors which have affected it,' so states Saul Lieberman (p. 217) at the beginning of his great commentary to Yerushalmi Erubin.  I hardly need repeat that this translation is preliminary and provisional, even though it will probably serve for some time to come.  I can only claim to do my best, knowing that, in more than a few places, it is not good enough.

 A review of the contents of the tractate stands at the beginning of the work.  Mishnah-tractate Erubin takes as its theme the scripture on the Sabbath requirement to refrain from leaving one's abode.  There are several stages of reasoning which have to have been passed long before the theme--let alone the problematic--of our tractate comes into view.  Not surprisingly, Scripture lays the foundations.  Exodus 16:29-30 requires each person to stay where he is on the seventh day (in what looks like a play on words of SBT and SB): "'See!  The Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days; remain every man of you in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.'  So the people rested on the seventh day."  Now, in the dim past of Mishnah-tractate Erubin are the following settled notions:  (1) remaining in one's place does not mean that one may not leave his house, but (2) it does mean that one should remain in his own village, which (3) consists of the settled area of a village as well as its natural environs.  But (4) one may establish residence, for purposes of the Sabbath, in some place other than his normal abode, by (5) making provision for eating a meal at that other place.  Doing so allows the person to measure his allotted area for travel from that other place.  Said measure (6) is two thousand cubits.  In order to establish a symbolic place of residence, one must set out, prior to sundown at the beginning of the Sabbath (or festival) (7) a symbolic meal, or, (8) through a verbal declaration, accomplish that same end, making provision for a temporary Sabbath-abode.  These eight presuppositions which lie deep in the substructure of the tractate are not the only ones we have to contend with.

 There is yet another set, predictable on the basis of Mishnah-tractate Shabbat.  These principles have to do with transportation of objects from one domain to another on the Sabbath.  We recall from tractate Shabbat that (1) one may not move something from private domain to public domain.  Now there are areas the status of which is ambiguous, being neither wholly private nor completely public domain.  Chief among these is (2) the courtyard, onto which a number of private dwellings open up, or (3) an alleyway, onto which a number of courtyards debouch.  Now the symbolic meal involved in establishing one's residence at a place other than his normal abode may serve yet (4) a second purpose, which is to join all of the dwellers of the several households of a courtyard, or of the several courtyards of an alleyway, into a single unit for treating said courtyard of alleyway as the common possession of the participants of the meal and hence as a single domain, in which carrying will be permissible.  To list the suppositions before us therefore requires attention to the notion (1) of public and private domain, (2) or a prohibition of transporting objects from one to another, (3) of a recognition of an area of ambiguous status, (4) of the possibility of commingling the individual rights to a given shared area into a single domain for the purpose of the Sabbath, (5) and of doing so, in particular, through the provision of a common symbolic meal.  An outline of the treatment of the subject, which follows, shows us that there are three units on the tractate's topic, and a fourth which draws to a close the entire enterprise constituted by Shabbat Erubin.

 The first unit treats special problems of a limited domain other than an ordinary courtyard.  It asks about forming into a single domain for purposes of carrying on the Sabbath some anomalous properties, for example, an alleyway; an area temporarily occupied by a caravan; the area, in the public domain, around a well, which is private domain; and a large, enclosed field which, though fenced in, is not a human habitation.  This discussion serves as a prologue to the second topic, one of the two significant essays of the tractate, on the Sabbath limit of a town and how it is defined. 

 Here, second, we begin with the effect of setting out an erub--a symbolic meal--upon the right of an individual to travel beyond the established Sabbath limit of a town, for example, for visiting someone in a neighboring village on that day.  We proceed to treat the effects of violating that Sabbath limit or of not properly setting out the erub to begin with.  The next major initiative turns to defining the Sabbath limit of a town--that is, the limit affecting all the residents, not the limit laid out by an individual for his own purpose.

 The third unit of the tractate, which is the other central one, moves from the Sabbath limit affecting a town as a whole to that complementary matter, the commingling of ownership of courtyards and alleyways, once more starting with the clear conception that the erub-meal is how one establishes such a commingled ownership.  There are then areas--that is, gray areas--that may be treated either as distinct from one another or as commingled.  The next major initiative turns from the courtyard to the alleyway and goes on to repeat pretty much the same exercises as are performed for the courtyard.  There then follows three appendixes:  first, neglecting the erub for a courtyard and its consequences; second, preparing an erub for more than one courtyard; and, a genuine appendix, the status of the area of the roofs of the houses.

 The fourth unit, like the first, is essentially indifferent to the tractate's paramount concerns, since it speaks of carrying in the public domain in general, and some rather special problems in that connection--that is to say, the tractate closes, as many do, by ignoring its critical points of interest.  What the final unit does do is to call to mind the opening unit of Mishnah-tractate Shabbat, on the one side, and those recurrent concerns about carrying from one domain to another which preoccupy the framers of the tractate at other critical point--Mishnah-tractate Shabbat chapters 7-12, on the other.  We proceed to review the topical program of the tractate, beginning to end.  Afterward I return to raise organizing and encompassing questions about the tractate as a whole," (Neusner, The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Vol. 12: Erubin).

"m.Er.1-2:  Marking out the boundary

A community must have a boundary at least 10 handbreadths high with gaps of no more than 3 handbreadths below this height, though it can have gaps if they are clearly defined as entrances.

m.Er.3:  Preparing a community marker

A community marker consisted of a collection of food which was nominally owned by everyone who shared ownership of the area it covered.

m.Er.4-5; 8.1-2:  Sabbath limit community marker

The Sabbath limit for travel was 2000 cubits around the city.  If you were away from home you could set up a personal community marker of limits (erub techumim...) to represent your temporary residence and then travel 2000 cubits from that point.

m.Er.6-8:  Courtyard and alley community markers

If anyone who shares the courtyard does not join in with the community marker, he restricts (asar...prohibits) the others from carrying within it.  This means they cannot draw water.  A courtyard and a balcony (which form separate domains), or a group of courtyards which share an alley can be linked by a combined community marker (shituphe mebo'ot...'combination of alleys,' often simply shituph or erub) and a whole town which has a surrounding wall can set up a single community marker.

m.Er.9:  Neutral and breached domains

A neutral domain is a space which is partly public and partly private, such as communicating roofs, or courtyards with a gap in the boundary which is not defined as an entrance.

m.Er.10:  Permissible ways to carry across domains

When necessary, there are ways to rescue valuable things like a new-born baby or a Torah scroll which are outside the private domain.  There are also ways to open doors without moving anything across the domain boundary which they mark.  In the Temple, several regulations were relaxed," (Brewer, Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament).

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