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Maseches Shabbos Daf 4
Mar. 10th, 2020 09:43 pmDaf 4
I think I forgot to explain the rulings from the cases in the Mishna yesterday. In the cases where one person performs the whole action, they are chayav and the other is patur. In the cases where one person does half and the other does half, both are patur. In other words, only the full act is chayav d'oraysa, but participating in an act that if done by one person would be a violation is an issur d'rabbanan.
A Mishna asks, and I think this is really clever, "What if you stand in a Private Domain and throw an object into a different Private Domain, but in between is a public domain?" Rabbi Akiva says you are chayav and the Rabbis say you are patur.
The Gemara explains that Rabbi Akiva considers an object in flight to be momentarily at rest. Meaning that while it's flying through the Public Domain, it is considered to actually be residing in the Public Domain, whereas the Rabbis hold that for an object in airspace to be considered actually IN a domain, it needs to be not moving, This seems to me more consistent with the first Mishna's idea that the act of transferring from one domain to another involves two acts- the movement into the new domain, and the placing it in the new domain.
But the Gemara later says that the laws of throwing are just not the same as the laws of passing, so my attempt to analogize and thereby create an intuition doesn't quite work. But one simply wants there to be a systematic connection between the two laws.
But the idea that throwing is a separate rule also neatly sidesteps the problem that in the case of passing, there is a clear two step process. First, you move the object into the second domain, and then you set it at rest. In the throwing case, as soon as you release it it's free, there's no second act, but presumably of its own accord it comes to rest, but nevertheless if you throw from a private domain to a public domain you're chayav even though you didn't complete a two step process.
I also really like this because the question of what state an object has when it is mid-flight is an important one in physics, and I enjoy that the Gemara is in its own way wrestling with the same issues.
I think I forgot to explain the rulings from the cases in the Mishna yesterday. In the cases where one person performs the whole action, they are chayav and the other is patur. In the cases where one person does half and the other does half, both are patur. In other words, only the full act is chayav d'oraysa, but participating in an act that if done by one person would be a violation is an issur d'rabbanan.
A Mishna asks, and I think this is really clever, "What if you stand in a Private Domain and throw an object into a different Private Domain, but in between is a public domain?" Rabbi Akiva says you are chayav and the Rabbis say you are patur.
The Gemara explains that Rabbi Akiva considers an object in flight to be momentarily at rest. Meaning that while it's flying through the Public Domain, it is considered to actually be residing in the Public Domain, whereas the Rabbis hold that for an object in airspace to be considered actually IN a domain, it needs to be not moving, This seems to me more consistent with the first Mishna's idea that the act of transferring from one domain to another involves two acts- the movement into the new domain, and the placing it in the new domain.
But the Gemara later says that the laws of throwing are just not the same as the laws of passing, so my attempt to analogize and thereby create an intuition doesn't quite work. But one simply wants there to be a systematic connection between the two laws.
But the idea that throwing is a separate rule also neatly sidesteps the problem that in the case of passing, there is a clear two step process. First, you move the object into the second domain, and then you set it at rest. In the throwing case, as soon as you release it it's free, there's no second act, but presumably of its own accord it comes to rest, but nevertheless if you throw from a private domain to a public domain you're chayav even though you didn't complete a two step process.
I also really like this because the question of what state an object has when it is mid-flight is an important one in physics, and I enjoy that the Gemara is in its own way wrestling with the same issues.