We begin today’s study on Lamed Zayin, amud bet, with the last word on the wine, before the discussion turns to another matter. Itamar: Two people purchased a barrel of wine and an animal as partners, intending to consume and divide them on Yom Tov. Rav says that the barrel is permitted: each partner may take his portion to the place where he is permitted to walk, within his domain.
We learned in the Mishnah that a person may take his possessions only as far as he himself is able to walk. Rav says that once the partners divide the wine, each one may take his portion to his own domain. The same should apply to the animal. However, when it comes to the pieces of the animal—the meat—perhaps each partner may take his portion only to the shared area, the area accessible to both partners.
When the Gemara says that both the barrel and the meat are prohibited, it means that in both cases they must remain within the shared area. This does not necessarily mean two thousand cubits. Depending on how the two partners established their domains, the shared area could be only one thousand cubits. For example, if Reuven established his domain one thousand cubits to the right and Shimon established his domain beginning one thousand cubits farther over, then only one thousand cubits are shared by both of them. Each person has two thousand cubits from his own domain, but the common area between them may be smaller. It depends on precisely how they established their eruvin.
Rav therefore makes a distinction between the barrel and the meat. Shmuel, however, says that both the barrel and the meat are limited to the shared area of the two partners. Let us look at Rashi. Rashi explains that the two partners divided the animal before Yom Tov, but the division took effect on Yom Tov. The barrel is permitted, and each partner may bring his portion to the place where he established his eruv. The meat is different because the animal is considered a single entity.
Why is the animal different? Before Yom Tov, the portions had not yet been divided. Even though they eventually divided the animal on Yom Tov, who says that the piece Reuven ultimately received was the piece destined for him before Yom Tov? Perhaps that piece was destined for Shimon. If we say that there is no retroactive determination, then we cannot say that the division that eventually took place was the division that existed before Yom Tov. Therefore, the meat remains limited to the shared area.
I initially misunderstood the case. The animal was not divided before Yom Tov. The partners purchased it before Yom Tov, but the actual division occurred on Yom Tov. They said, “You take this side of the animal, and I will take that side.” Once that is the case, we need to understand Rav. What is Rav’s reasoning? If Rav accepts retroactive determination, then both the wine and the meat can be considered divided retroactively. The portion each person received on Yom Tov is treated as the portion that had been designated for him before Yom Tov, and he may take it throughout his own domain.
If Rav does not accept retroactive determination, then both the wine and the meat should remain limited to the shared area. Why, then, does Rav distinguish between them?
The answer is that Rav accepts retroactive determination with respect to the barrel. Whatever wine each partner divided on Yom Tov is considered the wine that had been destined for him before Yom Tov. Therefore, that wine acquired the person’s domain before Yom Tov, and he may take it wherever he is permitted to walk.
The animal, however, is different. While it was alive, its limbs were all connected. The brain, heart, legs, and every other limb sustained one another. The entire animal was a single living entity. Even if we say retroactively that the brain belonged to one partner and the heart belonged to the other, that does not work. The brain and heart were connected to each other before the division, and all the limbs were part of one animal.
Wine, by contrast, does not function that way. One portion of wine does not sustain another portion. One portion can be considered destined for Reuven before Yom Tov, while another portion was destined for Shimon. The portions are independent of one another. With the animal, however, the limbs are interconnected. Therefore, the concept of retroactive determination helps with the wine but not with the meat.
Even if someone were to say that, before Yom Tov, the animal was alive and the partners had already decided that one would receive the brain and the other the heart, that division would still not work in the same way. The brain and heart are linked, and the entire animal is one entity. That is why the animal’s limbs cannot be treated as separate portions for purposes of determining their respective domains.
Some raised the following question. Perhaps the concern here is not the prohibition of domains but the prohibition of objects that were not designated for use. We understand why the interconnectedness of the animal affects the domains: each partner’s portion is connected to the other’s portion. But if that is the reasoning, then the same argument should apply to the prohibition of unprepared objects. If each partner’s portion was connected to the other partner’s portion at the beginning of the festival, then each person’s portion should have been considered unprepared for him. Why, then, would the same interconnectedness be applied selectively to the domains but not to the other prohibition?
The Gemara says that Rav was silent. There are two ways to understand that silence. One possibility is that Rav accepted the question. He retracted his distinction and agreed that if there is no retroactive determination, then, just as the wine may be carried within each person’s domain, the meat may also be carried within each person’s domain. Once Rav accepted the principle of retroactive determination for the wine, he could no longer use the interconnectedness of the animal to impose a different rule on the meat.
Another possibility is that Rav considered the question weak. The question does not necessarily follow from the premise. Even if one accepts the interconnectedness of the animal for the purposes of the domains, it does not automatically follow that the portions are considered unprepared for one another.
Look at Tosafot. Tosafot explains the question as follows: We see that each partner clearly separates himself from the other partner’s portion. Each one intends to eat only the portion he will ultimately receive. If so, why should the other partner’s portion be considered unprepared for him? The same reasoning used for the domains should apply here as well. If the portions are connected to one another for the purposes of the domains, then they should also be connected for purposes of the prohibition of unprepared objects.
Someone asked: What is the problem? A person’s food is not automatically considered unprepared for another person, because the owner may give it to him on Yom Tov. We send gifts and give food to one another on Yom Tov. Why should the other partner’s portion be considered unprepared?
The answer is that this is not an ordinary case of one person’s food being available to another. Here, the partners are dividing the animal precisely because each one intends to keep his own portion. If they intended to give their portions to each other, there would be no reason to divide the animal. They could simply eat it together. The division demonstrates that each partner wants his own portion and is not planning to give it to the other.
In addition, the partners may have different domains. One partner cannot give the other his portion if the recipient cannot carry it to the place where he is. Each one knows that the other partner is limited by a different walking distance. Therefore, the possibility of giving the other partner’s portion to him is not a realistic possibility in this case.
The Gemara asks what the practical conclusion is. The answer appears to be that there is retroactive determination, and both the meat and the wine are permitted within the respective domains of the partners.
Rav Oshaya challenges this from a Mishnah concerning impurity. A corpse is in a house with several doors, all of them closed. The corpse must eventually be removed through one of the doors, but it is not yet known through which door. The objects located beneath the other doors are considered impure because any one of those doors may ultimately be used. Since the future exit is unknown, each door is treated as a possibility.
If one of the doors is opened after the person dies, the objects beneath that door are impure, while the objects beneath the other doors are pure, because it is assumed that the corpse will be taken out through the open door. If, while the person is still alive, he says, “I am going to remove the corpse through this particular door,” then, according to one opinion, that statement saves the objects beneath the other doors. Since the intended door is known before death, the other doors are no longer possibilities.
According to another opinion, even if he makes that statement before death, it does not help after death. Once death occurs, all the doors again become possible exits. The question is whether a decision made before death can determine the status of the objects retroactively and also affect what happens afterward.
Rav Oshaya explains that the opinion allowing the statement to help applies only from that point forward. Once the person dies, his earlier intention can determine the future, but it does not necessarily purify objects that were already subject to impurity. If one says that there is no retroactive determination, then even the objects that were present before the death cannot be saved merely because the person later decided which door would be used.
Why can we not say that his intention after death reveals what he had intended before death? If the intention after death determines the door, perhaps that was also the door he had in mind before death, and the determination should work retroactively for the objects that were already there.
This is the difficulty. In the case of the partners, we were told that retroactive determination can help. Yet in the case of the doors and impurity, it seems that the determination works only from the time of the decision onward and not retroactively for the earlier objects. We must reconcile the two cases.
Rabbi Yohanan’s position is explained through a case involving brothers who divided an inheritance. When a father dies, it is not automatically known which property belongs to which brother. The brothers divide the inheritance among themselves, and the division is treated as though each brother acquired his portion from the others in exchange for the portions they received.
If one of the brothers acquired land during the Jubilee cycle, that land returns to its original owners. If the division of the inheritance is viewed as an actual transaction, then the laws of the Jubilee cycle apply. The property a brother received may not have been his original share; perhaps he received his brother’s share in exchange for giving his own share to him.
But if we say that there is retroactive determination, then each brother’s eventual portion was his from the time the father died. He did not purchase it from his brother. The land was his from the beginning, and the division merely revealed which portion had belonged to each person. In that case, the laws of the Jubilee cycle would not apply in the same way.
The Gemara answers that the law concerning the inheritance and the Jubilee cycle is a biblical matter, while the law concerning the domains on Yom Tov is rabbinic. It is possible that in a biblical matter we do not apply retroactive determination, whereas in a rabbinic matter we do apply it.
This principle is illustrated by the case of a person who places two eruvin, one to the east and one to the west, before Shabbat. Perhaps a rabbi will arrive on one side of the city, and perhaps he will arrive on the other side. The person says, “If the rabbi comes from the east, my eruv should be the eastern one; if he comes from the west, my eruv should be the western one.” If two rabbis come, he may decide the next day which one he wishes to visit, and the eruv corresponding to that choice will be considered his eruv retroactively.
One opinion rejects this arrangement. A person cannot make two contradictory decisions simultaneously and then decide on Shabbat which one was valid from the beginning. The eruv must have been established before the beginning of Shabbat. A decision made on Shabbat cannot establish the eruv retroactively.
There is, however, a distinction between a case in which the rabbi had already arrived before Shabbat and a case in which no one yet knew where the rabbi would be. If the rabbi was already in the east before Shabbat, the eastern eruv can be valid. The issue of retroactive determination arises only when the person does not know before Shabbat which side the rabbi will be on and intends to decide later.
The Gemara asks why the first case should be different. If the rabbi eventually appears in the east, why is that not also retroactive determination? The answer is that in the first case the rabbi was already there before Shabbat. The uncertainty existed only in the person’s knowledge. The reality itself was already established. In the second case, the relevant fact had not yet occurred, and the person wanted to decide later which possibility would become valid.
Rabbi Yohanan explains the earlier matter in light of this distinction. He does not accept retroactive determination in biblical matters, such as impurity, but he does accept it in rabbinic matters, such as the domains of Yom Tov. Rav Oshaya, however, distinguishes between the impurity case and the domain case. Impurity is a biblical matter, while the domain restriction under discussion is rabbinic. This allows Rav Oshaya to accept retroactive determination in the latter case while rejecting it in the former.
The practical conclusion is that the law follows the position that permits retroactive determination in the rabbinic case. Therefore, the wine may be taken to the respective domains of the partners, and the meat may likewise be treated according to the division that took place.
Shmuel teaches another principle: An animal owned by a breeder is considered to be within the domain of every person in the city, whereas an animal owned by a shepherd is considered to be within the domain of the city in which the shepherd resides.
What is an animal owned by a breeder? It is an animal that the owner raises and sells. Since the owner regularly sells such animals, the animal is considered destined to be sold to whoever purchases it. Therefore, the person who buys it on Yom Tov may take it to the extent that he himself is permitted to walk. We treat the animal as though it had already been designated for that purchaser before Yom Tov.
An animal belonging to a shepherd is different. The shepherd is not a merchant who sells animals to people from all over. He may occasionally sell an animal to a neighbor, but his ordinary practice is to sell locally. Therefore, the animal is considered to be within the domain of the people of that city.
Why does the teaching mention the people of the city? Because the breeder may sell to outsiders, whereas the shepherd ordinarily sells only to local residents. The novelty of the teaching applies to the breeder: even someone who purchased the animal from outside the city may take it according to his own domain, because the animal was destined to be sold and acquired by him.
There is a related case involving a borrowed vessel. A person asks his neighbor to lend him a vessel, but the vessel is not actually transferred until Yom Tov. One might think that because the borrower did not possess it before Yom Tov, the vessel should remain within the lender’s domain. The teaching tells us that once the lender had committed himself to lend the vessel, it is treated as belonging to the borrower for this purpose.
One might argue that the borrower had not yet acquired the vessel before Yom Tov. Nevertheless, the lender is restricted according to the borrower’s domain. The lender’s commitment to give the object to the borrower is sufficient.
The Gemara rejects this as obvious. Perhaps the lender did not have this particular borrower in mind. A person may lend vessels regularly, but that does not mean he had already designated this vessel for this specific borrower. He may have expected that the borrower would find someone else from whom to borrow. The teaching therefore tells us that even though the actual transfer occurred only on Yom Tov, the vessel follows the borrower’s domain.
Now we come to a woman who borrowed water and salt from her neighbor. She used them to prepare dough in a pot. The resulting food contains ingredients belonging to both women. Therefore, the food may be taken only as far as both women are permitted to walk. Since the ingredients are jointly present in the food, the food follows the shared area of their domains.
When Rabbi Abba came from Babylonia to the Land of Israel, he prayed that he should say something that would be accepted and that he should not be embarrassed. When he arrived, he met the great scholars of the Land of Israel. They asked him: Why do you say that the food must follow both women’s domains? Why do you not say that the water and salt are nullified by the majority? The majority of the dough consists of flour. If the water and salt are nullified in the flour, the food should follow the domain of the woman who prepared it.
Rabbi Abba responded with an example. If one person has a measure of wheat and it becomes mixed with ten measures of wheat belonging to another person, can we tell the owner of the single measure that he has lost his ownership because his wheat is the minority? No. He still owns his measure of wheat. Nullification may apply to prohibited substances, but it does not necessarily remove ownership.
Rabbi Abba was saying that the water and salt retain their owners’ identities. One woman owns her ingredients and the other woman owns hers. The ingredients may be mixed physically, but nullification does not eliminate the ownership of one woman in the food. Therefore, the food follows both domains.
The scholars laughed at Rabbi Abba’s answer. Rabbi Abba asked them, “Why are you laughing? Did I take your clothing? Did I make a joke about you?” He felt that they were treating his answer as though he had said something foolish.
Rabbi Abba then reviewed the discussion. The Mishnah says that when a woman borrows water and salt from her neighbor on Yom Tov, the resulting dough follows both domains because it is a combination of ingredients. Rabbi Abba asked why the borrowed ingredients should not be nullified by the majority of the dough. If nullification applies in other areas, why should it not apply here?
His response was that the issue is not simply whether the borrowed ingredients are numerically a minority. Nullification does not erase ownership. If a person’s one hundred-dollar bill becomes mixed into a stack of one hundred-dollar bills belonging to another person, the first person does not lose ownership merely because his bill is a minority of the total. The same applies to the water and salt.
Rabbi Oshaya, or according to another version Rav Safra, defended the scholars who had laughed. He said that their reaction was justified because Rabbi Abba’s example was not appropriate. Rabbi Abba had compared the case to wheat mixed with wheat, but he should have brought a case of wheat mixed with a different substance. If wheat becomes mixed with stones, perhaps the stones are nullified because they are a different type of substance. Why, then, did Rabbi Abba bring a case of wheat mixed with wheat?
The Gemara explains that Rabbi Abba’s example was deliberate. Even when wheat is mixed with different substances, we may still find situations in which the supposedly insignificant material is not treated as nonexistent. Rav taught that when a person removes stones from another person’s wheat, he must pay for those stones according to the value of wheat.
Why must he pay for stones? Ordinarily, stones have no value. But a person can sell wheat containing the ordinary amount of stones and impurities that are normally found in wheat. By removing the stones, he has taken something that could have been included in the sale of the wheat. Therefore, he must pay for the stones according to the value of wheat.
This demonstrates that even something that is ordinarily worthless can retain significance when it forms part of a person’s property. The stones are not simply nonexistent because they are a minority and because they have little independent value. They belong to the owner of the wheat, and the owner could benefit from them in the context of the sale.
All the more so, water and salt, which have intrinsic value, should not be nullified with respect to ownership. If we do not say that stones are nullified when they can be converted into value, certainly water and salt are not nullified when they already have value. They remain the property of the neighbor who lent them.
Abaye then raised a distinction. Perhaps we must differentiate between property that has a claimant and property that does not currently have a claimant. In the case of the stones, the owner of the wheat can make a claim: “Those stones are mine.” Although the stones themselves are not worth much, they are part of his property, and he can claim them. This is property with a claimant.
The water and salt, however, were lent to the woman for use on Yom Tov. The neighbor cannot demand them back on Yom Tov. She may come afterward and claim, “I lent you water and salt,” but at the moment she has no monetary claim that she can enforce. This is property that does not currently have a claimant.
According to Abaye, nullification does not apply to property that has a present claimant. It may apply to property that belongs to someone but has no present monetary claim. Therefore, the borrowed water and salt may be nullified in the dough with respect to the domain issue. Their ownership remains conceptually intact, but the fact that the neighbor cannot claim them on Yom Tov means that the ingredients may be treated as nullified for this purpose.
Rav Safra challenged this distinction. Merely because the neighbor cannot claim the water and salt today, why should they lose their status as property? The issue of ownership is not identical to the issue of when a claim may be made.
He brought a teaching concerning a slaughtered animal and an animal carcass. According to Rabbi Yehudah, a slaughtered animal and a carcass may be nullified in certain circumstances because one can never become the other. A slaughtered animal can never acquire the status of a carcass, and a carcass can no longer become a properly slaughtered animal. Since their halachic statuses remain permanently distinct, they are treated as different types of substances.
There is, however, an important distinction depending on which item is the majority. If two slaughtered pieces are mixed with one piece of carcass, the two slaughtered pieces can never become like the carcass. The majority is therefore different from the minority, and the carcass may be nullified.
If two pieces of carcass are mixed with one slaughtered piece, the carcass may eventually lose its status as a source of impurity. Once the carcass becomes completely spoiled and is no longer fit to eat, it loses its status as food and therefore loses its capacity to transmit impurity. In that sense, the majority of carcass can eventually become like the slaughtered piece with respect to impurity. Therefore, the slaughtered piece is not nullified in the same manner.
The principle is that we examine whether the majority—the substance that is supposed to nullify the minority—can ever acquire the same halachic status as the minority. If the majority can become like the minority, they are considered the same type, and nullification does not apply. If the majority can never become like the minority, they are different types, and the majority can nullify the minority.
Rav Safra returned to the question of ownership. He argued that the absence of a present claimant does not remove the significance of property. Even ownerless property can have a defined legal status. The Gemara teaches that found objects follow the domain in which they are located when Shabbat begins. Although such objects have no owner, they are still considered significant for purposes of determining their domain.
This proves that ownership is not what creates the object’s significance. If an ownerless object is still subject to a domain, then the absence of a claimant does not make something nonexistent. Therefore, the water and salt should likewise retain their significance even though the neighbor cannot demand their return until after Yom Tov.
Rav Safra also returned to the case of the stones. The owner of the wheat can claim payment for the stones because the stones are part of his property and because they have a value within the commercial context of the wheat. Certainly, water and salt are more significant than stones. They have intrinsic value and belong to the neighbor. We cannot say that they disappear simply because the neighbor has no immediate claim on Yom Tov.
At this stage, the discussion distinguishes between the monetary aspect and the prohibition associated with the monetary aspect. We do not say that the neighbor’s ownership is nullified. The ownership remains. The question is whether the prohibition generated by that ownership may be nullified in the majority.
In the case of wheat and stones, the monetary value itself is the issue. The stones are considered property because the owner can derive value from them. In the case of the borrowed water and salt, the ownership remains, but the relevant restriction is the domain prohibition created by the two owners. Perhaps the monetary component remains intact while the domain restriction is nullified as a minority prohibition.
This would explain why the scholars could have been correct in saying that the borrowed ingredients are nullified for the purposes of the domain, even though the neighbor’s ownership itself is not nullified. The prohibition may be nullified without erasing the underlying ownership.
Another possibility is that the food is treated as a partnership. In the case of two partners who jointly own a loaf, everyone agrees that the loaf follows the domains of both partners. Perhaps the same should apply here. Although the woman merely borrowed the water and salt, those ingredients are now present in the food. She has some ownership interest in the food, and the neighbor has some ownership interest as well. Since both women are owners of portions of the food, the food should follow the shared domain.
But the response is that borrowing is not the same as partnership. The neighbor did not become a partner in the loaf. She merely lent ingredients that were consumed in the preparation. The woman who prepared the food does not need to give the neighbor a percentage of the loaf, and the neighbor cannot simply take a portion of it. Therefore, the question of shared ownership is not straightforward.
Rava offers another explanation in a different part of the Mishnah. When spices are lent and incorporated into food, they are not nullified because they impart flavor. The ordinary rule of nullification does not apply to an ingredient that contributes taste. Even a small amount of spice can affect the entire mixture.
This explains the case of spices, but it does not necessarily explain the case of water and salt. Water and salt may not have the same status as a spice that imparts a distinctive taste. Therefore, the reasoning in the case of the woman and her neighbor may be different from the reasoning in the case of spices.
Tosafot discusses whether Rabbi’s teaching applies both to a pot and to dough. According to one approach, the restriction applies in both cases because the ingredients retain significance. According to another approach, the reason is specifically that spices impart flavor. The result may be the same, but the underlying reasoning differs.
If the reason is that the food is jointly owned, then the rule applies to any mixture in which both parties retain ownership. If the reason is that the ingredient imparts flavor, then it applies particularly to spices and other ingredients whose taste remains recognizable. The Gemara’s discussion examines whether there is a practical difference between these explanations.
The Gemara then discusses the principle that an item capable of becoming permitted is not nullified. Rashi explains that after Yom Tov, the person may use the food freely. Since the food will eventually become permitted, one might think that the rule concerning an item capable of becoming permitted should apply.
Tosafot raises a difficulty. The rule concerning an item capable of becoming permitted is generally applied to one type of substance mixed with the same type of substance, such as one egg mixed with other eggs. Here, however, we are dealing with flour, water, salt, and other ingredients, which are not the same type of substance.
Tosafot answers that with respect to the domain prohibition, the ingredients are considered one type. The issue is not the physical composition of the food but the monetary and domain interests contained within it. One woman’s money and the other woman’s money are mixed together. With respect to the domain prohibition, that is considered one category: the monetary interests of both parties are present in the food.
The food may consist of different ingredients, but the domain restriction is generated by the ownership of the ingredients. Therefore, with respect to the domain issue, the monetary interests are considered one type mixed with another monetary interest. The rule concerning an item capable of becoming permitted applies in that context.
Tosafot offers an additional explanation. Dough cannot be prepared without water, and the flour and water combine to form one entity. Similarly, when the ingredients are cooked together in a pot, the water, salt, and other ingredients become part of one prepared food. Although they began as separate ingredients, they are now joined into one entity.
Accordingly, when considering the domain prohibition, the food is treated as one unit containing the interests of both women. The water and salt are not merely external additions that can be disregarded. They are part of the food itself, and the ownership and domain restrictions associated with them remain relevant.