Continuing on this topic, we now come to the two dots: “The poor person extended his hand.” In that case, the poor person inserted his hand and placed something into the hand of the homeowner, or took something from the homeowner’s hand. The poor person would seemingly be liable because he performed both an uprooting and a placing.
Why is he liable? He performed the uprooting and the placing. We have a well-known question here. For an act of uprooting, you need a significant place from which the object is removed, and for an act of placing, you need a significant place on which the object is deposited. Both the uprooting and the placing require a significant place. What qualifies as significant? Four by four handbreadths.
But in this case, everything is taking place between the poor person and the homeowner’s hands. A person’s hand is not four by four handbreadths. So what can we say? The poor person performed the uprooting from a significant place, such as the floor. That takes care of the uprooting. But then he placed the object into the homeowner’s hand, and the homeowner’s hand is not four by four handbreadths. There is no proper placing.
The reverse case presents the same problem. When the homeowner is holding the object in his hand and the poor person inserts his hand and takes it from the homeowner’s hand, there is no uprooting from a significant place. There may be a placing in the public domain, but the hand is not four by four handbreadths. How, then, do we explain the Mishnah?
The answer is that a hand is not inferior to the airspace of the public domain. We learned that a hand is considered significant in this context; it does not require four by four handbreadths.
We see this from Rabbi Akiva in another case. The Mishnah discusses a person who throws an object from one private domain to another private domain, with a public domain in the middle. The object travels from one private domain, hovers over the public domain, and then continues to the second private domain. Rabbi Akiva says that the person is liable. What does “liable” mean? The Sages exempt him, and I understand their position: the object went from one private domain to another private domain. But what is the reasoning of Rabbi Akiva?
Rabbi Akiva holds that we apply the principle of suspended objects being treated as though they had come to rest. When the object is suspended in the airspace of the public domain, it becomes absorbed into that airspace. We consider it as though it had come to rest there. Therefore, it went from a private domain to the public domain and stopped there, even though it did not actually rest on a surface.
Imagine that the object pauses for a moment in the middle of the public domain. Where is it resting? It is not resting on a surface that is four by four handbreadths; it is resting in midair. From Rabbi Akiva, based on this principle, we see that for placing, one does not necessarily need a significant physical surface. If the object is suspended in the airspace of the public domain, it is considered as though it has come to rest.
Abaye therefore gives a straightforward answer: a person’s hand is not worse than airspace. If the airspace of the public domain can be considered significant for this purpose, certainly a person’s hand cannot be considered less significant than floating in the air.
The statement is so straightforward that Rabbah asks a question about it. The disagreement between Rabbi Akiva and the Sages in the case of an object thrown through the public domain depends on the principle of suspension in the air. If that is how we understand the case, then we have to say that the object was within ten handbreadths of the public domain. Within ten handbreadths of the ground, it is considered to be in the public domain. Once it is above ten handbreadths, it is already in an exempt place.
Rashi explains that above ten handbreadths, the object is in a different domain. It is in the airspace of an exempt place, and the principle of suspension cannot apply there. According to Rava’s explanation, the only way to understand the case of throwing and placing is that the object traveled from one private domain to another, crossed the public domain at a height of less than ten handbreadths, and was then considered to have come to rest there through the principle of suspension.
That is one way to understand the matter. Rabbah, however, had another possibility. Perhaps the disagreement between Rabbi Akiva and the Sages also concerns throwing above ten handbreadths. In that case, it would no longer be an argument about suspended objects. Why assume that the object was below ten handbreadths merely because we are discussing the principle of suspension? Perhaps Rabbi Akiva derives the law of throwing from the law of transferring.
In the Tabernacle, the beams were not thrown from one wagon to another. They were transferred, because throwing them would have caused them to break. They were transferred from one wagon to another, with the public domain of the wilderness between them. The wagons themselves were above ten handbreadths. Thus, when it comes to transferring, the act can be liable even above ten handbreadths, because that was the exact manner in which the work of the Tabernacle was performed.
Some rabbis would derive from this that throwing should also be liable above ten handbreadths, just as transferring is. But if one learns that way, that is not the principle being applied here. According to this approach, throwing must remain below ten handbreadths, and we do not derive the law of throwing from transferring, because transferring can be liable even above ten handbreadths.
Rabbah therefore had a doubt. Perhaps the disagreement between Rabbi Akiva and the Sages does concern throwing above ten handbreadths. Rabbi Akiva derives throwing from transferring: just as transferring in the Tabernacle was liable above ten handbreadths, throwing is also liable above ten handbreadths. The Sages reject that derivation.
But if so, another question arises. Rabbah initially spoke as though it were obvious that the Mishnah follows Rabbi Akiva, based on the principle of suspension. Yet Rabbah himself raised the possibility that everyone might accept the principle of suspension and that the disagreement was instead about whether throwing is derived from transferring. If the object was below ten handbreadths, even the Sages could accept suspension. Why, then, does Rabbah say that the Mishnah follows only Rabbi Akiva?
The answer is that the fact that Rabbah once had a question does not mean that he must remain with that question forever. He may have raised the possibility at one point and later resolved it. He ultimately holds that the Mishnah follows Rabbi Akiva.
Not so fast, however. What do we actually see from the case of suspension? In that case, the object was thrown from a private domain. The uprooting was performed from a significant place, a place of four by four handbreadths. When the object passed through the airspace of the public domain, Rabbi Akiva considered the suspension to be a placing. All we see from that principle is that for placing, one does not require a significant physical surface.
Where do we see that uprooting does not require a significant place? Perhaps the Mishnah is following Rabbi Akiva because it involves the hands of the poor person and the homeowner, but the case of Rabbi Akiva does not establish anything about uprooting. We have not yet seen the second hand. We have seen only an uprooting from a private domain and a placing in another private domain, with the object suspended in the public domain in between.
If Rabbi Akiva had said that there were two liabilities, we could say that one liability involved the uprooting, another involved the placing, and that he was teaching us that both hands are significant. But he does not say that. Therefore, we have to return to the drawing board and ask who is the author of the Mishnah that says a significant place is unnecessary for uprooting.
One possibility is that it follows a teaching of the rabbis. The teaching discusses a person who throws an object into the public domain and it lands on a protrusion. The object was uprooted from the public domain, and it landed on a protrusion that did not have an area of four by four handbreadths. The Mishnah says that he is liable.
That protrusion is called a ledge or projection. Literally, it is an object projecting from a wall. Any projection extending from a wall in this manner is treated as such. Since it is a narrow protrusion and does not have four by four handbreadths, why is the person liable? Perhaps this demonstrates that for placing, one does not need a significant surface.
But that case does not necessarily help us. The discussion may concern a tree whose trunk is situated in the public domain, while its branches project into the public domain. The object landed on one of the branches, and the question is how to classify the branch. One opinion says that the branch follows the trunk. Since the trunk has a significant area, the branch is treated as part of that significant place.
Another opinion says that the branches do not follow the trunk. Nevertheless, both opinions may agree that one generally requires a significant place. According to the first opinion, the branch is considered part of the significant trunk because it is attached to it. This does not prove that the hand in our Mishnah is significant. Our case concerns the hands of people, not the trunk and branches of a tree.
We find another teaching concerning an object thrown from one public domain to another public domain, with a private domain in the middle. Rabbi Yehudah said in the name of Shmuel that Rabbi was liable for two acts: one liability for taking the object out of the public domain into the private domain, and another for bringing it from the private domain back into the public domain.
Rav says that Rabbi was liable for two, while Rav Ashi objected that there was neither an uprooting nor a placing on a significant surface of four by four handbreadths. Rav explained that the object is treated as though it came to rest in the private domain because it passed through its airspace, and then it was uprooted again from that place.
At first glance, this seems to provide the proof we need. The object enters the airspace of the private domain, and it is treated as though it had come to rest there, even though it did not land on a four-by-four surface. Thus, perhaps a person’s hand is also significant even without four by four handbreadths.
However, the case there involved a private domain with a roof. There is an opinion that when a private domain has a roof, we treat the space from the floor to the roof as though it were filled in. Although the object is visibly traveling through empty air, we regard the space as filled, as though the object had landed on something. When it continues its flight, it is considered to have been uprooted from that significant place.
That is a different principle. It is not that one never requires a significant place. Rather, the roof causes the area to be treated as though it were filled, and therefore the object is considered to have landed on a significant place.
Furthermore, this explanation could perhaps work inside the homeowner’s house, because the house has a roof. But how can it explain the public-domain side of the Mishnah? If the poor person extends his hand into the public domain, are we going to say that the public domain also has a roof? If a public domain has a roof over it, it is no longer classified in the same way.
One might answer that the homeowner himself has a roof over his house, and that this helps with the case in which the poor person inserts his hand into the homeowner’s house. But what will we say about the public domain? We cannot simply assume that the public domain has a roof. The Mishnah is discussing the public domain, and the roof principle cannot explain that side of the case.
There is also a teaching that discusses transferring an object through the public domain. In order for the public domain to resemble the public domain of the Tabernacle, it must have the same characteristics. The public domain in the Tabernacle did not have a roof. Therefore, if a person carries an object four cubits through a covered public area, he may not be liable, because that area does not resemble the public domain of the Tabernacle.
Someone might respond that the laws of Shabbat are learned from the Tabernacle, and the relevant activity there took place in the wilderness. Since the Tabernacle was built without a roof over the public area, we follow that model. But this still does not resolve our question. We are trying to identify the author of the Mishnah, and we still have not found a satisfactory explanation for how the hands are significant.
Perhaps the Mishnah follows a teaching of the later authorities. It discusses a person who throws an object into the public domain and another person receives it. If the receiving person is standing four cubits away and catches the object, the thrower is liable: there was an uprooting from a significant place and a placing in the recipient’s hand.
However, if the recipient ran forward and caught the object, the thrower is not liable. In that case, the recipient himself performed the placing, so the placing was not accomplished solely through the force of the thrower. Therefore, the thrower cannot be held liable in the same way.
But the first part of the teaching would seem to establish precisely what we need. The recipient stood in place, the other person threw the object, and the recipient caught it. The thrower is liable even though the object did not land on a four-by-four surface. Where is the significant place? It landed in the recipient’s hand. This would indicate that no significant physical surface is required.
Nevertheless, perhaps that case proves only that a hand is considered significant for placing. The object was uprooted from the public domain, which is a significant place. We have not yet established that a hand is significant for uprooting.
There is another difficulty. Who says the recipient caught the object with his hand? Perhaps he stretched out his garment and caught it in the garment. A garment spread out in that manner could constitute a surface of four by four handbreadths. If so, the case would not prove that a hand itself is significant.
At this point, the Gemara explains the Mishnah in another way. Perhaps the homeowner was holding a basket. The poor person inserted his hand, took something from the basket, or placed something into the basket. If so, the uprooting and placing took place from the basket itself, and the entire difficulty disappears.
The basket is called a basket or a container. The homeowner was holding one, or the poor person was holding one, and the object was transferred from the basket. The uprooting occurred from the basket, and the placing occurred into the basket. We no longer need to ask whether the Mishnah follows Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi, or the later authorities. The basket supplies the significant place.
But this interpretation requires us to read the repeated references to the hand as referring to the basket in the person’s hand. The Mishnah says “his hand,” not “his basket.” One would have to understand the wording as meaning the basket that is in his hand. That is a difficult interpretation, because the basket is the central point of the explanation, yet the Mishnah does not mention it explicitly.
There is another difficulty. A basket in a private domain poses no problem; it has the status of a private domain. But what about the basket held by the homeowner who is standing in the public domain? If the homeowner is holding a basket in the public domain, perhaps the basket itself has the status of a private domain. Then when he takes the object from his house and places it into the basket, he has transferred it from one private domain to another private domain, and he should not be liable.
Why might the basket have the status of a private domain? We have to examine its dimensions. The size of the basket will determine its legal status.
For example, if a person extends a pole into the public domain and places a basket on the end of the pole, then throws an object from the public domain into the basket, he is liable. In that case, we do not classify the basket as a private domain, even though the basket has four walls. The pole itself is narrow and does not constitute a significant private domain.
The principle is that the basket’s walls extend downward. Although we do not see walls continuing all the way to the ground, we imagine them extending downward from the sides of the basket. If the basket is ten handbreadths high and four by four handbreadths wide, those imaginary walls would create a private domain. But if it is not ten handbreadths high, it does not have the status of a private domain.
Therefore, if the basket is above ten handbreadths and is four by four handbreadths wide, it is a private domain. If a person throws an object from another private domain into that basket, he has moved the object from one private domain to another private domain, and he is not liable. Yet the Mishnah says that the homeowner is liable. This indicates that the Mishnah cannot be referring to a basket that has the status of a private domain.
The answer is that the Mishnah is discussing a basket that is less than ten handbreadths high. In that case, it does not have the status of a private domain, even if it is four by four handbreadths wide. There is no disagreement about the status of such a basket: it is treated as part of the public domain.
That resolves the issue concerning the basket’s legal status, but it returns us to the original wording. The Mishnah does not say “basket”; it says “hand.” The Gemara therefore rejects the interpretation that the Mishnah is explicitly referring to a basket. We do not want to introduce a basket when the Mishnah does not mention one, especially because the basket was the central element of the proposed answer.
The Gemara then offers another explanation. Perhaps the hand of the person standing in the public domain was within three handbreadths of the ground. We know the principle of treating something within three handbreadths of the ground as attached to the ground. Therefore, if he placed the object into a hand that was within three handbreadths of the ground, it would be as though he had placed it on the ground itself.
In that case, the hand is not being treated as significant on its own. Rather, because it is within three handbreadths of the ground, it is considered attached to the ground. The ground provides the significant place.
But the Mishnah says that the person was standing. If his hand was within three handbreadths of the ground, how could he be standing? Normally, when a person is standing and lowers his hand, the hand is still more than three handbreadths above the ground. He would have to be sitting, bending over, standing in a pit, or be unusually short.
The Gemara provides several possibilities. Perhaps he was standing while leaning over, so that his hand came within three handbreadths of the ground. Perhaps he was standing in a pit; because his body was below the surrounding ground level, his hand could reach a position within three handbreadths of the ground. Or perhaps he was very short, so that even while standing, his hand was close to the ground.
These explanations make the case extremely unusual: a person standing in a pit, leaning over, or perhaps a very short person whose hand is near the ground. The Gemara has gone to great lengths to avoid saying that the person’s hand itself is a significant place.
One could ask why the Gemara does not give a simpler case. Instead of describing someone standing in a pit or leaning over, it could say that the person caught the object in his garment, which would provide a normal four-by-four surface. That would be a much simpler explanation than constructing such an unusual scenario.
We therefore return to the drawing board. The Gemara ultimately gives the essential answer: a person’s hand is considered a significant area of four by four handbreadths. A hand is a significant place when it comes to handling objects. Although the formal measure for a significant place is four by four handbreadths, a normal resting hand is treated as having that significance in this context.
This is a new principle. For ordinary objects, we require a place of four by four handbreadths. But when objects are transferred from hand to hand, the hand itself is considered significant. The hand is treated as though it were a four-by-four area.
The Gemara brings support for this principle. When a scholar came from the Land of Israel to Babylonia, he brought a teaching from Rabbi Yohanan: a person’s hand is considered significant, like an area of four by four handbreadths.
At first, this sounds like a logical principle. But the Gemara wants a proof. Abaye, quoting Rabbi Avin in the name of Rabbi Hanina, discusses a person who throws an object four cubits through the public domain. Normally, he would be liable. But in this case, the object landed in another person’s hand.
What is the law? The person is liable. What does this teach us? It teaches that a person’s hand is significant, even though it is not four by four handbreadths.
But someone objects: Rabbi Yohanan already told us that a person’s hand is significant. Why does this additional case need to be brought? The answer is that the two cases may be different. In one case, the person deliberately directed the object into the other person’s hand. He was aiming to place it there, and the recipient extended his hand to receive it. In such a case, the hand is clearly the intended place of placing.
In the other case, the object was simply thrown through the public domain and happened to land in the other person’s hand. Perhaps there we would not automatically treat the hand as a significant place. The new case teaches that even when the object merely lands in the hand, the hand is considered significant by default.
Alternatively, perhaps the distinction is between two people transferring an object and one person receiving his own object. When one person intentionally places something into another person’s hand, the recipient’s hand is significant because the transfer was directed toward it. But when the object simply lands in someone’s hand, perhaps the hand would not ordinarily be significant. The teaching shows that even then, the hand is significant.
We still have to analyze what this principle includes. If the object is placed on a person’s hand, we say that the hand is significant. What about other parts of the body? What if the object is placed on his head or shoulder? Do we say that those areas are also automatically considered significant, or does the special status apply only to the hand? Perhaps even regarding the hand, something must be done to make it a significant place. This issue will have to be examined further.
The Gemara then returns to the case of an object thrown to another person. If the recipient was standing in place and received it, the thrower is liable. There was an uprooting and a placing. But if the recipient ran forward to catch it, the thrower is exempt, because the recipient himself caused the placing. The object did not come to rest through the force of the throw alone.
Another teaching presents the same case: if the recipient stood in place and received the object, the thrower is liable; if he ran to catch it, the thrower is exempt. In that situation, the recipient performed the placing through his own movement.
There is then a further question. Suppose a person throws an object four cubits through the public domain and catches it himself. It is like throwing a ball and running forward to catch one’s own pass. The person performs the uprooting and then catches the object at a point before the place where it would otherwise have landed.
What is the question? Is it considered that the same person performed both the uprooting and the placing? Why should that be a problem? We generally say that the same person can perform both the uprooting and the placing. There is no requirement that two different people perform those acts.
The question is more precise. There are two forces coming from one person. The initial force caused the object to leave its original place. The person then moved forward and intercepted the object before it reached the place where the original throw would have taken it. The second force caused the object to come to rest in his hand.
For example, suppose the object was initially thrown toward a point twenty feet away. The person ran ten feet forward and caught it. He did not catch it where the original throw would have brought it. He created a new force and brought the object to rest earlier than planned. We must ask whether the original uprooting and the later placing, both performed by the same person but through two separate forces, combine to create a liability.
Perhaps this case is like the case in which one person throws an object and another person runs forward to catch it. In that case, the thrower is exempt, because the recipient’s movement caused the placing. If the same person throws the object and then runs forward to catch it, perhaps he is likewise exempt, because his second action is treated as a separate force, like the recipient’s movement in the other case.
On the other hand, perhaps the first person’s original uprooting remains in effect, and the later placing is still performed by the same person. The fact that two forces were involved may not prevent the acts from combining.
The Gemara leaves this question unresolved. It remains a matter to be discussed with Eliyahu Hanavi.