What is Talmud Tweets?

What is Talmud Tweets? A short, personal take on a page of Talmud - every day!

For several years now, I have been following the tradition of "Daf Yomi" - reading a set page of Talmud daily. With the start of a new 7 1/2 year cycle, I thought I would share a taste of what the Talmud offers, with a bit of personal commentary included. The idea is not to give a scholarly explanation. Rather, it is for those new to Talmud to give a little taste - a tweet, as it were - of the richness of this text and dialogue it contains. The Talmud is a window into a style of thinking as well as the world as it changed over the centuries of its compilation.

These are not literal "tweets" - I don't limit myself to 140 characters. Rather, these are intended to be short, quick takes - focusing in on one part of a much richer discussion. Hopefully, I will pique your interest. As Hillel says: "Go and study it!" (Shabbat 31a)

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Eruvin 85 – The In-Between

There is a discussion about air space and the restrictions, or not, that are placed on them. An analogy is brought from a small space between the public and private (remember that on Shabbat nothing is allowed to be passed between those two kinds of spaces)

When R. Dimi came (from Palestine to Babylonia) he stated in the name of R. Johanan: On a place (between a public and private domain) whose area is less than four handbreadths by four (i.e. too small to be it’s own domain) it is permissible both for the people of the public domain and for those of the private domain to re-arrange their burdens, provided they do not exchange them?

The problem with “exchanging” is that forget and assume that one could carry from private to public. It is therefore a kind of “fence around the Torah” and rabbinic enactment meant to protect basic Torah laws.

 and the Sages have applied to their enactments, heavier restrictions than to those of the Torah.

An interesting observation that the rabbinic laws can be more strict than the Torah laws!
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