daf bit: Eruvin 6

[cellio]

This week we begin a new tractate, Eruvin. On Shabbat one is not permitted to carry items from a private domain (like a house) into a public domain (like the street) or vice versa. However, this doesn't apply to houses around a central (fenced or walled) courtyard, an architectural style common in ancient Israel; this can be viewed as one big private domain even though it's multi-dwelling. (There are rules, like the people living there actually need to share food on Shabbat.) Applying similar principles, a larger space, like a town, can be enclosed by an eiruv and thus treated as a private domain.

The first several pages of this tractate discuss alleys. An alley is not like a courtyard because it's open at both ends (it's a thoroughfare). The rabbis discuss the effects of walls, posts, doorways, and openings below a certain width. On today's daf we learn that it was taught in the name of R. Yochanan that Jerusalem, a walled city with a central road running through the center, would have been treated as a public domain because of the road, were it not for the fact that its gates were closed at night, rendering it like a courtyard. 'Ulla, too, said the same of the city of Mahuza, which also had gates that were closed at night. But Beit Hillel said you don't need to close the doors; they just need to be present.(6b)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

I must say that when you mentioned "private domain" and "public domain" the techie in me kicked in. One assumes they are talking about physical items and not virtual ones, like things typed or online purchases -- although an extension of the rule would seem appropriate in modern days.

So what do you do if USPS delivers mail? I suppose they are doing the carrying so are merely a proxy. So all you need for inter-household trading is a good heathen who will pick up from one private domain and cross the firewall into another private domain? Such arrangements would be against the spirit of the law, of course.

[cellio]

Yes, physical domain. I should have anticipated your concern; sorry. :-)

About the mail: well, if you have a mail slot it's easy; somebody dropped mail into your house (private domain). If you have a front porch with walls and a roof and the mailbox is there, then maybe the porch is part of your private domain -- I don't know, but you could ask if you wanted to. If your mailbox is out on a post at the end of your driveway, you just don't pick up the mail until after Shabbat.

Arguably you shouldn't be dealing with the mail anyway. It's probably full of bills and junk mail, and anyway opening envelopes would be problematic (tearing). But it might contain Shabbat-appropriate magazines too, so I don't think we can make a blanket statement. (Relevant search term: muktzeh, which is a thing that we don't handle on Shabbat because its only purpose in life is to perform activities that are forbidden on Shabbat. Is (some? all?) mail muktzeh? I've heard different opinions, none particularly authoritative.)

You see how this works, right? Ask a question, see it multiplied before your eyes. :-)

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

All the good questions are the ones that spawn off their own quandries. It is just the rare major religion that relishes it. ;-)

(well, relishes it if the relish is kosher dill.. which I used to believe actually passed under a rabbi's hands on some conveyor belt when I was young...)

For some fun, google ["daf bit eruvin 6"]. Apparently your subject line is a keyword for torrents from way back before you wrote this post. Stop time traveling!

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

Huh. Well, I googled, but then went to ask, but those darn fools seem to have thought ahead of me, so I could not post having found a kind of an answer in a previous thread:

http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/640/mail-delivery-on-shabbos
"It would seem that there may be basis to bring in the mail from the mail-box (provided their is an eruv). If however there is mail which IS muktzeh mixed in with mail permitted to be handled it probably constitutes a teruvos (mixture) to which the laws of borrer (selecting) apply and one could only select the permitted mail, by hand, immediately prior to when one is going to read it. On the other hand, there might be basis to handle the entire mixture at once, especially if the majority is permitted (probably not though)."

Uhm. I think I'd wait on my Shabbat-related magazine until the next day. The rest of the thread becomes incomprehensible to me due to my lack of terminology.

So a Roomba would be muktzeh? After all, should one forget to turn it off before the Shabbat and it merrily goes on cleaning like an infidel...

[cellio]

Oh right; I had forgotten about that question. The accepted answer seems pretty good to me, and also seems to do a reasonable job of explaining technical terms. Which ones can I help you with? (The other two answers don't cover any territory not already covered in the main one.)

The Roomba is muktzeh, and if you forget to turn it off you just have to wait for it to wear its little heart battery out. Or, if it should wander into a closet or something, I think you would be permitted to then close the door.

[talvinm.livejournal.com]

But can you open the door to let the Roomba in? :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

I'm getting a hang of the technical terms, but slowly, as there are few things in my internal lexicon to map chosen ritualistic behaviours to. It's a fun challenge.

Figured a Roomba would be muktzeh. A pre-programmedf coffee maker would be too, although it seems valid to accept and use the product it delivers should the intent be general rather than setting it up so it specifically does its work on Shabbat

Most of the debates seem to be about determining the intent of the law rather than how to subvert the letter of the law. The latter is necessary chaos, but the use of it for the former is a good thing. That resonates nicely with who I want to be.