Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 157b
Oct 9, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Our Sages forbade us to take measurements on Shabbat. In their day, as in ours, measurements were most often associated with commerce. They strove to create a day free from the workaday stresses of acquisition. We see this sensitivity in this prohibition, as in the many prohibitions and commandments we have seen throughout the year. As we began the year, I hoped to convey that Shabbat is first and foremost a spiritual discipline.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 113a
Oct 2, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Some of our Sages felt that objects which could not be used on Shabbat in any permitted way should be utterly outlawed for the entire twenty-five-hour period of Shabbat. This prohibition, termed by the Talmud, Issur Tilltul (the prohibition on moving an object), eventually came to be known as muktzeh(things placed to the side). If an object has no use on Shabbat, it is in this category and, generally, may not be picked up and moved to another location on Shabbat.
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 42a–b
Sep 23, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Cooking is forbidden on Shabbat. This is already clear in the Torah. In Exodus 16:23, Moses commands the Israelites to bake their manna before Shabbat begins. But what are the limits of cooking? Does adding spice to a completed dish constitute cooking? When is the cooking process considered to be complete?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 35b
Sep 18, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
When does Shabbat begin? When does it end? What separates the mundane time of the week from the transcendent time of Shabbat? The simple answer is that Shabbat is the seventh day of the week. Since Genesis 1 places the night before the morning (“And there was evening, and there was morning . . . “), Shabbat begins at nightfall on Friday. But how do we define nightfall? When the sun sets? When it gets dark? When the stars come out?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 34a
Aug 29, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
Certain things must be done before Shabbat begins. Our mishnah gives a checklist of three things about which the head of a family must inquire as Shabbat begins. Have the necessary tithes been taken from the produce? Has the boundary delineating the extent of private space, the eruv, been properly established? Have the Shabbat lights been lit?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 30a-b
Aug 22, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
We are called upon to live a life of mitzvot, not die deaths in our attempt to fulfill God’s commandments. A dangerously sick person requires our care and we are commanded to desecrate Shabbat to fully see to his or her care. Our source puts forward a question about this with regard to a light that is preventing a sick person from sleeping. Are we allowed to desecrate Shabbat by extinguishing the flame and thereby help make rest and recovery possible?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 12a
Aug 15, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
We do not make personal petitions on Shabbat, leaving them for our weekday prayers. What then do we do when visiting the sick on Shabbat? During the week, prayer for healing is an element of our visit, but during Shabbat we should transcend our human needs so that we may gain a taste of the world to come. Nonetheless, we still remain in possession of our bodies on Shabbat and may still fall ill. Illness may sometimes inspire us to spiritual growth, but on the whole, most of us would say that we do not desire suffering or its rewards. So how do we approach the tension between the desire to overcome the physical on Shabbat and remain cognizant of the need for physical healing?
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Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 25b
Aug 8, 2009 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study
How do we transcend the physical on Shabbat? Our physical existence is temporary, and our bodies are eventually subject to the most horrendous filth, decrepitude, and rot. Shabbat promises a vision of the world to come, in which we imagine our physical decline halted and even reversed. We light Shabbat lamps to inaugurate this period, and light illumines our spirits as well as our homes. But what about our bodies? How do we prepare our all too imperfect flesh for the holy Sabbath?
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