Shabbat 64: Women and Men's Ornaments Permitted in the Courtyard on Shabbat

The Gemara continues to discuss our last Mishna, introduced in daf 63.  It taught that men cannot go out with a sword, a bow, a shield or a spear, liable to bringing a sin-offering.  Rabbi Eliezer says that these are ornaments for him and thus they are permitted.  The rabbis say that these are reprehensible as they are weapons which will be eliminated in the future, as it says in Isaiah (2:3): "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares..."  The rabbis add that a garter placed on a woman's leg to hold up stockings is pure.  It cannot become ritually impure as a utensil and it may be worn out on Shabbat.  Ankle chains, also women's ornaments, could become ritually impure and were not permitted to be worn out on Shabbat.

Amud (a) of daf 64 talks about different ornaments and whether or not they can become ritually impure. The rabbis suggest may verbal analogies, gezera shava, can help us to understand which items are ritual pure or impure.  They argue about what is actually comparable.  One of the more basic gezera shava is comparing the ritual impurity caused by a creeping animal by that caused by semen.  Thrown into this conversation is the assertion that a man must not gaze on women, even body parts normally exposed like their little fingers, in case that look becomes lustful.

A new Mishna tells us that women are permitted to go out on Shabbat with strans of hair that she put on her hair whether from her own hair that of another made from a person or an animal into a wig.  She may go out with an ornament called a totefet or sarvitin, head and hair ornaments, when they are sewn and will not all off.  She is also permitted out with a woollen cap or a wig to the courtyard, a cloth in her ear a cloth in her sandal and a cloth placed due to her menstrual status, but only into the courtyard and not the public domain.  Women are permitted out with pepper, a grain of salt, anything placed in her mouth for healing or preventing bad odour as long as it is not placed into her mouth for the first time on Shabbat.  If it falls out she may not replace it.  A false tooth and a gold tooth are permitted by Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi but the rabbis prohibit this.

The rabbis discuss which kinds of hair might be regarded as repulsive and thus not permitted to be out on Shabbat.  Is it enough to say that a girl does not out with the hair of an elderly woman and vice versa?  The rabbis state that elderly women would want to look young  but girls would not want to look elderly, and so we learn about some of the biases of ancient times.

Considering a woman's behaviour during menstruation, there is an argument about whether or not she should wear rouge and eyeshadow, at least in the courtyard for her husband to see, at these times.  Commentaries teach us that this may be to encourage men to be attracted to their wives at all times, including when she is meant to be separated from him due to menses.  Rav Yehuda says that Rav is against this.  

Our daf ends when we go back to our Mishna's teaching that an animal belonging to a Jew may not go out on Shabbat with a bell around its neck even when it is plugged.  This is because it looks as thought one were taking the animal to the marketplace.  It may be permitted in the courtyard.