A new Mishna: a person with an amputated leg may go out on Shabbat with their wooden leg. Rabbi Emir says that it has the legal status of a shoe. Rabbi Yosei prohibits this as he does not see it having the legal status of a shoe. If the leg has a space for pads, it assumes the status of a wooden vessel and can become ritually impure. If one has their feet amputated, and they are zavs, they are subject to ritual impurity imparted by treading. Those supports are vessels designated for treading. They may go out on Shabbat and enter the Temple courtyard.
If one cannot walk at all and sits in a chair propelled by one's hands, the chair and supports are subject to ritual impurity imparted by treading. They may not go out on Shabbat nor enter the Temple courtyard with those supports. We are told that loketamin, either wooden toy donkeys. or stilts to avoid mud, or masks, are ritually pure because they are not vessels and thus cannot become ritually impure. One may not go out with them on Shabbat.
In their discussion about going out with a wooden leg, the rabbis consider the chalitza ritual. The childless widow may take off her brother-in-law's right or left sandal, whether it is wooden or belongs to someone else, and the ritual is still valid. This is not enough to convince the rabbis that an amputee is permitted to be out on Shabbat with a wooden leg. We also learn that a walking stick of any kind is ritually pure and incapable of becoming ritually impure. It does not hold all of one's weight and thus it is not prohibited by treading.
A second new Mishna teaches that young boys may go out on Shabbat with knots as a folk remedy and princes with bells. Any person is permitted to go out on Shabbat with those objects, but the Sages spoke about present day situations that were of concern.
Abaye speaks about his mother, who was actually his foster mother, teaching him the healing properties of madder, some sort of medicinal plant, were used for healing or for protection from sorcery. The Gemara wonders why boys were mentioned when girls or adults could use this tool. And they ask about the knots, as well. Perhaps a son who longs for his father wears a strap from the father's right shoe and ties it onto the boy's left arm as a talisman to address those longings. Our commentary teaches that young boys spend more time with their fathers. Or, perhaps, this refers to boys at the age of maturity who have recently lost their fathers.
Other medicinal practices are permitted on Shabbat as well. These include putting a cup that had boiling water in it on one's navel, and smearing oil and salt on oneself. Oil and salt wear spread on one's palms and soles with ritualistic words to cause sobriety. It is permitted to tightly bandage the neck of a person whose vertebrae was dislocated on Shabbat. It is permitted to tightly swaddle a baby to align any limbs that were dislocated in birth.
Abaye says more about his mother's teachings. She said that all incantations that are repeated are intoned using the name of the mother of the one requiring the incantation, and all knots tied for the purpose of healing are tied on the left. She also said that each incantation must be said a specific number of times. If there is no number specified in advance, they should be recited forty-one times.
The Sages teach that a preservation stone , which prevents miscarriage, may be worn out on Shabbat. It applies to all women whether or not she has miscarried in the past. Another stone of the same weight may also be used and worn in the public domain.
More from Abaye's mother, who said that a pale (newly minted) dinar should be taken to the salt pools and weighs against salt, and bind the slat to the opening of the neckline of one's garment with a thread made of hair to resolve a one-day fever. If this doesn't work, one should sit at a crosssroad and take an ant carrying something, put it in a copper tube, and close it with lead, seal it with sixty seals, shake it , lift it, and say to it "Your burden is upon me and my burden is upon you." One might also say that both burdens are upon the ant just in case someone else already put their burden on this ant.
Finally, if that remedy doesn't work, one should take a new jug to the river and say "River, river, lend me a jug of water for a guest who happened to come to me." Then one should turn it around one's head seven times, pour out the water behind them, and say "River, river, take back the water that you gave me because the guest who happened to come to me came on its day and left on its day."
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