Shabbat 123: Which Utensils Can Be Moved on Shabbat

We are permitted to move utensils that still have food on them for the purposes of eating on a Festival or Shabbat.  For things like launderers' pins, presses and clothing rods, they must remain intact and so they have a special place. They are not removed for other purposes.  Same with a mortar and pestle.  Can we use a goldsmith's hammer to crack nuts?  Would it ruin the hammer? Would it ruin the spices?  What counts as moving on Shabbat - can we move a reed to insert into the bottom of a fig or radish?  

We learn from Rav Yosef that we can take an ordinary hand needle used for sewing clothes to extract a thorn.  This is challenged based on questions of ritual impurity if the eye or point were removed - its status as a vessel would then be voided and it would be ritually pure.  

We are not permitted to make afiktoizin, a drug to induce vomiting, on Shabbat.  Medicines must be atypically prescribed to be used on Shabbat.  

A new Mishna teaches that a reed used for turning olives in a bundle, if there is a cork-like knot at its top, can become ritual impure as a vessel.  If not, it cannot become ritually impure because it is not a vessel.  In both cases it may be moved on Shabbat for use in a permitted action.  The Gemara notes that flat wooden vessels do not become ritually impure because objects must be similar to a sack to become ritually impure.  The reed has a tiny cavity that might get filled with oil.  Is it enough to become ritually impure?

A second new Mishna teaches from Rabbi Yosei: All utensils may be moved on Shabbat except for a large saw and the blade of a plow.  They must be sharp, ready for use, and possibly damaged and thus they will not be thought of nor used for another purpose.  

The rabbis discuss different utensils and whether or not they should fall into this category.  At the end of our daf, questions arise regarding rods and poles.  The latter are used for carrying the Pesach offering by carrying two ends of the pole over two people's shoulders.  If the 14th of Nissan fell on Shabbat, people would put their hands on each others' shoulders and hold the Paschal lamb hanging between them.