Shabbat 141: Beds, Straw, Shoes, Babies Holding Stones

Today's daf includes two Mishnayot.  The first teaches us that straw placed on a bed must be moved aside only with our own bodies rather than with our hands, which would be too much like moving set aside kindling on Shabbat. If the straw was designated for animal use, or if it was placed on the bed unobtrusively, we are permitted to move it with our hands.  We also learn that a homeowner's laundry press must take it apart so that one will not press with it on Shabbat.  A press belonging to a launderer may be taken apart completely on Shabbat if it was only partially dismantled for Shabbat.

The Gemara focuses on atypical actions, including wiping mud from one's foot on a wall, on the ground, and/or on the ground in different scenarios.  The rabbis also focus on inadvertent actions, including dropping things like shoes. We cannot pick them up and carry them once they are lost in the public domain.  In fact, we cannot pick them up in a karmelit.  

The second MIshna notes that one may take his son in his hands on Shabbat even thought there may be a stone in the child's hand at the time on Shabbat.  We may bring a basket with a stone in it, and may may lift a measure of teruma as long as it is pure.  

The Gemara turns to the question of carrying a living baby into the public domain on Shabbat.  If that baby had a purse hanging over its neck.  The parent of the child is liable in this case.  But if we carry a child who has died, carrying them with the purse around their neck is liable for carrying out both the purse and the baby.  Rabbi Natan says that any living being carries itself.  But is the object secondary to the person?  When a bed is relative to a human being, the person negates it.  We can also see the purse in this way.  

We are taught by the Sages of the school of Rabbi Yannai about why a father can pick up a child with a stone in the child's hand.  He says that the wrenching the stone could cause illness in the baby, who was pining for his father, would be like causing illness to this child.  The child would be left crying, injured by this brutality.