The rabbis continue to discus Abba Shaul’s principle: Regarding anything that I may discuss on Shabbat, I am permitted to wait for nightfall for its sake.
A new Mishna adds to our last Mishna: We may wait for nightfall at the Shabbat boundary to attend to the needs of a bride and the needs of a corpse, like bringing a coffin or shrouds. If a Gentile brings flutes on Shabbat to play during the eulogy and procession, a Jew may not eulogize with the m unless they are from from within the eiruv. If Gentiles make a coffin and dig him a grave on Shabbat and then they decide to give them to someone else, a Jew may be buried there. But if it was initially intended for a Jew, a Jew may never be buried there.
Shmuel teaches that this suggests that uncertainty in whether or not the Gentile’s actions were for a Jew permits a burial. Similarly, if it is uncertain where the flutes came from for a funeral, we are permitted to have them. Our notes teach that we wait the amount of time that it would take to deliver the flutes from a certain area to determine whether or not the flutes actually came from that place.
We also learn that Jews must wait the amount of time it would take for bathhouse water to heat up after Shabbat so that we are not benefitting from the water that was heated on Shabbat. This is only when there is a majority of Jews in a city. If there are a majority of Gentiles, Jews may bathe immediately after Shabbat. If there is a fifty/fifty split, one waits as long as it would take to heat the water. If there is a small bath and a ruling power in the city who has others heat the water immediately after Shabbat, a Jew may use that bath right away as well.
A second new Mishna teaches that we may perform all of the needs of the dead on Shabbat including smearing the body with oil and rinsing it with water. We may not move its limbs because of the prohibition against moving set-aside objects. We may remove a pillow from beneath a corpse and put it cold sand to delay decomposition. We may tie an opening jaw without closing it completely but by stopping it from opening further. We are permitted to support a broken roof beam with long poles from a bed or with a bench but only to stop it from falling further.
There are some bizarre mentions of what one might do to help a corpse from swelling, like sealing up orifices and putting cold and metal vessels on the stomach. King Solomon is said to speak about a silver cord, a golden bowl, a pitcher broken and a wheel felled (Ecclesiastes 12:6). This is interpreted by the Gemara as what happens to a corpse. Another disgusting interpretation of Malachai 2:3 is shared as well.
We look at our third new Mishna. We are not to shut the eyes of the dead on Shabbat because the body is set aside. We may not shut the eyes on a weekday because the soul is departing. If we shut the eyes while the soul departs we are actually murdering someone as we are hastening a person’s death.
The Gemara is clear that people who are alive, even babies at one day old, have the potential to do mitzvot and thus we may desecrate Shabbat for them. For the deceased, even King David, we do not desecrate Shabbat because once we die, we are “idle from mitzvot”.
The rabbis discuss the relationships between live and dead animals people. After this conversation Rabbi Chanina says that it is prohibited to sleep alone in a house. Anyone who does this will be seized by the evil spirit Lilith.
The Gemara discusses Rabbi Chiyya and his wife. He advised her to give a poor person bread immediately so that they will do the same for her (and his children). Are. You cursing our children, she asks. He quotes Deuteronomy 13:18 about the cyclical nature of compassion.
We are also told that Rabbi Chanina did not cry when his daughter died. His wife asked if he had just let a chicken out of the house that he showed no signs of sorrow. He said that if he cries he will suffer twice, from bereavement and from blindness.
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