We have read many times about things that are biblically permitted, but the Rabbis prohibit. Rabbinical prohibitions arose because the Rabbis were acutely aware of human psychology and decision making. Today, we will see Rabbinic rules designed to fight procrastination. I am very aware of the power of procrastination to upend the best made plans.

Before we get to the discussion of procrastination, we have to finish our exploration of the difference between public and private domains. As our understanding becomes ever more nuanced and complete, we must reach for ever more obscure cases to test the limits of our knowledge. We ended yesterday by looking at the case of three people: our rich lady homeowner inside her house hands an object to her butler on the threshold of her house. The butler hands the object to our poor man in the public plaza. The threshold is an exempt area, so neither the transfer to the butler or to the poor man violates a biblical prohibition. Nevertheless, the Rabbis state that the whole transaction is prohibited. The Rabbis next want to know who is liable for the transgression. The conclusion is no one is liable because no one person completed all of the steps.

Our discussion leads to a whole discourse on thresholds. I am not very mechanically minded and my knowledge of ancient doors is limited at best. Therefore, all I can tell you, dear reader, is that the rules around thresholds are very dependent on how they are constructed and how the door operates. If you are in need of additional information, either consult the Daf directly or have a discussion with a more threshold-savy Talmudic scholar.

We then end our first Mishnah and introduce a new Mishnah. We are in Tractate Shabbat, but our new Mishnah could have appeared in our last Tractate. We introduce a Mishnah about when we pray the weekday Minchah service. This Mishnah has nothing to do with Shabbat. We study it here, because our next Mishnah, which we will encounter in a couple of days, looks at the same rules for Shabbat that we now look at for every weekday.

A little review before we begin. Mnchah is the afternoon service. The morning service and the evening service are biblically mandated. Minchah does not have the same status, but rather serves as a substitute for the afternoon Temple service. Minchah must be recited at some point between noon and the beginning of night. Our second Mishnah discusses activities we are not allowed to start “shortly” before Minchah. The Rabbis are concerned that if we start these activities to close to Minchah, we will get distracted and not stop to recite the Minchah service. The activities we are prohibited from starting “shortly” before Minchah are (a) a haircut, (b) a visit to the bathhouse, (c) work in the tannery, (d) eating a meal, (e) hearing a judicial case. Our Mishnah makes clear, however, if we started these activities earlier and the time for Minchah arrives, we do not have to interrupt them when the time for Minchah comes.

We get a discussion of what “starting” each of these activities entails. With eating, we get a difference between the way Babylonian Jews commenced a meal and the way Israeli Jews commenced a meal. Babylonian Jews apparently wore tightly cinched garments. At the commencement of the meal, they would unfasten their belts and then wash their hands. Israeli Jews wore looser clothing. They did not to unfasten their belt so they commenced a meal by washing their hands. I typically end a meal by unfastening my belt!