Several times in our readings, the ugly world of fear has impinged on our rules for religious living. At the end of today’s Daf we get a new Mishnah that reminds us of the fear of physical harm that haunted Jews in most periods in most places. In post-war America, Jews have largely been spared the discrimination of the past 2,000+ years. We certainly have been physically safer in America than most of our ancestors. The Rabbis of the Talmud were attuned to the dangers of living as a Jew and they made allowances.

Extinguishing a flame is a forbidden labor on Shabbat. Today we learn, however, that we are free to extinguish a flame if we fear for our physical safety. Interestingly, we don’t have to be in actual danger, we just have to fear for our safety. The Mishnah goes further and says that we can perform the forbidden labor of extinguishing on Shabbat if it will help a sick person sleep or if it will help us with depression. The Daf ends before we get much discussion of these rules. I am curious if there is something special about extinguishing as opposed to other forbidden labors or if the principle extends to all 38 other forbidden labors. Most of the Rabbis do state that we cannot extinguish the flame merely to preserve the lamp. (We will get one dissenting opinion on this last point).

Two themes appear throughout today’s Daf – intent and whether silence is valid consent. To understand, we need to introduce the concept of “Nolad“. Nolad literally means “newborn” and refers to items that come into existence or into their present form on Shabbat or other holidays where labor is prohibited. Consider tools that broke on a festival. Can we use the fragments as fuel for a fire (some labors are prohibited on a festival, but not as many as Shabbat)? This is a big debate and turns on whether the fragments are something new, and therefore Nolad or not. Whether the fragments are Nolad depends on how we frame the person who wants to burn the fragments intent.

In a similar vein, Rav ate dates one day and threw the pits into his fire as fuel. Rabbi Chiya said that Rav could not use the date pits on Yom Tov because they would be Nolad. Rav did not respond and the Talmud debates whether silence meant he consented to the ruling. We also discuss which dates are superior Persian or Aramean and this is relevant to our discussion because one produced clean pits when we eat them and one produced pits with date meat stuck to them.

The issue of intent also comes to the fore with rags. We have a former cloth that has served its purpose, but we don’t throw it away, have we evinced that the cloth is significant to us? If I rip up an old t-shirt to use to clean my car, are the cloths significant? If they are, then they can become contaminated with ritual impurity. If they are trash (insignificant), then they cannot become contaminated. Intent is tricky and the Rabbis look to objective evidence of intent. If I merely throw my cloth on to a heap, that probably evidences an intent that I don’t believe the item is useful. If I carefully store the item, then it looks a little more significant.

We then posit a new Mishnah about Shabbat lights. We learn that the Rabbis prohibited a Shabbat lamp with a separate fuel source, like a perforated egg shell dripping oil into a lamp. If the oil reservoir and the lamp were all one piece, then we do not have an issue. However, if the oil source is separate from the lamp, we may be tempted to take oil from it (prematurely extinguishing the Shabbat lamp) and that would be prohibited. Of course, we also need to discuss how firmly something needs to be attached to be considered one assembly.

The issue of intent also comes into play in dragging. Dragging is not a forbidden Shabbat labor. Carrying and furrowing are forbidden labors. What happens if we drag a heavy object with the intent of moving it and it creates a furrow? The Rabbis debate whether the dragging becomes prohibited if a furrow is a likely consequence or if the dragging is permitted because a furrow was not our intent. The Rabbis who witness dragging on Shabbat on a marble floor where no furrow is likely to occur debate as to whether their silence in this instance will equal approval of the act.