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עירובין 57:2
Soncino English Talmud · Berean Standard Bible
This is the view of R. Meir. But if this is the view of R. Meir [the objection arises:] Was it not already enunciated in the first clause: A KARPAF IS ALLOWED FOR EVERY TOWN; SO R. MEIR? — [Both were] required. For if [the law were to be derived] from the former only it might have been presumed that one karpaf is allowed for one town and one is also allowed for two towns, hence we were informed that for two towns two karpafs are allowed. And if we had been informed of the latter only it might have been assumed [that R. Meir's view applied to such a case only] because [one karpaf is too] cramped for the use of two towns, but not in the former case where the space is not too cramped. [Hence both were] required. We learned: SO ALSO WHERE THREE VILLAGES ARE ARRANGED IN THE SHAPE OF A TRIANGLE, IF BETWEEN THE TWO OUTER ONES THERE WAS A DISTANCE OF A HUNDRED AND FORTY-ONE AND A THIRD CUBITS, THE MIDDLE ONE CAUSES ALL THE THREE OF THEM TO BE REGARDED AS ONE. The reason then is because there was one in the middle, but if there had been none in the middle the outer two villages would not have been combined. Is not this an objection against R. Huna? — R. Huna can answer you: Surely, in connection with this ruling it was stated: Rabbah in the name of R. Idi who had it from R. Hanina explained: There is no need for the villages to be arranged in the shape of an equilateral triangle but that if on observation it is found that with the middle one placed between the other two they would form a triangle, and there would be between the one and the other a distance of no more than a hundred and forty-one and a third cubits the middle one causes all the three of then, to be regarded as one. Said Raba to Abaye: What [maximum distance] is allowed between an outer village and the middle one? — ‘Two thousand cubits’, the other replied. ‘But did you not say’, the former asked: ‘that logical reasoning is in agreement with Raba the son of Rabbah son of R. Huna who ruled that a perpendicular distance of more than two thousand cubits was allowed?’ ‘What a comparison! There, houses are in existence, but here there are no houses’. Raba further asked Abaye: What [maximum distance] is allowed between the two outer ones? — ‘What [distance] is allowed’! What difference does this make in view of the ruling that ‘if . . . with the middle one placed between the other two’ there remains between them ‘a distance of no more than a hundred and forty-one and a third cubits’ they are all regarded as one? — Even if they are four thousand cubits distant from one another? — ‘Yes’, the other replied. ‘But did not R. Huna lay down: If a town is shaped like a bow then if the distance between its two ends is less than four thousand cubits the Sabbath limits are measured from the bow string, otherwise measuring must begin from the arch?’ — ‘There’, the other replied. ‘you cannot say that the distance is filled up but here you can well say so’. Said R. Safra to Raba: Behold the people of Ktesifon for whom we measure the Sabbath limits from the further side of Ardashir and the people of Ardashir for whom we measure the Sabbath limit from the further side of Ktesifon; does not the Tigris in fact cut between them a gap wider than a hundred and forty-one and a third cubits? — The other thereupon went out and showed him the flanks of a wall that projected seventy and two thirds cubits across the Tigris. MISHNAH. SABBATH LIMITS MAY BE MEASURED ONLY WITH A ROPE OF THE LENGTH OF FIFTY CUBITS NEITHER LESS NOR MORE; AND A MAN MAY MEASURE ONLY WHILE HOLDING THE END OF THE ROPE ON A LEVEL WITH HIS HEART. IF IN THE COURSE OF MEASURING THE SURVEYOR REACHED A GLEN OR A FALLEN WALL HE SPANS IT AND RESUMES HIS MEASURING; IF HE REACHED A HILL HE SPANS IT AND RESUMES HIS MEASURING;
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