Eruvin

This1 is the view of2 R. Meir.3 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,4 hence we were informed5 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 view6 applied to such a case only] because [one karpaf is too] cramped for the use of two towns, but not in the former case7 where the space is not too cramped.8 [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 then9 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 this10 an objection against R. Huna?11 — R. Huna can answer you: Surely, in connection with this ruling it was stated: Rabbah12 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 equilateral13 triangle14 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 other15 a distance of no more than a hundred and forty-one and a third cubits16 the middle one causes all the three of then, to be regarded as one.17 Said Raba to Abaye: What [maximum distance] is allowed between an outer village and the middle one?18 — ‘Two thousand cubits’,19 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?’20 ‘What a comparison!21 There, houses are in existence,22 but here there are no houses’.23 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 them24 ‘a distance of no more than a hundred and forty-one and a third cubits’ they are all regarded as one?25 — Even if they26 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?’27 — ‘There’, the other replied. ‘you cannot say that the distance28 is filled up29 but here you can well say so’.30 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;31 does not the Tigris32 in fact cut between them a gap wider than a hundred and forty-one and a third cubits?33 — The other thereupon went out and showed him the flanks of a wall that projected seventy and two thirds34 cubits across the Tigris.35 MISHNAH. SABBATH LIMITS MAY BE MEASURED ONLY WITH A ROPE OF THE LENGTH OF FIFTY CUBITS NEITHER LESS NOR MORE;36 AND A MAN MAY MEASURE ONLY WHILE HOLDING THE END OF THE ROPE ON A LEVEL WITH HIS HEART.37 IF IN THE COURSE OF MEASURING THE SURVEYOR REACHED A GLEN OR A FALLEN WALL38 HE SPANS IT39 AND RESUMES40 HIS MEASURING; IF HE REACHED A HILL HE SPANS IT AND RESUMES HIS MEASURING; began. intervening. combined into one, even in the absence of the third village, owing to the fact that no more than the space of two karpafs (2 X 70 2/3 = 141 1/3 cubits) intervened between them. cubits. also permitted to regard the former as placed between the latter. (supra 55b). the bow. country. either side. pp. 164ff.] Thus assuming that the two towns are combined into one. cubits. correctness and in the process of measuring. Correctness is impossible where one end of the rope is held at one level and the other end at a higher or lower level, since the distance measured would in this case be less than the full length of the rope. stands on its near side while another stands on its far side, each of them holding one end of the rope which is thus stretched across the glen or the collapsed wall. By this method of measuring one gains for the Sabbath limit the distances taken up by the slopes. narrower than fifty cubits in another part that was removed from the town sideways. The surveyor, when reaching the edge of the glen, is in such circumstances allowed to make a detour to the narrower section of the glen, to span it there with the rope, and to continue his measuring until the rope is perpendicular to the line drawn from the point furthest from the town on the far side of the glen. He then RESUMES his measuring from that point to the end of the Sabbath limit.