Bava Batra 55b (נה:) — the Talmud in English

And

the public thoroughfare

[a road sixteen cubits wide], which is a place for the passage of horses and wagons belonging to the public -

And

the private thoroughfare

[a road four cubits wide] -

And the public path

[a path for the public to walk along on foot]

and the private path -

that is fixed

ly

both during the summer and during the rainy season,

because it is not a place for plowing and sowing, and therefore people walk there even during the rainy season.

And with regard to the obligation of pe'a for each field, this is what Rabbi Yohanan said: Even a boundary and a hatzav interrupt in a field, and one must leave pe'a from each one.

The Gemara further explains:

What is the impurity

[with regard to which law concerning impurity does an interruption between two fields make a difference]?

As we learned

in tractate Tohorot:

One who enters a valley -

that contains many fields -

during the rainy season,

when people do not walk there [so that they will not damage the crops], and the status of the valley is that of a private domain with regard to the principle that we accept: “A doubtful case of impurity in a private domain is impure,”

and

there is

impurity in

within

a certain field

[but not throughout the entire field],

and

the one who entered the valley said: “

I walked to that place

[in the valley],

but I do not know whether I entered that place

[the field in which there is impurity], and even if I entered it, I do not know whether I walked as far as the grave and became impure by being under its tent,

or not”:

Rabbi Eliezer deems him pure

even though it is a private domain, where a doubtful case is impure, as he proceeds to explain the reason.

And the Sages deem him impure

in accordance with the law of a private domain, where a doubtful case is impure.

For Rabbi Eliezer would say:

If the uncertainty was

a uncertainty of entry,

that is, when the uncertainty is whether he entered a field containing impurity at all, then he is

pure,

even though it is a private domain; and for this reason he deemed one who entered the valley pure.

But only if the uncertainty was

an uncertainty concerning contact with impurity,

that is, he certainly entered the field, but does not know whether he reached the place of the impurity, is he

impure

in a private domain.

And with regard to the law of Rabbi Eliezer, the boundary and the hatzav interrupt: If there was impurity somewhere in the field on one side of the boundary, and it is uncertain whether he entered on this side or not, he is not impure, since it is “a uncertainty of entry.” But if there was a large field in which no boundary interrupts in the middle, and he knows that he entered the large field but does not know whether he walked on the side where the impurity was, this is “an uncertainty concerning contact with impurity,” in which case he is impure, because the entire area is considered one field, and he did enter it.

And the Gemara infers: Since Ravin disagreed in the name of Rabbi Yohanan only with regard to pe'a and impurity, that the boundary and the hatzav interrupt, and did not also disagree with regard to Shabbat, it follows

but with regard to Shabbat, they do not

interrupt, the boundary and the hatzav. The Gemara proceeds to explain what relevance an interruption between two fields has with regard to Shabbat.

Rava said: Even with regard to Shabbat

they interrupt.

The Gemara explains with regard to what this interruption is effective in the laws of Shabbat:

As it was taught:

If a person

carried out

food on Shabbat measuring

half a dried fig

[which is half the measure for carrying out food, for which one is liable to bring a sin-offering on Shabbat] from a private domain

to a public domain, and placed it

in the public domain

; and he again carried out

a measure of

another half dried fig

and placed it there:

If he carried them out

in one lapse of awareness,

without remembering in the interim that that day was Shabbat, he is

liable

to bring a sin-offering.

But if he carried them out

in two lapses of awareness,

having remembered between one act of carrying out and the other that that day was Shabbat, he is

exempt,

because “acts of awareness divide sin-offerings”; that is, the awareness he had between the two acts of carrying out divides the acts into two, each of which does not contain the requisite measure, and therefore he is exempt.

Rabbi Yose says:

Even

in one lapse of awareness

there is a division in this matter: