Eruvin 57b (נז:) — the Talmud in English

The point is:

the conclusion of our Mishna is not a continuation of the statement of the Sages. Rather, it is an unattributed Mishna. And

whose opinion is it? —

It is the opinion of Rabbi Meir.

And I hold in accordance with the opinion of the Sages.

And we challenge this:

If

the conclusion of the Mishna is

the opinion of Rabbi Meir,

why was it necessary to teach it at all?

For

it has already taught it

in the statement of Rabbi Meir in

the beginning: “One grants a karpef to a city; this is the statement of Rabbi Meir”!

And we answer:

It is necessary

to state Rabbi Meir’s position both at the beginning and at the conclusion.

For if it were stated only there,

in the beginning of the Mishna, where it taught Rabbi Meir’s statement that one grants a karpef to a city,

I would have said

that one grants only a single karpef, even between two cities.

And this is what I would have said: One grants a karpef

to one

city,

and

a karpef

to two

cities.

It teaches us

in the conclusion

that for two

cities,

two

karpefs

are granted to them

according to Rabbi Meir.

And if it had taught us only here,

in the conclusion, that according to Rabbi Meir one grants two karpefs to two towns, I would have said that the reason is

because their use is constricted.

They must be given the expanse of two karpefs because they are close together and require open space due to the congestion resulting from their proximity to one another.

But there,

at the beginning, where it is speaking of a single city, whose entire surrounding area is open,

since their use is not constricted —

I would say no

karpef is granted to it at all [and this is indeed the opinion of the Sages, and Rabbi Meir would agree with them].

Therefore,

it is necessary

to teach us that according to Rabbi Meir a karpef is granted even to a single city.

The Gemara raises an objection to Rav Huna from the continuation of the Mishna:

We learned: “And similarly, three villages arranged in a triangle” —

if there are one hundred forty-one and one-third cubits between the two outer ones

which is the measure of two karpefs —

the

village

in the middle makes all three of them one.

And we infer:

The reason is that there is

a

middle

village between the two villages, and one grants one karpef to connect the middle village to the village on one side, and another karpef to connect it to the village on the other side. Consequently, there is only one karpef between one village and the next.

But if there is no

village

in the middle —

no

two karpefs are granted in order to connect them.

This is a refutation of Rav Huna!

Rav Huna could have said to you: This was stated concerning it: Rabba said that Rav Idi said that Rabbi Ḥanina said:

In our Mishna,

it is not

the case that the villages were

actually arranged in a triangle

in a single row, one after the other.

Rather,

the middle village was situated a considerable distance from the other two, and the two standing in a single row were also not close to one another.

And in order to connect them,

“we view”

that anything which, if

I were to take the middle village from its place and

place

the

middle

village between the two outer villages,

would be

as a result of the [imaginary] placement of the middle village between them,

“arranged in a triangle,”

as though all three were standing in a single row, close to one another,

and there is no

distance

between each one and the next except one hundred forty-one and one-third cubits,

meaning that this measure exists between each village and the next.

Then,

the

village

in the middle makes all three of them one.

That is, Rav Huna explains that according to Rabbi Ḥanina, two karpefs are indeed granted between two villages in order to connect one to the other.

For the Mishna is dealing with a middle village that stands at a distance, and “we view” whether, according to its size, it can fill the empty area between the other two villages. A space of two karpefs is left between the middle village and each of the villages at its sides.

He

asked

Rava said to Abaye: How great may

the distance

between

the

outer village and the middle one

be for us to “view” the middle one as though it stood between the outer villages?

He said to him,

Abaye: Up to

two thousand cubits.

Since one can travel from one village to the other without an eruv of Shabbat limits, we view the middle village as though it were standing between the two villages.

Rava said to Abaye:

But you are the one who said

earlier, concerning a city shaped like a bow, that

the opinion of Rava, son of Rabba, son of Rav Huna, is more reasonable, as he said:

even if the chord is distant from the bow

more than two thousand cubits,

the two sides of the bow are nevertheless considered one city, and the city’s Shabbat limit is measured from the chord.

And Abaye rejected this:

Can these cases be compared?

What is the similarity?

There,

in a city shaped like a bow,

there are houses

along the entire bow, and all the residents of the city can reach both ends of the bow through the houses of the city. Therefore, the two ends of the bow can be joined even if the chord between them is more than two thousand cubits from the arc of the bow.

But

here,

with three villages, where the middle one is more than two thousand cubits from the outer ones,

there are no houses

by means of which one can travel from one village to the other.

And

he asked further

Rava said to Abaye: How great may

the distance

between the outer villages

be?

How great may

the distance be —

what practical difference does it make to you?

After all,

anything which, if one brings

the

middle village between them, and there is only one hundred forty-one and one-third cubits between each one and the next,

is considered one; so why should we care about the distance between them, when everything depends on the width of the middle village?

And

Rava asked him: Is it

even

the case that the distance between the two outer villages may be

four thousand cubits?

He said to him,

Abaye:

Yes.

Even if there are four thousand cubits between the villages, the middle village joins them together as one.

Rava challenged him:

But did Rav Huna not say: With regard to a city shaped like a bow, if there are less than four thousand cubits between its two ends —

one measures its limit from the chord; but if not —

one measures its limit from the bow!

He said to him: There,

in a city shaped like a bow,

there is no way to say “fill,”

as we have nothing with which to fill the area between the two ends of the bow.

But

here,

with a middle village situated between the two outer ones,

there is a way to say “fill,”

as one fills the airspace between the outer villages with the measure of the width of the middle village.

Rav Safra said to Rava: Consider the residents of

the city of

Akistafon, for we measure

their

Shabbat limit from this side

from this side

of

the city of

Ardashir. And the residents of

Ardashir, we measure their Shabbat limit from this side of Akistafon.

This is because we consider them one city.

How is this done?

But there is

the

Tigris River, which interrupts

between them

by more than one hundred forty-one and one-third cubits!

He went out,

Rava went out, and

he showed him

Rav Safra

those foundations of the wall,

the rows of the city wall

that are absorbed

and enter

the

Tigris

within seventy cubits and remnants

of the city’s intercalation.

Mishna:

One measures

the city’s Shabbat limit

only with a rope fifty cubits long, neither less nor more.

And one measures only opposite his heart.

The Sages established that the two measurers who stretch the rope between them should hold the rope opposite their hearts, so that one should not hold it opposite his heart while the other holds it opposite his feet, thereby reducing the Shabbat limit.

If he was measuring and reached a ravine

that is not fifty cubits wide,

or a wall

that had fallen and is now a high mound of stones, upon which people walk, there is no need to measure the slope of the ravine or the mound. Rather, he shall

“bridge over it,”

with one measurer standing on this bank of the ravine and a second measurer standing on the opposite bank, and they measure it above it as though it were level ground; and in the case of a mound, they measure it from the side,

and the measurer returns

to

his measure.

And the Gemara explains that the meaning of “he returns to his measure” is that if the ravine is wider than fifty cubits, so that he cannot bridge over it by measuring above it, he goes sideways beyond the city, to a place where the ravine narrows to less than fifty cubits in width, and there he bridges over the ravine. From there he looks toward the place on the other side of the ravine and continues measuring the ravine opposite the city.