One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת שְׁבִיתַת יוֹם טוֹב
Shevitat Yom Tov · Chapter 5
Sefer Zemanim · Carrying differently, sending gifts, and how your possessions carry your boundary
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Cubits: the festival boundary (techum)
Depart
Carry not in the weekday manner
3
Porters in a line looks like a market caravan
Coal / flame
One follows the owner, one the carrier
Part 1Carry, but not like a weekday
- Change the manner. Though carrying is permitted, do not haul heavy loads as on a weekday - carry jugs on the shoulder, not in a basket, so you do not look absorbed in weekday business. (5:1-2)
- Public square only. The change is needed where a passerby might see; at home or in a courtyard one may carry normally. (5:1)
- No weekday props. No directing an animal with a staff, no shepherd's pack, no carrying a person in a chair (unless the public needs him). (5:3)
- Meat by the limb. An animal slaughtered in the field is carried in piece by piece, not slung whole on a pole. (5:5)
RememberEven the permitted must look different from a weekday - wear the festival on the outside.
Part 2Gifts, not a caravan
- Send joy. One may send a friend anything usable - wine, oil, fine flour, even a live animal (it may be slaughtered) - because giving swells the day's joy. (5:6-7)
- Not what needs a forbidden act. No grain, since it is useless until ground, and grinding is forbidden. (5:7)
- Not by a delegation. Do not send it with three porters walking in a line - that wears the face of a market shipment; three carrying different things is fine. (5:8)
RememberThe same wine is a gift by one hand, commerce by a caravan - the day cares how the sacred looks.
Part 3Your things carry your boundary
- Possessions follow the owner. Your animal, produce, and the wine in your cellar may go only as far as you may walk; a guest's portion follows your limit, not his (unless deeded before the day). (5:9-13)
- The coal and the flame. A coal follows its owner (a discrete object); a flame follows whoever carries it - light a lamp from a neighbor and it is wholly yours, and he loses nothing. (5:16)
- Public vs private. A private cistern's water follows its owner; a public well or a flowing spring belongs to whoever draws from it. (5:14)
- Shared meat vs shared wine. A jointly-owned animal's meat follows both partners (its limbs nurtured each other); divided wine follows each owner (bereira applies). (5:20)
RememberA coal is bounded by its owner; a flame belongs to whoever carries it - and the giver keeps all he gave.