1The Gemara wonders: Is that to say according to Rav, that due to dyeing, yes, he is liable; due to taking a life, no, he is exempt? Rather, emend Rav’s statement and say: He is liable due to dyeing as well. And Rav said: I will say something as an explanation with regard to the statement I said, so that later generations will not come and laugh at me: In what sense is dyeing a desired consequence for him? It is desired that the area of the slaughter will be inundated with blood, so that people will see it freshly dyed and come to purchase fresh meat from him. Therefore, the one slaughtering the animal also wants its neck dyed.
2We learned in the mishna, among those liable for performing primary categories of labor: And one who salts it and one who tans it. The Gemara asks: The prohibited labor of salting is the same as the prohibited labor of tanning, i.e., salting is a stage in the tanning process. Rabbi Yoḥanan and Reish Lakish both said: Remove one of them and replace it with drafting. In their opinion, the labor of drafting, drawing lines on the hide to indicate where it should be cut, should replace salting in the list of thirty-nine labors. Rabba bar Rav Huna said: One who salts meat on Shabbat to preserve it is liable due to the labor of tanning. Rava said: There is no tanning with regard to food. No action taken with food falls into this category. Rav Ashi said: And even Rabba bar Rav Huna said it falls into the category of tanning only when he needs to pack the meat for a trip and salts it thoroughly. However, to eat in the house, a person does not render his food inedible, tantamount to a piece of wood. In that case, he certainly would not salt the meat to a degree that would approximate tanning.
3We learned in the mishna, among those liable for performing primary categories of labor: And one who smooths it and one who cuts it. Rabbi Aḥa bar Ḥanina said: One who rubs the hide between the pillars on Shabbat, i.e., places the skin between pillars made for that purpose (Rav Hai Gaon) and rubs it between them, is liable due to the labor of smoothing. Rav Ḥiyya bar Abba said: Rav Ashi told me three statements in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi: One who planes the tops of posts on Shabbat to make them even is liable due to the labor of cutting, due to his insistence that they all be equal. One who spreads a bandage onto a wound on Shabbat is liable due to the labor of smoothing. And one who chisels a stone on Shabbat is liable due to the labor of striking a blow with a hammer, as he thereby completes work on the stone. Rabbi Shimon ben Kisma said that Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: One who engraves a figure onto an earthenware vessel and one who blows in order to craft a glass vessel is liable due to the labor of striking a blow with a hammer. Rav Yehuda said: One who removes protruding, irregular threads from a cloak is liable due to the labor of striking a blow with a hammer. And that applies only if he is particular about them and would not wear the garment until all protruding threads are removed. In that case, work on the garment is not complete until the threads are removed.
4We learned in the mishna, among those liable for performing primary categories of labor: And one who writes two letters. The Sages taught: One who wrote one large letter, and in its space there is room to write two, is exempt, as he wrote only one letter. However, one who erased one large letter, and in its space there is room to write two, is liable. Rav Menaḥem, son of Rabbi Yosei, said: And that is a greater stricture with regard to erasing than with regard to writing. Although greater stringency is usually accorded to creative acts, here the destructive act of erasing is more stringent. Although he erased only one letter, he made room for two, which is the essence of the prohibited labor.
5We learned in the mishna, among those liable for performing primary categories of labor: One who builds and one who dismantles; one who extinguishes and one who kindles; and one who strikes a blow with a hammer. With regard to the labor of striking a blow with a hammer, it is Rabba and Rabbi Zeira who both stated a principle: One who performs any action on Shabbat that contains an element of completion of work is liable for the labor of striking a blow with a hammer.
6The mishna concludes: These are the primary categories of labor. The Gemara explains that the emphasis on the word these, indicating these and no others, comes to exclude the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer, who renders one liable for the performance of a subcategory of prohibited labor when performed together with a primary category under which it is subsumed. Rabbi Eliezer deems one who performs two prohibited labors, a primary category and its subcategory, liable to bring two sin-offerings. In his opinion, one who unwittingly performed all the labors in one lapse of awareness would be liable to bring more than thirty-nine sin-offerings. Therefore, the mishna emphasizes that there are only thirty-nine primary categories of prohibited labor, and one could not possibly be liable to bring a greater number of sacrifices. When the mishna repeats that the labors number forty- less-one, that is to exclude the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda. As it was taught in a baraita : Rabbi Yehuda added lining up the threads of the warp and beating the threads of the woof to the list of primary categories of labor. They said to him: Lining up is a subcategory subsumed under the primary category of stretching the threads of the warp within the loom, since both involve arranging the threads of the warp. Beating is subsumed under the primary category of weaving. The mishna teaches that there are no more than thirty-nine primary categories of labor.
7MISHNA: And they stated an additional principle with regard to the halakhot of Shabbat. Anything fit to store, in the sense that it is large enough to make it worthwhile to store for future use, and people typically store items like it, and one carried it out into a prohibited domain on Shabbat, he is liable to bring a sin-offering for that action. And anything not fit to store and people typically do not store items like it, since it is too insignificant to warrant storage, and one carried it out on Shabbat, only the one who stores it is liable. By storing the item, one indicates that the item is significant to him, even though it is not significant for the typical person. Therefore, he alone is liable for carrying it out into a prohibited domain.
8GEMARA: With regard to the principle in the mishna: Anything fit to store, the Gemara asks: What does it come to exclude? In the opinion of the tanna , what is not fit for storage? Rav Pappa said: It comes to exclude the blood of a menstruating woman. Mar Ukva said: It comes to exclude the wood of a tree designated for idolatry [ ashera ]. Since one may derive no benefit from a tree designated for idolatry, it has no monetary value. The Gemara explains these opinions: The one who said that blood of a menstruating woman is not fit for storage, all the more so that the wood of an ashera is unfit, as, by Torah law, one is required to destroy it. However, according to the one who said that the wood of an ashera is unfit for storage, the blood of a menstruating woman is fit, as one stores it to feed to the cat. Although it is not typically stored, it does have some use. And the other, who holds that the blood of a menstruating woman is not fit for any use, isn’t it fit for use as cat food? In his opinion, since feeding a person’s blood to an animal weakens that person, one does not store it.
9Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina said: All of these objective criteria mentioned in our mishna are not in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Shimon, as, if one would attempt to say that the mishna is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Shimon, didn’t he say: The Sages in the mishna only stated all these fixed measures for items carried out with regard to those who store them? Only one who stores those items is liable for carrying them. However, one who does not store the item, and for whom it is insignificant, is not liable even if that item met the measure for liability delineated in the mishna.
10We learned in the mishna: And anything not fit to store, that is too insignificant to warrant storage, only one who stores it is liable for carrying it out.