Dear Rabbi Kornfeld,
A big Yasher Koach for all your great work on the Daf. You have many Talmidim even in Down Under Australia. Here are a few of questions that came up in our Daf Yomi Shiur in Melbourne.
(a) The first Mishna of Bakol Me'arvin discusses the use of wine for a Nazir, or Truma for a Yisroel, for an Eiruv.
Sumchus argues that the Eiruv must be fitting as food for the person making it. Even if there is a remote possibility that he could eat it, as the Gemora says on Daf 30B, he could be shoel on his nezirus and it would becom Mutar, this is OK. But if there is no way he could eat it, Sumchus invalidates the Eiruv.
The Tana Kama however holds, as Rash explains on the mishna, that even though the Eiruv cannot be eaten by the person making the Eiruv, as long as someone can eat it, it is OK.
The whole logic behind Eiruv is that we look at it as if the place of his Eiruv is the person's home over Shabbos. That is why Chazal required food for two meals at this place. This allows him to measure the 2000 Amos from that point and not from his real home.
How can we consider it his home if there is nothing at all there that he can eat? The fact that it is OK for someone else should only be relevant if someone else were making the Eiruv?
(The other questions were put into their respective Dapim)
Kol Toov and Good Shabbos,
Yisroel Alter Pacanowski
Thank you for your kinds words of encouragement.
(1) Good question. In fact, RASHI in Pesachim (23a) explains that the reason of the Tana Kama of our Mishnah -- who says that a Yisrael may make an Eruv with Terumah -- is because the Yisrael has the right to be Sho'el on the Terumah status of the food and to be Mafrish other Terumah instead (see later in Eruvin, 30b, and see also the RESHASH on 28a). TOSFOS there in Pesachim, though, points out that our Gemara (Eruvin 28a) does not give that reason, but rather the Gemara says that "since it is fit for someone else" one may make an Eruv with it (see Reshash ibid., and see the TOSFOS REBBI AKIVA EIGER #20 on the Mishnayos and BO'AZ #1 on the Mishnayos).
As to what the logic of the reason given in the Gemara (28a) is, the RITVA says that the Gemara means that the Terumah food is intrinsically fit for a Yisrael to eat, it is just that "an Isur has perched itself upon the food like a lion" and one is prevented from eating it. Nonetheless, it is considered food fitting for two Se'udos since the food intrinsically is permitted to the Yisrael (see the Ritva there, that even though the Gemara seems to contradict this contention (28a, Gudgedaniyos...), nevertheless it could be what the Gemara means in the Maskanah of the Sugya).
If we do not accept the explanation of the Ritva (as many of the Rishonim do not), it must be that any food which is fit for one to feed to others gives the place a status of "the person's residence" for Shabbos, since he could reside there and invite guests and feed them there. This is a leniency which the Rabanan permitted in the laws of Eruvin.
Be well,
-Mordecai
(a) May I suggest another response:
A Kohen can make an Eiruv in a Beis Haprass using one of two methods: he may do it himself or by sending a non-Kohen to put the Eiruv there for him.
In the first case there is no problem at all with any Issur on Shabbos - the entering of the Beis Haprass must be done before the Bein-Hashemashos and in so doing the Kohen must clear the path to the place of the Eiruv. On the next day - Shabbos - the Kohen - if he wishes to eat the Eiruv - need merely follow the path he already cleared on Friday.
The second case is problematical:
If a non-Kohen placed the Eiruv in the Beis Haprass for the Kohen he should clear a path for the Kohen to use on Shabbos. And we assume he did so: "Hazakah Shaliach Oseh Shlichuso" in a useful way; or else may we not say that just as we don't care whether a Yisroel can eat his Eiruv of Teruma - so we don't care that the Kohen be able to actually eat his Eiruv:
(b) Reverting to answer (1): "the Gemara (Eruvin 28a)... says that "since it is fit for someone else" one may make an Eruv with it (see Reshash ibid., and see the TOSFOS REBBI AKIVA EIGER #20 on the Mishnayos and BO'AZ #1 on the Mishnayos). "
Thus the reliance on the Shaliach having cleared the path would be necessary only for Sumchus!
It may also be that even if Sumchus does not agree on the presumption that Shaliach Oseh Shlichuso in the sense I used the presumption, Sumchus may agree with the Ritva in this case: here the "Lion" isn't even sitting on the food itself, like in the case of wine for the Nazir; it is only preventing the approach to the food! And it is also a very funny Lion: it is like Maxwell's selective shutter, preventing only Kohanim - and not their wives, daughters or slaves - from getting the food.
Yeshayahu HaKohen Hollander
(a) The Poskim (OC 309:1) imply that even if the Kohen did not clear away a path before Shabbos, he is permitted to enter the Beis ha'Pras and take his Eruv by blowing away the dirt on Shabbos.
(b) It is certainly possible to reason that Sumchus agrees when the place is the impediment, as you suggest. However, Rashi (at the end of 26b) in the Mishnah writes the opposite, that even the Chachamim agree to Sumchus that the Eruv is not valid with the place is the impediment.
Thanks for the comments!
-Mordecai