"My library" TB Shabbat 40

In the course of telling a story about Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the editor of the Mishnah, Wednesday’s daf TB Shabbat 40 teaches us a practical halakha. Even though a person is supposed to meditate upon the words of the Torah day and night, there are some inappropriate places where we are prohibited to think or discuss Torah because it either is a dirty and smelly place or a place where people are naked. The two places are a bathroom or a shevitz.

“Rav Yitzhak bar Avdimi said: One time I followed Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi into the bathhouse on Shabbat to assist him, and I sought to place a jar of oil in the bathtub for him, to heat the oil somewhat before rubbing it on him. And he said to me: Take water from the bath in a secondary vessel and place the oil into it. The Gemara remarks: Learn from this comment of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi three halakhot: Learn from it that oil is subject to the prohibition of cooking. This explains why he prohibited placing it in the bathtub. And learn from it that a secondary vessel is not hot and does not cook. And learn from it with regard to oil that warming it is tantamount to cooking it.

“How did Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi do this? How did he teach his student halakha in the bathhouse? Didn’t Rabba bar bar Hana say that Rabbi Yohanan said: In all places, it is permitted to contemplate Torah matters except for the bathhouse and the bathroom? And if you say that he spoke to him in a secular language, didn’t Abaye say: Secular matters are permitted to be spoken in the sacred language, Hebrew, even in the bathhouse, and sacred matters may not be spoken in the bathhouse even in a secular language? The Gemara answers: It was permitted for Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi to conduct himself in that manner because he was preventing an individual from violating a prohibition, which is different.” (Sefaria.com translation)

I heard a story that Dr. Saul Lieberman, one of the greatest talmudist in the 20th century, kept his Greek literature and philosophy in the bathroom, since he could not study Torah there. I call my bathroom “my library.” That’s where I read all my secular magazines like Sports Illustrated, Time, and Smithsonian for the same reason. Sometimes when I’m reading an interesting article and spending a long time in “my library” that Judy asks if I am ok or whether I have fallen in.

I’m so used to reading in the bathroom that I’m startled when I visit somebody’s bathroom and there is no reading material. I just wonder what they do in there.