Are two heads better than one? TB Shabbat 92

Daf TB Shabbat 92 continues to investigate a conceptual approach to the prohibition of carrying something from one domain to another.  Are two heads better than one? Sometimes, but not necessarily always. The Gemara explains a person’s liability depends on several different variables and the sage’s interpretation of the verse and Leviticus.

 He and he “One who carries a large mass out to the public domain on Shabbat is liable. If two carried it out together, Rabbi Meir deems them liable, and Rabbi Yehuda says: If one is incapable of carrying it out, and two carried it out, they are liable. And if not, if each person is capable of carrying it out himself, and nevertheless they carried it out together, they are exempt. And Rabbi Shimon deems them exempt even if neither was capable of performing the action alone. The Gemara asks: From where are these matters derived? What is the biblical source of these halakhot? The Gemara answers that the source is as our Sages taught in Torat Kohanim, the halakhic midrash on Leviticus. It is written: “And if one person among the common people sins unwittingly by performing it, any one of God’s commandments not to be done, and be guilty” (Leviticus 4:27). The Gemara interpreted: “By performing it,” means that one who performs a transgression in its entirety is liable, and not one who performs part of it. How so? If two people were holding a pitchfork and gathering the stalks, or holding a shuttle and weaving the threads of the warp, or holding a quill and writing, or holding a reed and carrying it out to the public domain, I might have thought they are liable, therefore the verse states: “By performing it.” One who performs a transgression in its entirety is liable, and not one who performs only part of it.” (Sefaria.org translation)

Moses Maimonides codifies in the Mishneh Torah, Sefer Zemanim, Hilchot Shabbat Chapter 1, Halacha 15 that a prohibited labor that can be done by one person, but is done by two people in  partnership they are exempt, פטור, from bringing a sin offering. But if a single person couldn’t do the prohibited labor by himself and it is done by two people they are obligated to bring a sin offering חייב.