Today’s daf TB Eruvin 99 discusses the transfer of different liquids from one domain to another on Shabbat. The last Mishna on the preceding daf sets the stage. “A person may not stand in a private domain and urinate into a public domain, nor may one stand in a public domain and urinate into a private domain.”(Sefaria.org translation)
The Gemara raises the problem that this transfer does not
meet the classic definition we learned in the very first chapter of massekhet Shabbat. “The Gemara raises a difficulty: But
for an act of carrying to be considered a prohibited Shabbat labor that entails
liability, we require that the lifting and placing of the object
be performed from atop an area four by four handbreadths, the minimal
size of significance with regard to the halakhot of carrying on Shabbat”
(Sefaria.org translation)
The same answer why placing an object in another person’s
hand was standing in a different domain than you are applies here. “The Gemara answers: One’s intent
renders it an area of significance, i.e., as one certainly considers his
mouth a significant area, it is regarded as four by four handbreadths in size. As,
if you do not say so, that the size of an area is not the sole criterion,
but that a person’s thoughts can also establish a place as significant, there
is a difficulty with that which Rava said: If a person threw
an object and it landed in the mouth of a dog or in the mouth of a furnace,
he is liable to bring a sin-offering. But don’t we require that
the object be placed on an area of four by four handbreadths? And
that is not the case here. Rather, the person’s intent to
throw the object into the dog’s mouth renders it an area of
significance. Here too, his intent renders his own mouth a
significant area.” (Sefaria.org translation) The same
holds true for urine.
I strongly urge all my readers not to urinate outside whether
you’re standing in a private domain or a public domain. It’s against the law! I
only bring this topic about public urination because it brought back a memory
when I was a junior studying abroad in Jerusalem. Today Mamilla Mall is an
upscale shopping center located west of the Jaffa gate. Mamilla Street. “In response to the announcement of the United Nations
Partition Plan, Arab mobs stormed Mamilla Street on December 2, 1947, ransacking and
setting fire to 40 Jewish-owned stores.[14] Jewish
merchants fled the area, which then came under heavy bombardment during the 1948 Arab-Israeli
War.[14] With the
cessation of hostilities, the area became a no man's land dividing the Jordanian-occupied Old City from Jewish
West Jerusalem, until a truce was signed in 1952.[17] In the 1950s,
poor Sephardic immigrant families and tradesmen took up occupancy in
the derelict buildings, and workshops and auto-repair garages replaced the
former stores” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamilla_Mall
That’s how I found the street when I was a student.
Back in academic year 1972-73 I would walk down Mamilla
Street often for two reasons. The first reason was that it was a direct route
to the old city and the Western Wall. The second reason was one of my friend’s
girlfriend’s mother had some sort of dress shop there. By the way, this girlfriend
ultimately became his wife. I think that my friend’s future mother-in-law also
did some alterations there as well.
Early on as we are walking down the street we noticed a
sign in Hebrew on the wall that read “It is prohibited to urinate here because
this is a holy place.” Apparently inside this building opposite this wall was a
small synagogue and appropriately they didn’t want anybody urinating outside
their shul. Only in Israel when you find a sign like that!
This synagogue as well as all the other businesses no
longer exist when the Mamilla mall was completed in 2008, but somewhere I have
a photograph of that sign which brings a smile to my face.
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