Siman 350

It has already been explained in siman 347, section 7, that a person's hand extended into another domain is judged according to the domain where the hand is extended, and we do not say that his hand is drawn after his body to be judged according to the domain where the body stands. Therefore, a person may stand in a reshut harabim and move objects in a reshut hayachid by extending his hand as much as he wishes, or stand in a reshut hayachid and move objects in a reshut harabim, taking from one place and placing in another place. Provided that he does not transport it four amot, and if he transported it four amot, he is liable. And in the Rambam, at the beginning of chapter 15, it is written: "And if he brought it out, he is exempt, because he is in another domain," see there. And these are wonderous words; what does it matter to us that he is in another domain, for behold, his hand is judged according to the domain where it is extended. And if it is because he transports it over himself, behold we also maintain that he is liable, as the Rambam himself ruled in chapter 12 at the end of law 14, and the Gemara in Eruvin (99a) compares this to that, see there. And the Ra'avad already challenged him, and the Maggid Mishneh wrote that it is an error, and he found in some of his books that the version is "liable," see there. (And according to this it must be said: even though he is in another domain.)

The previous law is a Mishnah in Eruvin (98b). We further learned there: "A person may not stand in the reshut hayachid and drink in the reshut harabim, or in the reshut harabim and drink in the reshut hayachid—unless he brings his head and the majority of his body into the place where he is drinking." And it is proven in the Gemara that the reason is because we decree lest he bring the vessel to himself to the reshut in which he is standing, and it will turn out that he carries out from reshut to reshut. And the Shas asks: why in the previous law did they not decree, and how did they permit standing in this reshut and moving objects in another reshut without requiring that he bring in his head and the majority of his body? And the Shas answers: that regarding items that are necessary for him, such as water or other liquids, they decreed lest he bring them in, whereas regarding ordinary objects as in the previous law—they did not decree. And this is from a reshut hayachid to a reshut harabim or vice versa, but from one of them to a karmelit or from a karmelit into them—it is permitted to stand here and drink in the second reshut by bringing in his head alone, even though he did not bring in the majority of his body, for regarding a karmelit they did not concern themselves lest he bring them to himself, for even if he brings them, there is no Torah prohibition, and they did not decree a decree upon a decree. However, his head he must bring into the place of his drinking, for if not so, it would be placed in a mouth that stands in the other reshut and he would be moving objects directly from the reshut harabim to the karmelit, or from the reshut hayachid to the karmelit, or vice versa.

And there are some of the poskim who explained that "objects that are necessary for him" is not because of the drink alone, for regarding that alone we would not be concerned lest he bring them to him; rather, it deals with beautiful vessels and he also drinks from them, in this they decreed lest he bring them to him. But with beautiful vessels that he does not drink from, or if he drinks from vessels that are not beautiful—they were not concerned and did not decree, and it is sufficient with the exit of his head alone without his majority, unless he drinks from beautiful vessels. And this is the opinion of the Rambam there, who wrote: "In what case are these matters stated? When he was drinking from beautiful vessels etc." see there. (And his reasoning appears to be that if it were not so, he should have said "drinking is different." And if it depends only on beautiful vessels, why did he have to depict it with drinking? Rather, certainly both are required. And the first opinion is the opinion of Rashi and Tosafot and the Rosh and the Tur, and according to their words it must be said that this is what we are saying, regarding objects that are necessary for him like water or other objects that are necessary for him, and examine this closely).

And there is a question regarding this: why does the Shas compare the second law to the first law? For in the second law, one is forced to bring his head and the majority of his body into the place where he drinks, for the liquids enter the intestines, and if the intestines are not in the domain where the water is located, he is performing an uprooting in the reshut hayachid and a placing in the reshut harabim, or vice versa. And the answer to this is that certainly if the liquids went directly to the intestines, it would not have been difficult for him. However, the liquids are first in his mouth, and from his mouth they descend to the intestines, and his mouth is a makom patur that does not have a width of four, and it is an uprooting in the reshut hayachid and a placing in a makom patur, and afterwards an uprooting from a makom patur and a placing in the reshut harabim. And even though it is forbidden to do this ab initio, as is written in siman 347, this is because we fear perhaps he will not place it in the makom patur; but regarding drinking, it is impossible for it to be in any other manner. And from this the Shas judges that the reason for the prohibition is only lest he bring them to himself, and therefore it asks: what is the difference from the previous law? (Rashi, see there). And even though we do not consider his mouth a makom patur, since he has assigned it importance as was written in siman 347, section 4, see there, this is when his mouth is in the place where the entire body is. But here, where his mouth is in the place where he drinks and the body is in another domain, his mouth is considered a makom patur (the Rosh there, siman 6) as the reason will be explained.

For behold, that which we say "his intention makes it a place" - the meaning is because that object is nullified to the domain standing there, and it is like the domain itself which contains a place of four. And this is regarding an object that does not have permanence, such as a person and other living creatures or movable vessels. But an object that has permanence - we do not say "his intention makes it a place," because it is not nullified to the domain due to its permanence. And therefore, at the beginning of the chapter HaZorek we say, regarding the weavers of the curtains who threw a shuttle into the curtain, and it asks: but they are traveling in a makom patur, see there. And it is difficult: behold, his intention makes it a place. But the answer is, since it is an object of permanence, this is not effective, as we have said. (Tosafot end of chapter HaZorek starting with "vehotziu" and Maharsha there). And according to this it works out well, that if his mouth stands in the place where the body stands - we rightly say that "his intention makes it a place." But when his mouth is in a different domain from his body, it is impossible to say that it shall be nullified to the place where it is, for behold the body which is in another domain will not allow it to be nullified to the domain where his mouth is, and if so, it automatically becomes a makom patur. (This is the intention of the Rosh, and see Korban Netanel there). And therefore, regarding the law that one should not spit, it will be explained that "his intention makes it a place," because his mouth and his body stand in one domain. (And see Magen Avraham subsection 2). And even though regarding his hand extended to another domain we consider it like a place of four, even though the body is in another domain, as written there in siman 347, a hand is different, for it itself is considered like four by four for the reason we explained there, and so our sages of blessed memory said (Shabbat 5a): "The hand of a person is considered like four by four," and not for the reason of "his intention makes it a place." (And the Magen Avraham subsection 2 raised a difficulty from this and labored to distinguish because the object was in his hand previously, see there, and his words are puzzling, for what is the connection between this and that, and examine it closely). (See Tosafot Eruvin 20a, and this is before we conclude that his hand is significant).

And since a person may stand in a private domain and move objects in a public domain, or vice versa, therefore it is permitted to stand in a public domain and extend one's hand into a private domain to take a key to open the door, and we do not fear that perhaps he will bring the key to himself. And likewise, when he wishes to lock his house, he may go out to the public domain and lock his house with the key, and place the key there in some location within the private domain, and we do not fear that perhaps he will take it to carry it in the public domain. (And one should not ask that in siman 346, section 10, we only permitted this in a karmelit, for that is regarding bringing the key to himself, as is explained there, whereas here it is only to lock and open and place the key there.)

A person should not stand in a private domain and urinate into a public domain, or in a public domain and urinate into a private domain, and similarly he should not spit. And if he urinated or spat—he is liable for a chatat, for he has uprooted from a private domain and deposited in a public domain or vice versa. And even though the place of the urine is not a place of four by four, and similarly his mouth is not a place of four by four, nevertheless his intention makes it a place of four by four, as I wrote in siman 347, section 4, for since his mouth and the place of the urine stand where the body stands, we say his intention makes it a place, as I wrote. And similarly, he should not stand in a karmelit and urinate into a private domain or into a public domain, or from them into a karmelit, for he is carrying from a karmelit to a private domain and a public domain or vice versa. And even if he extended his mouth and his organ outside—it is forbidden to urinate or to spit, for they were uprooted from his body which stands in another domain. And it is not similar to drinking, for there it was placed in his mouth beforehand and afterwards enters the intestines. But urine does not linger in the opening of the organ at all, but rather goes from his body to the outside, and similarly the spit. However, in this he is not liable for a chatat, for it is a question that was not resolved in Eruvin (99a). And similarly, one who walks in a public domain and spit collects in his mouth, some say that he should not walk four amot until he spits, for since he needs to cast out the spit, it is considered like a burden, and this is the opinion of the Tur. But the Rambam in the commentary on the Mishnah there, ruled that the halacha is not so, see there, and similarly wrote the Bartenura there. And it appears from the Gemara there, that regarding phlegm and mucus it is certainly forbidden when they have become detached and are placed in his mouth, see there. (However, it is not absolute proof, for there everything is according to Rabbi Yehuda, and they ruled not like Rabbi Yehuda, and although phlegm and mucus were not mentioned in the Mishnah, nevertheless who is to say that even in this the sages did not disagree with him. And nevertheless one should be stringent, since the Tur rules like Rabbi Yehuda even regarding spit, and in the Shulchan Aruch this opinion was brought, certainly one should be careful in this. However, for us where there is no public domain, perhaps everyone agrees, and delve into this).