Chiefly from other tractates of the Talmud the following may here be added. It would break the Sabbath rest to climb a tree, to ride, to swim, to clap one's hands, to strike one's side, or to dance. All judicial acts, vows, and tilling were also prohibited on that day (Bez. v. 2). It has already been noted that aid might be given or promised for a woman in her bed. But the Law went further. While it prohibited the application or use on the Sabbath of any remedies that would bring improvement or cure to the sick, all actual danger to life,' ({hebrew}, Yoma vii. 6) superseded the Sabbath law, but nothing short of that. Thus, to state an extreme case, if on the Sabbath a wall had fallen on a person, and it were doubtful whether he was under the ruins or not, whether he was alive or dead, a Jew or Gentile, it would be duty to clear away the rubbish sufficiently to find the body. If life were not extinct the labour would have to be continued; but if the person were dead nothing further should be done to extricate the body. Similarly, a Rabbi allowed the use of remedies on the Sabbath in throat diseases, on the express ground that he regarded them as endangering life. On a similar principle a woman with child or a sick person was allowed to break even the fast of the Day of Atonement, while one who had a maniacal attack of morbid craving for food ({hebrew}) = bolimos might on that sacred day have even unlawful food (Yoma viii. 5, 6).
Such are the leading provisions by which Rabbinism enlarged the simple Sabbath-law as expressed in the Bible, [6490] and, in its anxiety to ensure its most exact observance, changed the spiritual import of its rest into a complicated code of external and burdensome ordinances. Shall we then wonder at Christ's opposition to the Sabbath-ordinances of the Synagogue, or, on the other hand, at the teaching of Christ on this subject, and that of his most learned and most advanced contemporaries? And whence this difference unless Christ was the Teacher come from God,' Who spake as never before man had spoken? __________________________________________________________________
[6476] The Jerusalem Talmud is not only the older and the shorter of the two Gemaras, but would represent most fully the Palestinian ideas.
[6477] On the Sabbath-journey, and the reason for fixing it at a distance of 2,000 cubits, see Kitto's Cyclop. (last ed.) Sabbath-way,' and The Temple and its Services,' p. 148.
[6478] In the Jerusalem Talmud a Gemara is attached only to the first twenty chapters of the Mishnic tractate Shabbath; in the Babylon Talmud to all the Twenty-four chapters.
[6479] I have counted about thirty-three Haggadic pieces in the tractate.
[6480] In the former case it might be a burden or lead to work, while in the latter case the covering was presumably for warmth.
[6481] Such a free place ({hebrew}) must cover less than four square cubits - for ex., a pillar would be such. To this no legal determination would apply. The wide space' is called Karmelith ({hebrew}). The Mishnah, however, expressly mentions only the private' and the public' place (or enclosed' and open'), although the Karmeilth was in certain circumstances treated as public,' in others as private' property. The explanation of the terms and legal definitions is in Jer. Shabb. 12 d; 13 a; Shabb. 6, a, b; Toseft. Shabb. 1.
[6482] Here such questions are raised as what constitutes the beginning, for ex., of shaving or a bath.
[6483] To kill such vermin is, of course, strictly forbidden (to kill a flea is like a camel). Rules are given how to dispose of such insects. On the same occasion some curious ideas are broached as to the transformation of animals, one into another.
[6484] The Lulabh ({hebrew}) consisted of a palm with myrtle and willow branch tied on either side of it, which every worshipper carried on the Feast of Tabernacles (Temple and its Services,' p. 238).