of labor, the performance of any one of which constitutes a violation of the Sabbath. Every other kind of work becomes illegal only if it can be classified under one or any of these principal acts of labor. Thus, for instance, under the principal act of ploughing, every analogous kind of work, such as digging, delving, weeding, dunging, etc., must be classified. In addition to these thirty-nine principal acts and their accessories and derivatives, there are other acts which are especially prohibited by the rabbinical law as tending to violate the Sabbath rest (Shbhuth). For the violation itself various degrees of culpability are established, and various degrees of punishment awarded. All these subjects relating to the due observance of the Sabbath, and pointing out its violation in every possible way, form the contents of the treatise Sabbath.
In order properly to understand the Mishna, and to avoid tedious repetitions, it is necessary to commence with the explanation of certain general principles and technical expressions predominating in the text.
Wherever throughout the Mishna the expression guilty, culpable (Hayabh), or free (Patur) is used, the meaning of the former (guilty) is that the transgressor acting unintentionally must bring the sin-offering prescribed in the law; of the second expression (free), that the accused is absolved from punishment.
If through the performance of an unprohibited act some other (prohibited) occupation is inadvertently entered upon, it constitutes no offence, providing the latter is not done intentionally nor the lawful occupation entered upon with the covert purpose of making it serve as a subterfuge to do that which is prohibited.
In the degrees of violation the nature of the occupation must be considered, as various kinds of labor may be required to perform and complete one act, and thus the offender may become amenable to several penalties. On the other hand, the rule is laid down that such occupations as only destroy, but do not serve an end in view, do not involve culpability (in the rigorous sense of the word); nor yet does work which is but imperfectly or incompletely performed involve culpability.
The prohibition to carry or convey any object from one place
