Commentary for Eruvin 173:19

התם רשויות דאורייתא

Now what are we dealing with?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' In the statements fixing the dimensions as three and four handbreadths respectively.');">⁴²</span> If it be suggested: With the water-channel itself,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Sc. that if its width was three handbreadths it was according to the first Tanna the status of a karmelith from which the water may not be carried into the private domain of the courtyard.');">⁴³</span> consider the following which<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'and (what,) however, (about) that'.');">⁴⁴</span> R'Dimi when he came,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' From Palestine to Babylon.');">⁴⁵</span> cited in the name of R'Johanan: No domain can be regarded as a karmelith if it is less than four handbreadths. Did he<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' R. Johanan.');">⁴⁶</span> then make his statement in agreement only with one of the Tannaitic opinions?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'must we say: According to (one of the) Tannas he made his statement since according to the Rabbis a domain of three handbreadths may also be regarded as a karmelith. Is it likely, however, that R. Johanan would differ from the Rabbis, 'who are in the majority, and adopt the view of an individual authority?');">⁴⁷</span> - No, we are rather dealing<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' In prescribing the dimensions. Lit., 'but'.');">⁴⁸</span> with its<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' The water-channel's.');">⁴⁹</span> embankments<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Not the channel itself.');">⁵⁰</span> in respect of exchange.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Sc. if all embankment is sufficiently high and less than three handbreadths wide it constitutes, according to the Rabbis, a free domain into which an empty bucket may be taken from the private domain and one full of water from the karmelith and transferred respectively from it into the karmelith and into the private domain. If the embankment is three handbreadths wide it uses the status of a free domain and can no longer serve as a mere adjunct to the domains between which it is situated. This ruling is consequently quite independent of that of R. Johanan's.');">⁵¹</span> But did not R'Dimi when he came<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' From Palestine to Babylon.');">⁴⁵</span> state in the name of R'Johanan: On a place whose area is less than four handbreadths by four both the people in the public domain and those in the private domain may rearrange their loads, provided they do not exchange them?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' And thus unlawfully carry an object from the public into the private domain or vice versa. Now, since objects may be placed on it both front the public and from the private domain it must obviously have the status of a free domain, and yet it was forbidden to exchange these objects. How then can it be maintained that a bucket of water may be transferred from the private domain into the karmelith and vice versa by way of the embankments?');">⁵²</span> - There<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' R. Dimi's ruling.');">⁵³</span> it is a case of Pentateuchal domains<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' A private domain and a public one the movement of objects between which is Pentateuchally forbidden. Hence R. Dimi's restriction.');">⁵⁴</span>

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