The Original Understanding of Sea Sponges in mShabbat 21:3 (Hakirah Book 28)

In common Mishnaic texts mShabbat 21:Three reads"ספוג אם יש לו עור בית אחיזה מקנחין בו ואם לאו אין מקנחין בו וחכמים אומרים בין כך ובין כך ניטל בשבת". The nameless redactor (stamma) of bShabbat 143a, adopted by medieval halakhic students, understood this Mishnah as instructing that squeezing a handleless sponge violates a melakhah. However, this interpretation of the Mishnah has many issues. Equipped with the stamma’s understanding of the Mishnah, Avraham ben David (“Ravad,” 12th century) doubted whether or not a sponge’s deal with can in truth stop the sponge from being squeezed whereas scrubbing and wiping down a floor, and actually evade transgression of melakhah. A widespread medieval Mishnaic rationalization, that the melakhah transgressed by squeezing a moist sponge is sprint, is in direct battle with Talmudic sources which allow squeezing supplies if the fluid exudate just isn’t meant for assortment (הולך לאיבוד). Furthermore, as many as fifteen textual variants, many of that are contradictory to 1 one other, exist for this clause of the Mishnah, suggesting that the style in which the Mishnah was interpreted has tailored over time. It can be reasoned that the stamma of bShabbat 143a erroneously understood mShabbat 21:Three as discussing violation of a melakhah, whereas in truth the Mishnah describes sea sponges as they pertain to the legal guidelines of muktzeh—an interpretation supported by the context of the Mishnah’s chapter. Specifically, the Mishnah teaches that with-out its deal with the ocean sponge is taken into account an incomplete device (keli), thereby topic to muktzeh restrictions. The feedback of the stamma had been possible a really late stratum added to the Talmud. The Babylonian redactor’s error might presumably be attributed to his restricted familiarity with the manufacture of sea sponges, an business traditionally centered in the Mediterranean Sea. The impression of this stamma upon the event of halachic stringencies in the legal guidelines of Shabbat can be described.