Thought for the Day: When It Comes to Shabbos, Not All אבות Have תולדות, But הוצאה Most Definitely Does

It is always tricky to translate from one language to another, especially languages as different from each other as English and Hebrew. Take the words אבות  and תולדות, for example. In the context of familial relations, they would be translated as "ancestors" and "chronicles/history". In the context of Shabbos, though, they mean more like "categories" and "constituents". Interestingly, the name given to each category of מלאכה seems to be just one of the constituents. So much so, that they gemara brings a two different ways to determine whether a particular מלאכה is an אב or a תולדה.

Speaking of fathers and categories, I can't help but repeat one of my father's favorite jokes about racism: 

A row broke out on a bus in the old south during the 50s (middle of last century).  The fight was over who could sit where.  The bus driver we fed up and declared, "No more fighting! This is ridiculous!  There is no white, there is no black; everyone on this bus is green!  Got it, y'all? Green!"  Everyone murmured their agreement and felt appropriately castigated.  The bus driver then announced, "Good.  Now, dark green in the back, light green in the front."

 Here are the rules to determine if a particular מלאכה in the הוצאה category is an אב or a תולדה:

• The מלאכה that was significant in the משכן is called the אב, the מלאכה that was not significant in the משכן is called the תולדה.
• The מלאכה that was written is called the אב, the מלאכה that was not written is called the תולדה.

(There is another rule, but that is about what happens when a מלאכה is transgressed, not about how to characterize that מלאכה.)

That second rule in particular is very interesting to me, as it is completely objective. Now, though, let's put that rule together with the principal stated by the Pnei Yehoshuah (When and Why a Melacha in the הוצאה Category Requires a Specific Scriptural Source) that if there is no scriptural source for a מלאכה, then it can't have תולדות. That is a fascinating idea, because most of the מלאכות have no scriptural source, they are all a transmission of the Oral Law based on the Torah telling us to build the משכן, but not to violate the Shabbos. From there we learn that any craft that was essential to building/running the משכן is perforce a מלאכה.

    

That is going to give us an interesting way to read the gemara on 73b. After discussing the 39 categories of מלאכה, the gemara presents a few lists of activities that is says are all one מלאכה; not תולדות of one אב, but all one מלאכה. For example, Hebrew has different words for harvesting wheat, grapes, olives, and figs. It is all one thing, though; just different words for essentially the same activity. Digging a hole is not in an of itself a מלאכה: if you dig in the house, you are building, if you dig in a field you are plowing. One activity, but its effect on the world is different depending on context. Finally, the gemara gives a list of several אב מלאכות: 

      זורה/winnowing, בורר/selecting, מרקד/sifting

and says they are -- in spite of being distinct אב מלאכות -- all activities that separate the good from the bad. Whether they all have תולדות, and exactly what constitutes each אב is actually an interesting discussion. See this TftD for more on that point.

One last thing, I was told by one of the yungaleit with whom I was discussing this idea, that he was told that the Vilna Gaon finds a scriptural source for each mishna in Pikei Avos precisely because they are all called אבות. Interesting, no?