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Explanation and interpretation of three unclear words in Bavli Eruvin 104a-b

Summary

The article tackles three obscure terms in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Eruvin 104a–b: dyofe, meiarak and kitana. Commentators and dictionaries have explained them in confused and sometimes contradictory ways. The words appear in two Sabbath discussions.

  • Sound on the Sabbath. Ulla holds that any sound is forbidden, while Rabbah forbids only musical sound. Abaye objects to Rabbah by citing a baraita about a siphon and a dripping vessel used for a sick person.
  • Drawing water at Mehuza. Amemar first allows drawing water with a wheel there, then withdraws the permission when he sees the water being used to soak something.

Zur's method has three parts:

  • He breaks down how the sugya's reasoning is built, step by step.
  • He collects the explanations of medieval commentators and compares the spellings found in parallel sources and printed editions.
  • He checks the proposed meanings against Talmudic lexicons.

He groups the interpretations word by word and roughly in chronological order. His main finding is that the competing spellings of each word lead directly to competing explanations. Settling the meanings explains what the implements actually did, and that in turn makes the legal reasoning of the passage easier to follow.

Key points

  • Sources consulted: R. Hananel, the Rif, Rashi, the Aruch lexicon (Aruch ha-Shalem), R. Haye Gaon, the Geonic responsa, Jastrow's dictionary, the Tosefta, the Yerushalmi, a Genizah fragment, and the Venice and Pisaro editions.
  • dyofe: explained as a siphon, literally "two mouths". It was a pair of reeds joined at an angle. Someone sucked on one end until the wine started to flow, after which it moved by itself from one barrel to another.
  • meiarak: found in many spellings (arak, adak, mei arag, meadak and others). It was a vessel with a narrow, stoppered top and small holes in the bottom. Once the stopper was removed, water dripped onto a metal vessel below and made a soft sound. It worked like a clepsydra and was used in sickrooms to wake or settle a patient.
  • Agreement on meiarak: every source agrees on this meaning except Mar R. Zadok.
  • kitana: has three main readings.
    • Rashi reads kitana as flax.
    • Rashi's alternative reading bunta means spelt.
    • The Geonim and R. Hananel prefer khintei/khinta, mortar soaked in water to make clay vessels. They consider the "flax" reading inaccurate.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. The meaning of an obscure term is constrained by the job it does in the surrounding argument, such as supporting or refuting a ruling, and not only by etymology. — For Mova (frames): When roles for an unknown noun are uncertain, check which reading keeps the objection-and-rebuttal chain of the discourse coherent, and use that as evidence for the sense.
  • I2. Many spelling variants of one word are first collected into a single entry, and then each variant is tied to the interpretation it supports. — For Mova (tokens): Lemma tables could store variant spellings together with the sense each one tends to signal, so normalising a spelling does not erase evidence about its meaning.
  • I3. An artifact is defined by how it works (air pressure, perforations, the sound it makes) instead of by a bare label, and that functional description is what makes the legal question answerable. — For Mova (world): Ontology entries for tools could carry mechanism and effect slots, such as "produces sound" or "moves liquid", so the reasoner can derive consequences rather than look them up.
  • I4. Interpretations are sorted per sense; the consensus reading is recorded, a single dissenter (Mar R. Zadok) is named explicitly, and an authority's judgement of which reading is accurate is kept. — For Mova (learn): When witness parsers disagree, store the majority choice alongside named minority votes and a confidence note, instead of collapsing everything into one silver label.
  • I5. The final reading of the passage is checked by retelling the whole argument with the settled word senses substituted in, to see whether it now holds together. — For Mova (answer): After resolving ambiguous words, re-run the QA reader over the passage with the chosen senses and accept them only if the answer chain stays consistent.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

Fields: Linguistics & languages

Cite

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.4102/hts.v78i4.7380

@article{zur2022explanation,
  title = {{Explanation and interpretation of three unclear words in Bavli Eruvin 104a-b}},
  author = {Zur, Uri},
  journal = {HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 78},
  year = {2022},
  doi = {10.4102/hts.v78i4.7380},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v78i4.7380}
}

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