1)

(a)The Gemara then suggests that the author of our Mishnah should be Acheirim (alias Rebbi Meir), who says, that if someone stands still and receives a thrown object, then the thrower is Chayav, but if he has to move from his place in order to catch it, he is Patur - because the Hanachah was made, not by him, but by the receiver. One is only Chayav if the article lands in the spot where it was due to land when it was thrown, because then the thrower will have made both the Akirah and the Hanachah.

(b)The author of our Mishnah might now be Rebbi Meir - seeing as Rebbi Meir considers it to be Hotza'ah, even if the Hanachah is done in a human hand.

(c)We reject ...

1. ... this proof too (that Rebbi Meir could be the author of our Mishnah which permits both an Akirah from and a Hanachah on a place that is less than four Tefachim by four Tefachim) - because who mentioned Akirah here? Perhaps Rebbi Meir's leniency is confined to Hanachah, but does not extend to Akirah?

2. ... even the proof that Rebbi Meir permits a Hanachah on a place that is less than four by four Tefachim - because who says that Acheirim is speaking in a case when the receiver caught the article with his hand? Perhaps he speaks when he caught it in his spread-out clothes, which are more than four by four Tefachim?

2)

(a)We then try to establish our Mishnah in a case where the Ani and the Ba'al ha'Bayis are holding a basket of four by four Tefachim in their hands. However, we ask, that is all very well by the case of the Ashir, because a large basket in a Reshus ha'Yachid is also a Reshus ha'Yachid. But how can we establish the case of the Ani (who is standing in a Reshus ha'Rabim) like that - because Rebbi Yossi b'Rebbi Yehudah has said that a basket atop a pole in the street has the Din of a Reshus ha'Yachid, and that someone who throws from the street onto it (even a distance of less than four Amos), is Chayav. Establishing our Mishnah like Rebbi Meir will mean that it will not go like Rebbi Yossi b'Rebbi Yehudah.

(b)The Gemara resolves this problem - by establishing our Mishnah when the basket is at a height of less than ten Tefachim (which everyone will agree, does not become a Reshus ha'Yachid), whereas Rebbi Yossi b'Rebbi Yehudah is speaking when it is more than ten Tefachim.

(c)We reject this explanation too, however - because our Mishnah specifically stated 'Yado', and not 'T'raskel she'be'Yado'!

3)

(a)So we suggest that our Mishnah speaks when the two hands involved are below three Tefachim from the ground - and whatever is within three Tefachim of the ground, is considered to be on the ground (because of 'Levud'), and is therefore Batel to it (and the ground is certainly a Makom Chashuv).

(b)To avoid having to establish our Mishnah when the two men are sitting on the ground (and the Tana specifically says 'Omdim') - we establish it either when they are bending down, or standing in a hole, or when they are dwarfs.

(c)We reject this answer too - because why should the Tana tell us the Halachah of Hotza'ah in such strange circumstances. He should rather have told us that they received the article with the corner of their cloaks, in which case it could have been talking about ordinary-sized people who are standing straight on the ground.

(d)Rava finally resolves the problem of hands being less than four by four - by differentiating between all other places and the human hand. Even though any location of less than four Tefachim by four Tefachim is not considered a Makom Chashuv, the human hand, presumably on account of its dexterity, is.

4)

(a)Rebbi Yochanan says that if someone throws an object, which lands by chance in someone's hands, he is Chayav - to teach us that, even if the thrower had no specific intention that the object should land in the hand that it did (in other words, the human hand is intrinsically Chashuv, and does not require someone's intention to make it so).

(b)Rebbi Yochanan asks whether someone who throws an object, then runs and catches it in mid-air, is Chayav or Patur. We initially fail to understand what the She'eilah is - because why on earth should he not be?

(c)However, the Gemara concludes, he may well be Patur, since it is like two people carrying; the one makes the Akirah and the other, the Hanachah - because when he threw the article, it was destined to land in a certain place, and when he caught it, he diverted it; it is almost as if the Hanachah was not connected with the Akirah, and maybe he should be Patur.

5)

(a)Rebbi Yochanan is also quoted as saying that someone who extends his hand from the street into his friend's courtyard and withdraws it holding the rain-water that he caught, is Chayav. But how can one be Chayav for carrying when that be, we ask? How can someone be Chayav for carrying rain-water - when he did not make the Akirah?

(b)It doesn't help to say that he caught the rain in mid-flight, because the air is not a Makom Chashuv. So he must have collected it from his friend's wall, we suggest. However, that too is impossible - because the water is not still, and someone who picks up a moving object has not made an Akirah? No matter how one tries to stop the water or to keep it still, it will never be called an Akirah because water, by nature, does not remain still (even from a sloping wall, even if the wall has a ledge where the water gets caught).

(c)We finally establish the case - when he collected the water from a hole in the wall. And the Chidush is that water on top of water is considered placed, even though it does move slightly.

6)

(a)If someone is standing on the threshold of his house and one end of the scroll that he is holding slips from his hand into the Reshus ha'Rabim, leaving him holding the other end - he is permitted to re-scroll it.

(b)We are talking about a threshold that is a Karmelis, in which case he would not have been Chayav even if the scroll had dropped from his hands completely - and re-scrolling it is permitted because to forbid it would constitute a 'Gezeirah li'Gezeirah'.

(c)If he was reading the scroll on the roof overlooking a public street, and one end fell on to a sloping wall ...

1. ... of ten Tefachim high - he may re-scroll it.

2. ... of less than ten Tefachim high - which has the Din of a Reshus ha'Rabim (see Tosfos DH 'be'Kosel) then he may not. The principle is that, whenever he would have been Chayav if the scroll had fallen from his hands completely, then the Rabbanan decreed even when the one end remained in his hand, otherwise they did not not.

(d)Shouls the scroll remain hanging in mid-air (even below ten Tefachim) - he will be permitted to re-scroll it.

7)

(a)Although water in a hole is considered placed (so that someone who takes it from a hole in a wall is Chayav - a nut floating on the water is not, and one will not be Chayav for taking the nut from the water and carrying it. This is because - whereas it is natural for water to be in a hole in a wall, for a nut to be floating on the water, is not.

(b)Rava asks what the Din will be if someone takes a nut from a box which is floating on the water - whether we go after the nut, which is placed (and the person who carries is therefore Chayav), or after the box, which is not placed, (and he will be Patur)?

(c)If a Tevul Yom (who is a Sheini) touches Terumah oil which is floating on Terumah wine, the Tana Kama (in a Mishnah in Tevul Yom) holds that only the oil is Tamei, but the wine remains Tahor - Rebbi Yochanan ben Nuri says that the wine becomes Tamei, too (since the oil and the wine are considered as if they had mixed and merged into one, so they both become a Shelishi le'Tum'ah. The Tana Kama does not consider the wine and the oil merged.

(d)Consequently, says Rava, the Tana Kama and Rebbi Yochanan ben Nuri will also argue by Shabbos: According to the Tana Kama. if someone takes the oil from the wine, he will be Patur, since the oil is not naturally placed, whereas according to Rebbi Yochanan ben Nuri, he will be Chayav.

8)

(a)Someone who picks up food before Shabbos and proceeds to walk in and out of the house with it - the entire Shabbos, will have to stop to rest (stopping to adjust the load is not considered a Hanachah in this regard), then resume his journey and carry the food into the second domain before he will be Chayav.

(b)Stopping to rest constitutes a break with his previous action, in which case, when he next moves with the object, that will be considered a new Akirah - whereas stopping to adjust the load is no more than part of the original act of carrying.

(c)Abaye learnt this from a statement made by Rabah quoting Rebbi Yochanan - who said that if someone stopped to rest within four Amos, whilst carrying an object, he is Patur, but not if he merely stopped to adjust his load.

(d)Rebbi Yochanan statement is no different than the other statement taught in his name (that someone who is moving objects from one corner to another and, in the middle of transportation, he decides to carry them out of his house, he is Patur, because when he picked them up, it was not with the intention of carrying them out) - it is simply a dispute among his disciples which of the two he actually said.

9)

(a)If someone carries from a shop to the street via a park area, where there are benches for people to sit, according to the Tana Kama, he is Chayav; Ben Azai says he is Patur - because he holds that when someone walks from one domain of Chiyuv to another through a domain of Petur (such as a Karmelis), it is as if he stopped with every step. Consequently, it is as if he stopped in the Karmelis, before carrying into the second domain, in which case, he will not be Chayav.

(b)The problem with the Tana Kama's opinion is - how does he know that the Torah is Mechayev someone who carries through a third domain? Maybe it is only someone who carries directly from one domain to another whom the Torah is Mechayev?