Thursday, January 11, 2007

the melacha of binyan

Tosfos (Shabbos 95) asks why if it is permitted to make cheese on Yom Tov, which is a potential issur of binyan, is it not permitted to do construction on your home on Yom Tov based on the principle of mitoch she’hutra l’tzorech hutra she’lo l’tzorech. Tosfos answers that there must be an issur redabbanan of ovdin d’chol which stands in the way.
The Pnei Yehoshua (Beitza 12) suggests a more fundamental answer. Cheese is an impermanent structure, a binyan sha’ah, but building a house is a binyan kavua. A binyan sha’ah was never proscribed as part of the melacha d’oraysa of binyan.
The Minchas Chinuch points out that the assumption of the Pnei Yehoshua that only permanent binyan is prohibited on Shabbos and Yom Tov seems to be a dispute in the Yerushalmi, which those learning the daf recently saw. The Yerushalmi asks how we can derive an issur of binyan from the construction of the Mishkan – since Bnei Yisrael were always traveling in the desert it would be an impermanent structure. The Yerushalmi offers two answers – one answer accepting the premis and holding that even an impermanent structure cannot be built on the Shabbos, the other answer suggesting that since the camp only moved by G-d’s order, when they came to a camp site the intent was to create a permanent environment until told to move.

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