In a Tablet Magazine interview in November 2010, Noam Chomsky explained how he turned away from religion. “My grandfather had a long beard, I don’t think he knew he was in the United States. He spoke Yiddish and lived a couple of blocks from his friends. We were there on Pesach, and I noticed that he was smoking. So I asked my father, “How can he smoke? There’s a line in the Talmud (sic) that says, ‘Ayn bein Shabbat v’Yom Tov ela b’inyan achilah (sic).’” I said, “How come he’s smoking?” He said, “Well, he decided that smoking is eating.” And a sudden flash came to me: Religion is based on the idea that God is an imbecile. He can’t figure these things out. If that’s what it is, I don’t want anything to do with it.”
We could argue with this framing of Orthodox Jewish religion as a means of tricking God, or we could explore whether this framing of the grandfather’s reasoning was correct. Indeed, his grandfather might have told him otherwise. That line in the mishna, appearing in the Talmud in Beitza 36b, reads אֵין בֵּין יוֹם טוֹב לַשַּׁבָּת אֶלָּא אוֹכֶל נֶפֶשׁ בִּלְבָד—that there’s no difference between Yom Tov and Shabbat except for “ochel nefesh.” However, it appears in a certain context, to reinforce an a fortiori inference that the preceding list of activities were prohibited by the Sages for Yom Tov—so all the more so for Shabbat. Its purpose wasn’t necessarily to constrain the list of permitted activities on Yom Tov.
It could also be the an אֵין בֵּין declaration has a primary focus but exceptions, especially about orthogonal issues, exist; or that the mishna is one Tanna, but we rule like other Tannaim who disagree. See Megillah 6b which begins a series of “ain bains,” and how these exceptions work. For “ochel nefesh”—as discussed on Beitza 37a—a mishna states that if one leaves fruit on a roof to dry, he may salvage that fruit by lowering it through a skylight specifically on Yom Tov. This allows strenuous activity to preserve something. This is from a different Tanna (Rabbi Eliezer versus Rabbi Yehoshua, Beit Shammai versus Beit Hillel) and we rule this way (see Orach Chaim 521:1).
Meanwhile, a baraita (Beitza 28b) contrasts the only division being ochel nefesh—food preparation, with Rabbi Yehuda’s opinion, allowing מַכְשִׁירֵי אוֹכֶל נֶפֶשׁ, actions which facilitate the preparation of food; practically, we do allow מַכְשִׁירֵי אוֹכֶל נֶפֶשׁ for actions that could not be done prior to Yom Tov. A mishna (Beitza 21b) has Beit Hillel allowing heating of a fire—not just for food preparation—but for washing one’s feet or making a large fire to warm one’s body. Rashi explains that the benefit to one’s entire body is דמיא לאוכל נפש—akin to “ochel nefesh,” in its essential quality. People who wash their feet don’t think that they are eating, or that they are fooling God. There are other exceptions and parameters, like דָּבָר הַשָּׁוֶה לְכׇל נֶפֶשׁ and מִתּוֹךְ שֶׁהוּתְּרָה הוֹצָאָה לְצוֹרֶךְ הוּתְּרָה נָמֵי שֶׁלֹּא לְצוֹרֶךְ. Lighting a cigarette is kindling—permitted elsewhere for food preparation—is for an immediate Yom Tov need and, in that era, was considered something enjoyed by all.
The grandfather didn’t think he was eating, but I wonder if an expansive reading of “eating” in Shemot 12:16 is plausible. The verse states one cannot perform melacha as on Shabbat, אַ֚ךְ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יֵאָכֵ֣ל לְכׇל־נֶ֔פֶשׁ—“Except the purpose of that which is eaten/consumed for all persons.” The purpose seems to be balancing the stringencies of a sacred day, like Shabbat, with allowing the enjoyment of the festival. One shouldn’t plow a field or weave a garment, but enabling commonly enjoyed activities is allowed. The allowances spelled out above flesh out this basic balancing act.
Auto Hypernyms
You know about synonyms (words with identical or similar meanings) and antonyms (opposite meanings). Linguists also discuss hypernyms (a broader category) and hyponyms (a specific subcategory). For instance, cutlery is the hypernym of spoon and fork, which are hyponyms of cutlery. Also, a single word can have multiple word senses. For instance, a “bank” can be (a) the sloping side of a river; (b) a financial institution like Chase; (c) a physical building of a financial institution and (d) the verb of relying on something. These are distinct definitions—even if they seem related, as do (b) and (c).
There are also words in which one word sense is part of its own subcategory. Lawrence Horn (in “Ambiguity, negation and the London school of parsimony,” 1984) dubbed this auto hyponymy and explored different manifestations of the phenomenon. Thus, a cow is both a domesticated bovine and its hyponym, a female of that species. I can declare, “That’s not a rectangle, that’s a square!” A square is a subtype of rectangle, but a rectangle is also a non-square kind of rectangle. A drink is both any beverage or particularly an alcoholic beverage. To “smell” both conveys exuding any odor, but also particularly a noxious odor. Context can sometimes determine whether we’re dealing with the hypernym or hyponym.
Eating Encompasses Drinking
In our sugya—beginning Shavuot 22b—Shmuel states that if one took an oath שֶׁלֹּא אוֹכַל, that I will not eat, then drank, he’s liable. The Gemara proposes a “logical” basis for this, rooted in people’s speech—let’s taste something means to eat and drink, as well biblical usage of וְאָכַלְתָּ regarding maaser sheni, where wine and beer are included. Nedarim follows human rather than biblical language, and we’d expect oaths to follow similarly.
Rava then supports Shmuel’s assertion from our mishna (22a), שְׁבוּעָה שֶׁלֹּא אוֹכַל, and then he eats and drinks, is only liable to one. Each must be a way of violating, and the mishna teaches that they are, nevertheless, grouped into one vow violation, rather than two. I would put it that the Hebrew type “eating” is the hypernym of consuming nourishment, with hyponyms of “eating” and “drinking.” “Eating” is an auto hypernym.
Abaye objects based on the end of the mishna, שְׁבוּעָה שֶׁלֹּא אוֹכַל וְשֶׁלֹּא אֶשְׁתֶּה, and then he eats and drinks, he’s liable twice. But, if he’s already prohibited to drink based on שֶׁלֹּא אוֹכַל, how could שֶׁלֹּא אֶשְׁתֶּה impose a new narrower prohibition? If he took an oath twice that he would not drink, he’d only be liable once!
Rava (or a Talmudic narrator on his behalf) first proposes that the two utterances regarding eating and drinking were reversed, then retracts. Rather, the context of forswearing drinking demonstrates that, in forswearing eating, he intended the narrower sense. That is, context can help disambiguate between the hypernym and the hyponym. (Perhaps the difference between Abaye and Rava’s approach is that Abaye prefers straightforward Tannaitic texts with a consistent meaning of terms, while Rava is willing to analyze and interpret those texts to arrive at non-obvious meanings.)
I’ve discussed the same idea of auto hypernyms in a previous article (“Rabbi Yoshiya and Natural Language,” Dec. 15, 2022). In a mishna in Nedarim 49a, authored in Israel, one who vows against הַמְבוּשָּׁל—cooked foods, is permitted to eat roasted and boiled. In a baraita, Rabbi Yoshiya (born in Bavel) disagreed and prohibits, e.g., roast. Tosefta Nedarim 3:1 also has one vowing against a tavshil/cooked, prohibited in roasted, boiled and cooked. The Talmudic narrator explores this first as biblical language versus natural language, but lands on regional variance in natural language.
I would cast the dispute as follows: מְבוּשָּׁל can certainly stand as a hypernym for subcategories of preparing food with heat, including one hyponym named מְבוּשָּׁל. Depending on time and place, different Tannaim consider מְבוּשָּׁל to either be primarily the hypernym or the hyponym—even in the absence of other subcategories. Certainly if one vowed against roasted and “mevushal,” other hypernyms such “shaluk” would not be included.
Rabbi Dr. Joshua Waxman teaches computer science at Stern College for Women, and his research includes programmatically finding scholars and scholastic relationships in the Babylonian Talmud.
