Tuesday's Thoughts on the Daf - Shabbos 118

Its been a while since I had the time to do a Daf Yomi blog post, but I learned something tonight when I was preparing the daf which completely blew my mind.

 

I had always learned that a person who intends to wake up early and eat/drink before a "day" fast must have in mind when finishing the last meal on the day before that the fast was not accepted at that time. However, today's daf teaches that this is only partly correct.

 

Towards the bottom of Shabbos 118, the gemara teaches that a person can wash certain dishes on shabbos if they will be needed for other meals on the shabbos. However, once mincha arrives, no further washing is permitted as no meal will be eaten after shalosh seudos. [FYI - Today's daf is also chock full of great agaddita about shalosh seudos, but this is not the purpose of this blog post].

 

The gemara notes that this rule does not apply to drinking utensils since the time of drinking is not fixed. As a result, people can wash dirty glasses even after mincha.

 

Tosafos (d'h L'fi) teaches that if a person finishes his meal before a fast and does not have in mind that he will eat again before morning, he may not eat. However, Tosafos adds that this rule does not apply to drinking and that a person who wants to drink may do so even if he did not specifically have in mind that he will need to drink later because drinking is not a fixed act.

 

I looked up the halacha in the Mishna Berurah (564) and sure enough, the Rama there states that a person needs to have in mind that he will eat before the fast begins, but not that he will drink because generally people intend to drink after sleeping.

 

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