The Notion of Mela’khah in Tosefta Shabbat

Doering Lutz

Zusammenfassung

This article explores the mixed evidence of Mishnah and Tosefta Shabbat regarding the development of the notion of mela’khah “labour” in Shabbat law. Starting with the Hebrew Bible, through Jewish writings from the Second Temple period, and ending with Tannaitic literature, it describes the beginnings of various attempts at conceptualizing different forms of labour. With respect to early rabbinic literature, the article concludes that the form of grouping labours labelled inTosefta Shabbat 9 (10):17–20 “kind of one labour” (me’ein mela’khah aḥat) resembles an approach that has its roots already in the Second Temple period. In contrast, the concept of avot mela’khot “principal categories of labour” in mShab 7:2 is a later rabbinic form of systematizing different types of labour. While this approach not unknown in the Tosefta, the latter has preserved some of the older “clustering” of labours, and the notion of avot mela’khot is less central in Tosefta Shabbat than in Mishnah Shabbat.