Shabbos 44
“A bed which one designated to place money upon it may not be moved on Shabbat because it is set-aside.”
Today’s reading extends the discussion from yesterday on what is allowed to be moved on the Shabbat. Yesterday we learned that although it is prohibited to move a dead body, it is permissible to move it somewhere less exposed to the elements if you place a baby or loaf of bread upon it. In essence, it becomes a vessel to move the baby or bread. I have been pondering since I first read about this in an earlier reading what mother would want to put her innocent baby – who has a lifetime to become acquainted with death – on a dead body.
The Rabbis turn to a scenario involving money and a bed. A bed is allowed to be moved on the Shabbat. However, if one places money on the bed, it cannot be moved on this day. The principle of twilight is applied: the state of the bed and money at twilight determines their fate. We are told: “If there is not money on it, it is permitted to move it. And that is only when there was not money on it during the twilight period between Shabbat eve and Shabbat.” This holds true if there is money on the bed during the Shabbat, but it later falls off. (Placing one’s money on a bed is not a prudent act for safekeeping.)
Today’s reading made me wonder about how money was safeguarded 2,000 years ago and today’s relationship with physical currency. The society was primarily agrarian at the time and payment would have been exchanged through goods and services, although coins were in circulation. I researched what type of banking system existed at the time. There were a number of wealthy families who deposited their savings in the Temple, which functioned as the closest thing to a national bank. The tithes that were offered to the priests were managed through the equivalent of Temple finances. I imagine vaults of grain organized by the name of each priest in the cellar of the Temple, like the lockboxes that we are familiar with today.
My modern life has become disconnected from physical currency of any type. I pay for goods virtually through online systems, and never more so since this lock-up started in early March. This movement to a virtual system of transacting has been occurring over the past several decades, but the COVID-19 crisis has escalated the transition to a virtual life. I can’t remember the last time I actually handed over a paper bill or a coin to a merchant in an exchange for goods or services. And now, transacting with a physical credit card (a card present transaction) is also becoming a rare occurrence. My life has become one of “card not present” and I feel like I am living these days through my Amazon.com order history.