Study Moed Katan folio 11B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
מי שהפך את זיתיו ואירעו אבל או אונס, או שהטעוהו פועלים — טוען קורה ראשונה ומניחה לאחר המועד, דברי רבי יהודה.
Mishnah: The Mishnah discusses one who had already turned over his olives as part of the process of preparing them for pressing, and mourning for a close relative befell him and as a result he was prohibited from engaging in work, or some other unavoidable accident occurred, or his workers misled him, promising to come but failing to do so, so that he could not press his olives before the Festival. Under these circumstances, during the intermediate days of the Festival, he may place the olives in the press and load the beam with weights for the initial pressing of the olives and leave it this way until after the Festival; this is the statement of R' Yehuda.
רבי יוסי אומר: זולף וגומר, וגף כדרכו.
R' Yosei says: He may press the olives and complete the process and then plug each jug of oil in its usual manner. Since delay can entail financial loss, the rabbis did not require him to alter the normal process of extracting the oil.
גמ׳ פתח באבל וסיים במועד. אמר רב שישא בריה דרב אידי זאת אומרת: דברים המותרין במועד, אסורים בימי אבלו.
Talmud: The Talmud asks: The tanna opens the Mishnah with a case of mourning and ends it with the halakhot of the intermediate days of the Festival, leaving the connection between them unclear. Rav Sheisha, son of Rav Idi, said: That is to say: Actions that are permitted on the intermediate days of a Festival are prohibited during the days of one’s mourning. Therefore, if a mourning period befell one before the Festival, and he could not prepare properly for the Festival due to the prohibition against performance of labor by a mourner, he is permitted to perform labor during the intermediate days of the Festival to avoid financial loss.