One of melachos of Shabbos is ho’tzahah, carrying something from a reshus hayachid, a private domain, to a reshus harabim, a public domain, or vice versa. A related prohibition would be to carry something a distance of 4 amos within a reshus harabim. The Gemara tells us an interesting halacha, which is that “chai noseh es atzmo”: if one person carries another person from one domain to another or for 4 amos within reshus harabim, one has not violated a biblical prohibition because “A living person carries himself.”
A simple explanation for that is that “live weight” is lighter than “dead weight”, and therefore you have this concept that a live person is somewhat carrying himself. The issue is, that even if the live person is considered to have carried himself somewhat, the bottom line is that the person carrying him is still carrying something, and shouldn’t any amount that one carries violate the biblical prohibition?
When the Rambam brings down the halacha in Hilchos Shabbos,he uses a slightly nuanced language. He writes that one who carries another person does not violate the biblical prohibition of carrying “because a living person is not a package.” With this language, the Rambam is hinting at an entirely different way of viewing this halacha. The exemption is not because a living person is ‘lighter’ than a ‘dead weight,’ but rather that a person is not a package. We are made up of two parts, a body and a soul. Our body can be moveable: you can pick someone up and move him to another room. The soul, however, the transcendent essence of a person, cannot be carried or moved. It’s untouchable. When we say a living person carries himself,” it’s not about physical weight, but rather it means that the part of them that is truly them is not carryable! A person is not a package. A body can be a package, but that’s not who the person is.
The secret of Shabbos is that the inner quality of who we are becomes our defining feature, our core identity. This occurs to the point that the body becomes completely secondary, and that when you see a person, you are not simply seeing a body with a soul inside (as you might see during the week), but rather you see a soul that is merely enclothed by a physical body. Because of this, if one would carry a person on Shabbos, halacha would not associate that carrying with the body of the person. As the Rambam says: a person is not a package! The essence of who the person is is not a package! You are carrying a soul, but you can’t truly carry a soul. Therefore you are exempt from a biblical prohibition.
Shabbos is the day when we reorient our view of ourselves, and we re-identify with who we are as souls covered with bodies, not as bodies that have souls inside of them. We should all be zoche to that light of Shabbos in a revealed way, in its fully manifested way, with the coming of Moshiach, bvias go’el tzeddek brachamaim bimheira biiyameinu amen.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 10.
