Challenging! Rodkinson in Tracts Erubin, Shekalim and Rosh Hashana excels! Tract Erubin, the hardest and most complicated treatise, specifies travel rules on the Sabbath, particularly combining courts, limits and streets, and the ’Erub’, or propitiatory offerings if broken, mainly regarding dietary violations. Tract Shekalim tackles tithing, while tract Rosh Hashana discusses the Jewish New Year. Purely rabbinical in origin, they show how the shrewd sages side-stepped the rigorous prohibitions using legal loopholes, without actually breaking the law, thus ensuring the secure the observance of the Sabbath unlike other nations.
