Leaving the House on Shabbat

The Aish Rabbi Replies

Thank you for your interesting question. The verse doesn’t exactly say a person shouldn’t leave his home but that he shouldn’t leave his “place”. What exactly is a person’s “place”?

Looking carefully at that verse, it contains two phrases. To understand it properly, we need to examine the implications of each one. I’ll do that very briefly below:

“Let every man remain in his place:” The Hebrew terms the Torah uses for “place” here is “tachtav” – literally, “beneath him.” This implies a person may not move from his position at all. Now, the tradition of our Sages is that there is no obligation that we remain frozen in our places the entire Shabbat. Even with the Rabbinical restrictions of this law, we may walk throughout our entire city and up to 2000 cubits (around 3000 feet) beyond the city limits in every direction. Thus, explain the Sages, our verse’s restriction that we stay in our place refers to a person who has improperly gone beyond the 2000-cubit limit of his permitted travels. Such a person must stay put for the remainder of Shabbat (Talmud Eiruvin 51a; Mechilta, Vayisa 5). (He actually can go 4 cubits in any direction – the area considered his “place”. Note also that since most Jews live in large metropolitan areas, our cities extend almost indefinitely and this restriction is rarely relevant.)

“Let no man leave his place on the seventh day:” Here the Torah uses the word “makom” to refer to a person’s place. Makom is a more generic word, not necessarily referring to a person’s precise location. Accordingly, the Sages understand that this refers to the law that we may not leave our general location on Shabbat. According to some opinions, this means that a person may not travel more than 12 mil = 24,000 cubits in any direction on Shabbat. (See Eiruvin 17b. The Rabbis extended this prohibition to forbid going even 2000 cubits outside our city or location on Shabbat.) Others explain that the entire law forbidding travel on Shabbat is Rabbinical to begin with. Thus, our verse is only seen as an allusion to the 2000 cubits the Sages would later forbid (Mechilta there).

I have read that the early Karaites insisted that this verse means that a person may not leave his home the entire Shabbat – but eventually (and for obvious reasons) they came to accept the tradition of the Sages.