Study Moed Katan folio 2A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Mishnah: One may irrigate a field that requires irrigation on the intermediate days of a Festival as well as during the Sabbatical Year, both from a newly emerged spring that began to flow only during the Festival, and from a spring that did not just emerge and that has been flowing for some time.
And one may not construct circular ditches around the bases of grapevines on the intermediate days of a Festival. R' Elazar ben Azarya says: One may not construct a new water channel during the intermediate days of a Festival or during the Sabbatical Year. And the Rabbis say: One may construct a new
In addition to performing labor on one’s own property in order to avoid financial loss, it is also permitted to perform labor on the intermediate days of a Festival for the public welfare: One may repair damaged water cisterns that are in the public domain, and clean them out by removing the dirt an
Talmud: The Talmud begins by questioning the wording of the Mishnah: Now that it has been said that on the intermediate days of a Festival one may irrigate a field from a newly emerged spring, whose walls have not yet stabilized and are likely to collapse, necessitating laborious repairs, is it n
The Talmud answers: They say that it was necessary to mention the second case as well. For had the tanna taught us the halakha with regard to only a newly emerged spring, I would have said that here, in the case of a field that requires irrigation, yes, one is permitted to irrigate from such a spr