“Minor holiday”

Mo‘èd Qatan, i.e. ” minor holiday”. Or, literally, “little festival.” It is the title of the eleventh tractate translated into Italian as part of the Babylonian Talmud Translation Project. In this tractate, curated by Rabbi Michael Ascoli, the attention focuses on permitted and prohibited work on the intermediate days of Passover and Sukkoth. Regarding the activities that it is possible to carry out, the conclusion of the Talmud is that “the task of sanctioning what is lawful” to do and what is not is entrusted to the evaluations of the Masters.
There is, therefore, no systematic correspondence, explains the curator in one of his introductory texts, “with the melakhòt (creative works) which are forbidden to carry out on Shabbat”. Nor can it be said “that there is a different level of intensity”.
The translation project began in 2011, with the signing in Rome of a memorandum of understanding between the Government, the National Research Council, UCEI and the Rabbinical College. It is a cultural operation aimed at a wider audience, beyond the borders of the Jewish world alone.
Mo‘èd Qatàn, like the previous treatises, was published by Giuntina.