Filtering water on Shabbos

Yesterday’s daf (50) was talking about leaving uncovered water out and how we’re concerned that a snake could come and drink from the water, thus injecting some of its venom into the water. If you were to want to drink the water, the gemara offers the following solution: filter it, even on Shabbos. The question is asked, but if you filter the water on Shabbos, isn’t that borer? You are specifically trying to separate the bad (the venom) from the good (the water)?

The reason we allow people to filter water is because we’re not sure that there is something bad in the first place. It is only there as a precaution. You might not be filtering out anything bad. In this day and age where filters are commonly found in people’s homes, it is not necessary to disable the filters just for Shabbos because there might not necessarily be bugs or whatnot in the water.

Tehillim

Last night, a local 5 year old boy was playing on the playground at BJ’s in Owings Mills, and fell off. At the time, they thought he was ok, but when he went home, he started vomiting up blood. He ended up having emergency brain surgery last night at Hopkins.

Ephraim Moshe ben Baila Chaya

Updated on October 24, 2006 at 9:35am:

He is B”H out of the PICU, and still being weaned off the sedations.

Updated on October 25, 2006 at 11:25pm:

The father of the boy sent out the following email:

[Wife's name] and I want to thank you all for the well wishes. BH Ephraim Moshe has made very significant progress and he is IYH on his way to a complete recovery.

We hope to have him home for Shabbos.

We sincerely appreciate the Tfilos and Tzedakah that the olam has made b’zechus his refuah shleimah. It is truly a brocho to live in such a wonderful chesed-oriented community.

We hope to share in Simchos!