Forbidden and Permissible Reaping on the Sabbath Day

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http://www.torahtots.com/torah/39melachot.htm

THE 39 MELACHOT
Lamed-Tet Melachot

PLEASE NOTE: This is just a VERY BASIC introduction. There are many complex laws regarding Shabbat, and this is not the forum for decisions regarding what is or is not allowed on Shabbat. This is just to give the reader a flavor of the intricate halachot involved. A competent halachic authority should be consulted with any questions.

Melacha (plural "melachot").

1. Melacha refers to the 39 categories of activity that are forbidden on Shabbat. Melacha, is not "work." At least not the English definition of the word "work." You may not carry a needle out into the street on Shabbat, yet you may drag a heavy sofa across the room. So what Melacha is forbidden on Shabbat?

The 39 categories of activity that are forbidden on Shabbat, are all labors that have something in common - they are creative activities that exercise control over one's environment.

Specifically, the Talmud derives these 39 categories from the fact that the Torah juxtaposes the commandment to cease work on Shabbat in Shmot Parshat Vayakheil, with its detailed instructions on how to build the Mishkan*, and the preparation of its components, as described in Shmot / Exodus 31 and 35.
*[Mishkan - Tabernacle; the portable, temporary version of the Holy Temple that the Jews carried throughout the forty years in the desert into Eretz Yisroel (the land of Israel), until they built the Beit HaMikdash]

This is to teach us, explains the Talmud (Shabbat 49b), which activities constitute melacha: any creative act that was part of the mishkan's construction represents a category of work forbidden on Shabbat. These categories are forbidden by the Torah.

2. Toldot - Work which is different from that done in the Mishkan, but which achieves the same result. These types of melacha are also prohibited by the Torah.

3. Rabbinic Decrees - There are a number of additional activities that are forbidden by the Rabbis. There are several categories of decrees that prohibit:

a. Activities that might lead directly to the violation of a Torah prohibition.

b. Use of items not designated for Shabbat use (muktzah).

c. Activities that might lead one to think that a prohibited activity is permissible (Ma'arit Ayin - The appearance of the eye).

d. Activities that are not appropriate for Shabbat, even though they are technically permissible (Uvda D'Chol - [resembles] weekday activity). The Navi Yeshayahu (Prophet Isaiah (58:13-14) recorded a prohibition against speaking of business and against weekday-oriented activities.

Here is the list of the 39 Melachot (main activities) prohibited on the Shabbat as listed in the Mishna Shabbat 73a:

1. Zoreah - Sowing (seeding)

2. Choresh - Plowing

3. Kotzair - Reaping (cutting)

4. M'amair - Gathering (bundling sheaves)

5. Dush - Threshing

6. Zoreh - Winnowing

7. Borer - Sorting (selecting, separating)

8. Tochain - Grinding

9. Miraked - Sifting

10. Lush - Kneading

11. Ofeh / (Bishul) - Baking/cooking

12. Gozez - Shearing

13. Melabain - Whitening (bleaching)

14. Menafetz - Disentangling, Combing

15. Tzovayah - Dyeing

16. Toveh - Spinning

17. Maisach - Mounting the warp (stretching threads onto loom)

18. Oseh Beit Batai Neirin - Setting two heddles (preparing to weave)

19. Oraig - Weaving

20. Potzai'ah - Separating (removing) threads (Unweaving)

21. Koshair - Tying a knot

22. Matir - Untying a knot

23. Tofair - Sewing

24. Ko'reah - Tearing (unsewing - ripping)

25. Tzud - Trapping

26. Shochet - Slaughtering (Killing)

27. Mafshit - Skinning

28. M'abaid - Salting/tanning process [1]

29. Mesharteit - Tracing (scratching) lines

30. Memacheik - Smoothing / scraping

31. Mechateich - Cutting (to shape)

32. Kotaiv - Writing two or more letters

33. Mochaik - Erasing two or more letters

34. Boneh - Building

35. Soiser - Demolishing

36. Mechabeh - Extinguishing (putting out a flame)

37. Ma'avir - Kindling (making a fire)
38. Makeh B'Patish - Striking the final blow (Finishing an object)

39. Hotza'ah - Transferring (transporting) from domain to domain (carrying)

Since the focus of this thread is on reaping, I will for now focus only on this activity.
The site quoted above says the following about Reaping on Sabbath

3 - Kotzair - Reaping (cutting) Harvesting

Kotzair, the third of the thirty-nine melachot is the uprooting or severing of any living plant or vegetation from its source of growth. Thus, one may not uproot plants, branches, or even just one leaf. Plucking a flower, picking fruit from a tree, vegetables from a garden, or mushrooms from the forest floor are actions all prohibited under the category of kotzair because these actions involve severing a living plant or part of a living plant from its source of growth. [Mushrooms, in other areas of Halacha, Jewish law, are not classified at plants for they do not "grow FROM the ground" but "grow ON the ground." (Thus someone about to eat a mushroom should make the blessing Shehakol - appropriate for milk, water, and foods that do not grow from the ground - and not make the blessing HaAdamah). But with respect to kotzair, mushrooms are Halachically equated as plant life for they draw nutrients from the soil, and thus should not be separated from their source of growth on Shabbat.1] The next time you have an urge to puncture the trunk of a sugar maple tree and drain its syrupy sap, think again! According to some Rabbis, draining the sap is equivalent to uprooting the sap from its source of growth, in this case the tree, and is thus a transgression of Kotzair. Picking grapes from their stems, however, is allowed, provided that grape bunches have already been detached from the vine on which they grew.
Mowing a lawn is kotzair. We also may not handle any growing flowers or plants. It is also forbidden to climb a tree or smell an attached fruit, but it is permitted to smell a growing flower.

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Sometimes the restrictions of Shabbat such as not Reaping on the Sabbath Day come into conflict with other commandments that require reaping. In the case of harvesting barley on the night of the 16th of Nissan for the Omer Offering in the Temple, harvesting the barley for the Omer wins out and is harvested even on Shabbat.
Here is some background concerning the Omer Offering:
http://www.templeinstitute.org/archive/commandment_omer.htm

The Commandments of the Omer Offering and the Counting of the Omer

(An Omer is a Biblical measure of a sheave of barley)

Biblical Sources: Leviticus 23:9-12

"The L-rd spoke to Moses, saying: 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When you shall enter the Land that I give you, and reap its harvest, you shall bring an Omer from your first harvest to the priest. And he shall wave the Omer before the L-rd, to be accepted for you. On the day after the rest day, (the first day of Passover), the priest shall wave it. On the day you wave the Omer, you shall perform the service of an unblemished lamb as a burnt-offering before the L-rd. Its meal-offering shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, a fire offering to the L-rd, a satisfying aroma; and its libation shall be wine, a quarter-hin. You shall not eat bread or roasted kernels or plump kernels until this very day, until you bring the offering of your G-d; it is an eternal decree for your generations in all your dwelling places.

You shall count for yourselves - from the day after the rest day (Passover), from the day when you bring the Omer of the waving - seven weeks, they shall be complete. Until the morrow of the seventh week you shall count, fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal offering to the L-rd."

On the 16th of Nissan, the day following the first day of Passover, pilgrims and priests alike would gather in the fields outside of Jerusalem, and initiate the barley harvest. The barley was then carried by the priests back to the Holy Temple, where, in the eastern side of the Sanctified Court, (between the altar and the Nikanor Gate leading to the Women's Court), the priests would sift the barley through thirteen sieves, then beat and roast it. The barley kernels were roasted in a specially perforated pan. The pan sat atop a stand that also held a lower pan that would be filled with hot coals. This vessel was called the Abuv. After the barley was roasted, it was beaten into a coarse meal. The pan was then lifted by the priest up out of the Abuv, and, standing before the altar, a second priest would add a measure of frankincense, while a third priest added olive oil, in accordance with the commandment concerning all meal offerings. The priest would then carry the pan of prepared barley to the northeast corner of the altar, where he would "wave the Omer before G-d."

He would then proceed to the southwest corner of the altar, and present the Omer offering there, as was done with almost all meal-offerings. Finally, the priest would ascend to the altar, where he would scoop out a handful of the Omer grain, and drop it into the altar fire. This was followed by the bringing of a single male sheep, as a burnt-offering. From this point on, barley from the new harvest could be consumed by all. The remaining grain that had been brought up to the Holy Temple by the priests would then be eaten by the priests. Meanwhile, the marketplaces of Jerusalem, in anticipation of this moment, were already laden with grain products from the new barley harvest. Anxious Jerusalemites and pilgrims alike would flock to the markets to purchase the barley products.

The offering of the Omer began the forty nine day counting period that leads up to the Shavuot pilgrimage festival. Shavuot, which literally means "weeks," falls out on the fiftieth day following the Omer offering, seven complete weeks having been counted from the conclusion of the first day of Passover - "the day after the rest day."

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The following is the Soncino translation to the Talmud, tractate Menachot 65a.
When they translate corn it is misleading, because the intent is barley grain.

MISHNAH. WHAT WAS THE PROCEDURE? THE MESSENGERS OF THE BETH DIN
USED TO GO OUT ON THE DAY BEFORE THE FESTIVAL AND TIE THE UNREAPED
CORN IN BUNCHES TO MAKE IT THE EASIER TO REAP. ALL THE INHABITANTS OF THE
TOWNS NEAR BY ASSEMBLED THERE,7 SO THAT IT MIGHT BE REAPED WITH MUCH
DISPLAY. AS SOON AS IT BECAME DARK HE8 CALLED OUT, ‘HAS THE SUN SET’? AND
THEY ANSWERED. ‘YES.’ HAS THE SUN SET’? AND THEY ANSWERED, ‘YES.’ WITH
THIS SICKLE’?9 AND THEY ANSWERED, ‘YES’. ‘WITH THIS SICKLE’? AND THEY
ANSWERED, YES’. ‘INTO THIS BASKET’? AND THEY ANSWERED, ‘YES’. INTO THIS
BASKET’? AND THEY ANSWERED. ‘YES’. ON THE SABBATH HE CALLED OUT
FURTHER, ON THIS SABBATH’? AND THEY ANSWERED. ‘YES’. ‘ON THIS SABBATH’?
AND THEY ANSWERED. ‘YES’. ‘SHALL I REAP’?10 AND THEY ANSWERED, REAP’.
‘SHALL I REAP’? AND THEY ANSWERED, ‘REAP’. HE REPEATED EVERY MATTER
THREE TIMES, AND THEY ANSWERED, ‘YES.’ ‘YES.’ ‘YES’. AND WHY WAS ALL THIS?
BECAUSE OF THE BOETHUSIANS11 WHO MAINTAINED THAT THE REAPING OF THE
‘OMER WAS NOT TO TAKE PLACE AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE [FIRST DAY OF THE]
FESTIVAL.

Footnotes
(7) On the night after the first day of the Passover.
(8}The reaper to the people assembled.
(9) I.e., shall I reap the corn with this sickle and into this basket?
(10) On the Sabbath.
(11) A sect in opposition to the Pharisees and often regarded as synonymous with the Sadducees. They held that the
expression (Lev. XXIII, 11),ממחרת השבת ‘the morrow after the Sabbath’, must be taken in its literal sense, the
day following the first Saturday in Passover. The Pharisees, however, argued that the Sabbath meant here ‘the day of
cessation from work’, i.e., the Festival of Passover. Accordingly the ‘Omer was to be offered on the second day of the
Festival, and the reaping of the corn on the night preceding, at the conclusion of the first day of the Festival.

[edu]

The Chafetz Chaim brings this down as halacha in Likutei Halachot on Chapter 6, Torat Hakodshim א, that the barley is reaped for this commandment on the night of the 16th of Nissan, even if that day is Shabbat.

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Some of the rabbis but not all of them, use the verse in Shmot/Exodus 34:21 as the source from which we derive that harvesting of the Omer Barley wins out over the prohibition of reaping on the Sabbath when there is a conflict.

The verse as translated by Chabad states
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9895/jewish/Chapter-34.htm#showrashi=true
Six days you may work, and on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing and in harvest you shall rest.

Rashi comments some Rabbis use this verse to teach us an additional law about the commandment of Shmitta (see Rashi for details).
Others use the verse for our issue.

Others [of the Rabbis] say that [the verse] speaks only about the [weekly] Sabbath, and the plowing and harvest mentioned in its context are to inform you that just as [the prohibited] plowing is optional [plowing], so is harvest [referred to here] optional [harvesting]. The harvest of the omer [however] is excluded [from this prohibition] because it is mandatory, and [consequently] it supersedes the Sabbath. -[from R.H. 9a]