Baby Wipes Part #7 - Explaing the Shu"a

Now, lets explain the words of the Shulchan Aruch.

Each of the three sifim mentioned have contrasting halachos alongside them.

In O"H 301:46, the Remah stated that a wet cloth is muktzeh. He continued that if one does not care how wet the towel gets, we need not be concerned that he will squeeze the towel, and it would not be muktzeh.
The Biblical prohibition we are concerned with there is one of libun, and not mifarek. He refers to a cloth whose liquid is useless, but that would clean the cloth. The gzeira that he will come to squeeze for cleaning is self understood. When that does not apply - such as when he doesn't care to clean the cloth - there is no gzeira that he will come to do mifarek. Since the mifarek here would only be a drabonan, any decree would be a "shvus dshus" - a decree to prevent a decree. even if he does squeeze the cloth, the water will go to waste.

In O"H 302:12, he rules that one may not dry a wet cup with a towel. In 302:9-10 he says that one may dry their body or hands with a towel.
The logic here is a bit more complicated. In this case there is no squeezing being done, so the only reason to forbid using a towel is that it may lead to squeezing.
This would not apply to libun, since even if one does extract liquid it would be "libun derech lichluch", which according to the Rema is permitted. [We certainly would not decree to prevent it.]
There is also no mifarek min haTorah here, since the water is going to waste. And if we made a decree to prevent accidental mifarek mdrabonan, why would it make a difference what material he is drying?
The Mishna Brura therefore explains that halacho #12 deals with a narrow glass where it is almost inevitable [psik reshei] that he will come to squeeze the glass. Just as it is forbidden drabonan to squeeze out water due to mifarek, one may not do something that will almost certainly cause such squeezing. Wiping the hands will not likely cause mifarek, so no gzeira applies.
Again, just as there is mifarek drabonan, there is a gzeira not to do anything that will most likely cause that schita. This would apply to baby wipes as well. Since it is almost inevitable that one will squeeze them (or at least as likely as is squeezing while drying a narrow cup), it would forbidden to use wipes even if one is careful not to actually squeeze water out.

That would not be making a gzeira to a gzeira - it is all part of the same original ule.
There is a gzeira an to prevent Mifarek drabonan, where it would be a psik reshei is something that we
ere is no problem of libun, even drabonan, when the squeezing is done . That should apply to both cases of the Shulchan Aruch.
There is no gzeira of mifarek when drying your body, since o

In O"H 613:9, the Rema stated that one may not use a moistened towelette on Yom Kippur. The Mishna Brurah adds that one may use a towel that was used on Friday to dry his hands even if it is still a bit damp.
The source of this, is a gemara (Yoma 78a) that says [paraphrasing the Rema's version] "R' Yehoshua Ben Levi would dry his hands and feet with a towel on Erev Yom Kippur, and use it on Yom Kippur to wipe his eyes. He would soak and wring out a towel on Erev Tisha B'av, and use it on Tisha Bav to wipe his whole face. On Yom Kippur he couldn't, due to a gzeira that one might come to squeeze."
The Rema and the Mishna Brurah are just stating the outcome of the Gemara.
There are two ways to understand the difference between the two towels:
That the towel which was wrung out is wetter than a towel that was just used to dry his hands.
If so, the amount of "wetness" that is allowed is very unclear. All [Beis Yosef, Sma"g, others] agree that we are dealing with towels that are [without squeezing] less wet than tofeach al mnas lhatfiach. This is obvious, as the gemorah is dealing with the fast days on which one is not allowed to wet himself, and if the clothe was lhatfiach, it would have been forbidden to use the cloth even without a gzeira of squeezing.
But the amount of wetness that is allowed is far from clear. Perhaps we can say that if it likely he will squeeze there is a gzeira, otherwise not [as we suggested before]? Perhaps we would forbid unless it would require a concerted effort to extrude the water? I have no way of knowing.
However, whatever the shiur, I would venture that baby wipes would not be allowed. They are almost a psik reshei, and are usually even al mnas lhatfiach.
There is another way to read the gemara, which fits much better into the words of the Rema. That is that the Rabbis decreed that one may not wet [or soak] a towel for use on Shabbos, no matter how wet it really is when Shabbos arrives. If one did not wet the towel for later use, he merely used it to dry his hands which made it a bit damp, the decree would not apply. He would than be able to use it no matter how wet it is [perhaps only as long as there is no psik reshei] as long as he is careful not to squeeze it.
According to this, baby wipes, which are saturated with liquid for use on Shabbos, would fall into this gzeira no matter how wet or dry they are, and their use would be forbidden mdrabonan.
However, it is possible to be doche this by saying that the only reason for the gzeira was that we were worrieed about libun, since the Talmus seems to be dealing with a towel. Baby wipes are a disposable cloth that has no libun issue (as above), so perhaps this decree would not apply. This is unlikely, as the water here has a purpose, and mifarek is also a din torah, but it cannot be proven.
It should be noted that there are variant readings of this gemara which would have this decree a little more relaxed. R' Ovadia Yosef shlit"a has said that Sefardim need not be as stringent as the Rema describes, but may use a cloth as long as it has been wrung out before Shabbos and will likely not be squeezed during use [if you have no intentions to squeeze]. It is clear that he understood the Rema to apply to baby wipes as well.
(It is also possible to be doche this by saying that the decree only applied when the cloth first reached a level of saturation which baby wipes do not. Or by saying that the decree only applies when it was specifically wet for use on Shabbos, as opposed to wipes which are also wet for weekday use. Or that for Yom Kippur, where there is a din Torah not to get wet, any amount of water would have importance and we therefore decreed to prevent its extrusion. On Shabbos where a little water has no significance, we would not have decreed to prevent such squeezing. All these suggestions are so ridiculous and desperate that I only write them to be complete.)


ut since we are dealing with a

In O"H 301, where the Ram"a says that wet cloths are Muktzeh, he continues that when you have a garment that you do not care if it becomes wet, it is not Muktzeh. Clearly, the issue is a fear of Libun, and where there is no Libun, the cloth is not Muktzeh.
This would imply that there is no gzeira of muktzeh when there is no fear of libun (which would mean that wipes are at least not muktzeh). However, the M"B (319, note 39) challenges this, and holds that where there might be mifarek there would also be such a decree.

In O"H 302 the Rama says that one may not use a cloth to dry a wet cup. There, the issue is one of mifarek, not libun.
The Mishna Brurah explains that this sif refers to drying narrow cups or the like, where it is almost certain that he will come to squeeze out the cloth while drying the glass. In most cases a person may dry their utensils, as long as they use a cloth which they are not particular to keep dry.
(In sif 9-10, and earlier in 301, 46 the Rema"h allows one to dry his hands or his body with a towel, since it is "derech lichluch". Since cleaning utensils is also derech lichluch, one would expect it to be likewise permitted. The reason one may not dry such utensils is that while doing so he will definitely come to squeeze water, which is mifarek. That is, squeezing would be allowed if there was no libun involved, but not where there is mifarek. This is despite that the mifarek here is drabonan - the water is being wasted.)
Similarly by wipes, since it is likely that one could come to squeezing, the Rema would forbid their use.

The reason and R' Frank and R' Moshe allowed their respective cases, and were not stopped by the Rema is that they were dealing with more than one drabonan. R' Frank since the cloth was of the type that is not normally squeezed together with the fact that he was not squeezing it, and R' Moshe

A similar question is raised regarding squeezing out the cloth before Shabbos.
It is not clear whether or not R' Moshe, who dealt with an almost identical case, is arguing on the Ram"a.

In O"H 613 the halachah is even more clear. One may not use a cloth that has been wrung out from before Shabbos for fear that they might come to squeeze it. There is no way to diffrentiate between Shabbos and Yom Kippur.


are the decrees equal?