We are beginning Klal 18, which discusses the melacha of merakeid. Merakeid refers to the act of sifting something with a sifter. In the mishkan, this melacha occurred after the various herbs and dyes were ground up, in order to remove any impurities. It is similar to grinding wheat into flour.
The Gemara says that the melacha of zoreh (winnowing), borer (sorting by hand) and merakeid all have the same purpose. The difference is that merakeid is performed with a kli while borer is performed by hand. Zoreh is performed through the wind. After the grain was winnowed, the grain would fall to the threshing floor and mix with small pebbles which were on the floor. These pebbles were removed through painstaking hand sorting in order to ready the grain to be ground in the millstone. The ground flour was then placed in a sifter to remove any pieces which were too large to use for baking.
On the path to making bread, sifting was a necessary step of the process, even though the three melachos seem to be quite similar. The Gemara says that these three actions are three different melachos. One way to understand the reason for the three is that they must be performed one after the other, and one form of sorting does not obviate the need for any other. That being said, for our purposes, they function similarly, but in the times of Moshiach it will be necessary to know how many korbanos a person would bring.
Similarly, the rishonim discuss that if one were living at a time in which beis din could give capital punishment, if a person is given hasra’ah (warning) for the wrong melacha, it is not considered proper hasra’ah. For example, if a person is warned they are about to perform the melacha of losh and in reality they are about to perform the melacha of tochain, the hasra’ah does not count, because people do not take the warning seriously when it does not fit in the context of the action.
Some rishonim extend this point to borrer and merakeid, such that a person will not take the hasraah seriously if they are performing borrer but are warned about merakeid (or vice versa). It is interesting to note that, according to the poskim who extend this point, they assume the person transgressing the melacha is smart enough to know when the act they are performing is merakeid and when it is borrer.
Practically, merakeid is generally subsumed under borrer.
Summary
- Merakeid refers to the melacha of sifting through flour with a kli after it has been ground in the millstone.
- Although it is different from borrer, which occurs by hand and occurs before the grinding in the millstone, merakeid is generally subsumed under borrer.
