Parshas Ki Sisa discusses the laws of Shabbos and of the yomim tovim. We are all aware that there are 39 melachos of Shabbos, and most of us are fairly familiar both with the concepts and with many of the details of such varied melachos as kosheir, tying knots, boreir, selecting, and hotza’ah, carrying. However, there are several melachos, for example, menapeitz, toveh, meisach, oseh batei nirin and potzei’a that are unfamiliar, and perhaps we could say virtually unknown, to most people. Since all of these melachos are involved in the manufacture of textiles, they all apply min haTorah on Shabbos and Yom Tov according to all opinions, which makes a wonderful incentive to study them. I will present these melachos in the order in which they appear in the list of the 39 melachos in the Mishnah in Shabbos (73a).
