One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
כלים
Kelim 24-26
Sefer Taharah · Vessels · The closing chapters of the treatise: what makes leather, wood or a broken box into a support that a zav renders impure by resting on it, and what takes that status away again.
5x5
Handbreadths, the floor for any midras support
7
Kabbin: a drinking pouch big enough to sit on
3
Breaks in one chest, three different rulings
1
Handbreadth high keeps a legless bench impure
Ch 24Leather, and the mind that promotes it
- Working hides qualify because people sit on them. The intended carpet, the bed cover, the hide under the donkey's load, the basinet hide, pillow and cushion hides, the crumb hide under the table because feet lean on it, and the hides worn by the potter, the flax-carder, the porter and the doctor at his knees. A second group qualifies for a different reason: the hide over a child's heart against spittle, the harvest heat hide, the hide wrapped around a garment and the hide sewn into a clothes chest, since all of them get turned upside down and used as supports. (24:1)
- Nothing under five handbreadths square, and some leather is exempt whatever its size. No hide takes midras below five handbreadths by five. The wool-comber's hide, the wrap around combed wool, the wrap around fine purple cloth and its sewn carrying case take other impurities but never midras. Leather made as a cover for a k'li is pure from every impurity, while a cover for weights is a receptacle and takes other impurity only. A heel-and-sole hide counts if it covers the greater part of the foot, and a shoe still on the mold already counts, since its work is finished. (24:2-5)
- Thought alone promotes a finished hide; a tanner's thought promotes nothing. A hide needing no further work becomes a midras support by intention alone, for instance intending it as a mat for a table. If work remains, intent waits for the work, except for the hide covering a saddle against dust. A leather maker's stock is presumed set aside for sale, so his intent is ineffective until he performs an actual deed preparing it as a support. (24:6)
- Only your own couch, and only your own shape. A person imparts midras only to a surface belonging to him, learned from the words his couch. A robbed couch stays pure until the owner despairs; a stolen one contracts, since a man who does not know the thief is presumed to despair, which is why a thief's intent works and a robber's does not. Tearing straps from an impure hide does not purify it until it drops below five by five, and refashioning leather keeps the impurity flat-to-flat while flat-to-receptacle or receptacle-to-flat purifies it; with cloth, every change keeps it impure. (24:7-10)
RememberA hide becomes a bed because somebody with the standing to decide it decided to rest on it, and the proof text is two words: his couch.
Ch 25Wood: which sitting the law calls sitting
- Made to sit, lie or ride on is the whole test. Flat wooden implements made for sitting, lying or riding are susceptible, including the bier, the pillow and cushion of a corpse, the bride's chair, the birthing chair, the launderer's chair and a child's chair with legs even under a handbreadth high. A leather-covered iron lavatory seat takes midras and other impurity; strip the leather and the leather keeps midras while the metal takes only other impurity, and a stripped reed basket is wholly pure like a broken k'li. (25:1-4)
- One marble leg disqualifies the whole bench. A bathhouse bench on two wooden legs takes midras; one wooden leg and one of marble and it is not susceptible at all. Cork-covered bathhouse boards are pure, since they exist so water runs under them. A basket packed with straw or rags is not fit to sit on even after people adapt it, until reeds or string are laced across its mouth. (25:5-7)
- Sitting that gets interrupted is not resting. A seat at the end of an olive press beam is pure, because a man sitting there would be told to stand up and let us do our work; a chair affixed to that beam is susceptible, but a zav treading the beam does not defile the chair. The back of a carriage is pure because sitting there is uncomfortable, craftsmen's beam tops are pure, a block hewn from a date palm is pure even a handbreadth high because it is not a k'li, and a painted lump of wood in a gateway becomes one only when designs are engraved in it. (25:8-10)
- Intent counts only from a sound-minded owner. Hewn beam heads follow intent, but the intent of a deaf mute, an incompetent person, a minor or a non-owner leaves them pure. A mound of dried yeast designated as a seat is nullified as food and becomes susceptible. Straw mats qualify and reed or grass mats do not; other mats follow whether they were made to lie on or to shade, and with no intent their size decides, large for shade and small for lying. A child's carriage is susceptible because he leans on it, while an old man's walking stick is absolutely pure because it is only an aid. (25:11-17)
RememberThe stick that carries an old man's whole weight stays pure and the carriage a child leans on does not, because the law is asking where the weight comes to rest, not how heavy it is.
Ch 26Breaking it down, and where the status actually lived
- It takes nails and a ceiling to turn furniture into a building. A support affixed in a wall and then built over is pure; affixed without building over it, or built over without being affixed, and it stays susceptible, and the same for a mat laid over beams. A bench that loses one leg stays susceptible and loses the second becomes pure, unless what remains still stands a handbreadth high. A bride's chair stripped of its projecting coating is pure, while a chair whose coating did not project stays susceptible, since the practice is to turn it on its side and sit. (26:1-4)
- One chest, three breaks, three laws. Broken at its side it takes midras and every other impurity, because it is still fit to sit on and everyone does. Broken from above it is pure from midras and still susceptible to other impurity, since it remains a receptacle. Broken from below it is pure from everything, because a nullified primary purpose takes the secondary purpose down with it, which is also why a dispenser basket broken past holding pomegranates is wholly pure though still fit to sit on. A closet keeps its impurity through either half and purifies only when both are gone. (26:5-6)
- The kneading trough changes status with the weather. A gypsum mixing trough never takes midras, though it takes other impurity. A kneading trough holding between two luggin and nine kabbin, cracked past washing one foot in it, does take midras, since at that size and in that condition it will surely be turned over and sat on. Leave it in the rain until the wood swells and the crack closes and it is a kneading trough again, pure of midras and open to other impurity; leave it in the east wind until the crack reopens and it is a seat again. (26:7)
- A bed's whole standing hangs on the boards you cannot see. New sideboards set in the old holes leave the bed impure, and even breaking the new boards changes nothing, while breaking the old ones purifies it. Two diagonal cuts to cornerposts or bedposts, or reducing them under a handbreadth, counts as broken. Half the bed stolen, lost or divided between brothers makes it a broken k'li, pure, and susceptible only going forward once reassembled. One sideboard and two posts gone leaves it impure, because it can be propped against a wall and slept on. Immersed component by component it is pure, and whoever touches the cords of a bed taken apart for immersion is pure. (26:9-15)
RememberThe treatise ends by taking a bed apart, because what a thing is was never its appearance; it was the question of what is actually bearing the weight.