One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
טֻמְאַת מֵת
Defilement by a Corpse 12-14
Sefer Taharah · The handbreadth that turns a covering into a tent, the two things a tent does at once, the coverings that carry impurity and can never block it, and the size an opening has to reach before impurity walks through it
1
Handbreadth square and a handbreadth high, the whole threshold of an ohel
24
Handbreadths of circumference before a pillar lying in the open makes a tent
4
Vegetables that grow in both seasons and are therefore reckoned as trees
2
Fingerbreadths left unsealed in a light window that still convey impurity
Ch 12The measure of a tent, and what it is standing on
- One handbreadth does both jobs. A covering a handbreadth square and a handbreadth high conveys impurity and blocks it by Scriptural Law; a portion of a corpse under such a covering makes the vessels beside it impure while vessels resting on top stay pure, and where the clearance falls short of a handbreadth the impurity is treated as flush and pierces straight up and down instead. (12:1)
- A person or a vessel cancels the blocking. Where a person or a vessel serves as the covering, or merely as the support for the covering, it conveys impurity and does not block it, even where the vessels are of a kind that cannot themselves contract impurity; a board on four men, four spits, four reeds or four stone implements leaves everything above it impure, even objects not directly over the impurity, while a board on four stones or on animals blocks. (12:1)
- Oversized stone, dung and earth vessels count as tents. Because they are reckoned as ohalim rather than as vessels, they block in the face of impurity; and where impurity rests on top of a board, everything beneath it is pure. (12:2)
- Ovens, ends and coffins. A board over a new oven blocks because a new oven is not a vessel in this context, and over an old oven nothing is spared; a board over two ovens makes the space under each projecting end a separate tent; and although most coffins leave a handbreadth of clearance, the Sages ruled that no coffin blocks, so one who walks on a coffin is as one who touched a corpse. (12:3, 12:4, 12:6)
- Curves have to be converted into squares. A beam needs a handbreadth of width to convey impurity along its whole span, which takes three handbreadths of circumference if it is round and four if it is square; a barrel on its side needs roughly four and a half, and a pillar lying in the open needs twenty four, since the diagonal of a square handbreadth is a handbreadth and two fifths, and all of these figures are approximations. (12:7, 12:8)
RememberThe roof is not the whole question. The legs decide what the roof is allowed to do.
Ch 13Which coverings count, and which are only passing
- Nobody has to have built it. A covering of the required measure is an ohel whether it was made as a shelter or came into being of its own accord, so a cavern hollowed by water or by crawling animals, ground that simply cratered, or a heap of stones and beams all convey impurity and block it. (13:1)
- Weakness costs protection and never buys it. Low branches and stones projecting from a wall are tents by Scriptural Law if they could carry an ordinary ceiling and stand; if they would collapse under that weight they convey impurity by Rabbinic Law and block nothing at all. (13:2)
- Convey and block. Oversized wooden vessels, oversized vessels of stone, dung or earth, plain leather goods, a curtain, sheet or reed mat pitched like a tent, animals kosher or not lying flush head between legs, a resting bird, a hollow dug in a grainheap to shade a child, food never made susceptible to impurity, four vegetables that grow in both seasons and count as trees, and projections, balconies, dovecotes, clefts, arches and precipices. (13:3)
- Convey and do not block. A human being, wooden vessels that are not oversized, a curtain, sheet or reed mat merely stretched out without slope or walls, an animal or beast that has died, food that is impure or was made susceptible, and a hand mill, which is in the category of stone vessels. (13:4)
- Neither, because the covering does not last. Seeds, vegetables still rooted apart from the four named, a mound of hail, snow, sleet, ice or salt, one who skips, one who runs, a bird in flight, a garment flying in the wind and a ship afloat do neither; tie the ship or weight the garment's corner with a stone and it conveys. Loom threads, bed cords, a fertilizer net and window lattices block without conveying, provided no square handbreadth of empty space remains. (13:5, 13:6, 13:8)
RememberA covering is not a shape. It is a commitment, and the law can tell the difference.
Ch 14The opening, and the purpose that sets its size
- A handbreadth for use, a small coin for light. Impurity neither enters nor leaves through an opening under a handbreadth square where the window was made for functional purposes; a window a person made so that light should enter needs only the size of a pundiyon, and impurity departs through it onto whoever or whatever stands outside. (14:1)
- An accident is not an aperture until you think about it. An opening not made by intentional human activity, hollowed by water or animals, cratered, unshuttered or broken open when its glass shattered, is measured at the full span of a shingle, the size of an ordinary man's head; but if the owner thought of using it the measure drops to a handbreadth, and if he thought of it for light, to a pundiyon, since here thought is considered equivalent to deed. (14:2)
- An interrupted sealing still leaks. Where a man began closing a light window and stopped short for want of cement, or because a colleague called, or because the Sabbath began, an opening two fingerbreadths high and a thumbbreadth wide still conveys impurity, and anything smaller counts as closed. (14:3)
- Coverings over a window are measured by their holes. A large light window under a lattice conveys impurity if a single hole reaches a pundiyon, and counts as closed if none does; a large functional window under thatchwork or shades conveys only if a square handbreadth of empty space remains. (14:4)
- Build over it and the measure changes. A window open to the sky is measured at a pundiyon, but roof it by building a house outside and it becomes a passage between two structures measured at a handbreadth; run the new roof through its middle and the lower portion is measured at a handbreadth while the upper portion, still open to the air, is measured at a pundiyon. A gap in a door, an unfinished pair of swinging doors or a door blown open is measured at a shingle, and a hole made for a rod, to see passersby or to speak to a colleague is functional and measured at a handbreadth. (14:5, 14:6, 14:7)
RememberThe hole is never measured against the wall. It is measured against what it is for.