One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת כֵּלִים · הִלְכוֹת מִקְוָאוֹת
Vessels 27-28 · Immersion Pools 1
Sefer Taharah · Kelim closes and Mikvaot opens • Three Grades • Inner and Outer • Whole or Not at All
17
Times Kelim 27 says
"there are three types of"
7
Handbreadths of plow beam
made impure from the lance
3
Vessels water cannot purify:
earthenware, glass, reed mat
6×6
Handbreadths: tear a reed mat
below this and it is clean
Kelim 27Three Grades, Set by Purpose
- Every article gets one of three grades. Susceptible to midras impurity, the impurity of a thing sat or lain upon; susceptible only to the impurity associated with a human corpse; or pure entirely. A chest broken open at its side takes midras, one broken open from above takes corpse impurity, an oversized one is pure entirely. Wagons, beds, mats, hides, sheets, gloves, hairnets, sandals and writing tablets are each sorted the same way. (27:1-18)
- Purpose decides, not material. A leather wrapper a bloodletter leans against takes midras, one people eat on takes corpse impurity, one olives are spread on is pure entirely, "because it is not used for a purpose directly benefitting man." A shield made for Arabs to play with is pure since it is only a shape, and any vessel that does not serve a functional purpose for people is not susceptible at all; the camel's rope net is not a vessel, it is only ropes. A cloak or veil made for something else but also used for sitting takes midras impurity anyway. (27:4-5, 27:8, 27:16)
- The measures that sort the soft goods. A cracked kneading trough holding between two lugin and nine kabbin takes midras, an intact one takes corpse impurity, an oversized one is pure. A leather pouch takes midras at four kabbin and a satchel at five; below the measure they take corpse impurity only, and one made from fish skin is pure entirely. (27:2, 27:10)
- Patched baskets, and the pomegranate. Patch a worn basket onto an intact one and the intact one determines the ruling; a small one onto a large one and the large one determines it; equal in size and the inner one determines it. Whichever governs, once it is perforated enough for a pomegranate to fall through, both are pure. (27:17)
RememberThe grades are a ladder, not three boxes. Whatever takes midras impurity also takes corpse impurity, and whatever takes corpse impurity takes every other impurity, Scriptural and Rabbinic, including the impurity that liquids impart.
Kelim 28Inner Surface, Outer Surface
- Outside impure, inside still fit. When the outer surface of a vessel with a receptacle contracts impurity from liquids, the inner side does not become impure for terumah, nor does the outside of its neck, its handles, or the fingerhold on its rim; if the inner portion contracts impurity, all of them do. Impure liquid on bases, rims, projections or handles: dry them, and the receptacle is pure, and not even the whole outer surface goes. (28:1)
- The same split in cloth, leather and wood. Goats hair sacks and carrying bags, leather pillows and bolsters, wooden vessels down to baskets and dispensers: outer impurity from liquids leaves the inside pure. A pouch with an inner pocket at level rims keeps one impure while the other is not, and where the external one overlaps the inner, impurity in the inner spreads out but not the reverse. If the impurity came from the carcass of a crawling animal, all of them contract it. (28:2, 28:5)
- No split at all where a person sits. Flat vessels not fit to sit or lie upon, a table or countertop with no side, are not susceptible by Scriptural law, so only the touched outside goes. But a bed, a chair, a hide one sleeps on, and likewise measures for wine and oil, a two sided cooking vessel, a mustard filter and a wine filter, have no inner and outer at all: impure liquid on any part makes the entire vessel impure, as with garments. (28:3)
- Seven handbreadths, and four. Impure liquid on a plow's lance makes the seven handbreadths of beam adjacent to it impure and no more; on the metal peg, four handbreadths; past those, only the place the liquid touched. Carve a revi'it and a half revi'it into one piece of wood and impurity inside one leaves the other pure, yet impurity on the outside of either takes the entire outer surface, since an outer surface is not divided, and the piece is immersed in its entirety all at one time. (28:4, 28:6)
RememberThe treatise ends on a boiling kettle with an impure outside. We do not suspect that liquid flowed out, touched the outside and ran back in. The law tracks a real drop across four handbreadths of beam and refuses to chase an imagined one.
Mikvaot 1Water in the Ground, and Nothing Less
- One remedy, and it takes everything. Every impure person and every impure k'li, severe Scriptural impurity or Rabbinic, regains purity only through immersion in water collected in a pool in the ground. Wherever the Torah says to wash the flesh or launder the garment it means the whole body or the whole article; "and he did not wash his hands in water" also means the whole body. One who immersed all of himself except the tip of his little finger is still impure. (1:1-2)
- Three that water cannot purify. An earthenware container: "you shall break it," and breaking is its only purification, so it keeps its impurity even joined to the earth, even fixed with a nail, even filled with lime or gypsum. A glass k'li, which the Sages placed in the same category. And a reed mat, which has no receptacle, is not among the wooden keilim the Torah names, and is not susceptible to the other types of impurity at all, yet takes midras impurity by Scriptural law because it is fit to lie upon; it is purified only by being torn until less than six handbreadths by six handbreadths remain. (1:3-4)
- Who immerses, when, and how. A zav is purified only in living water, a stream; a zavah, everyone else and all keilim may use a mikveh. A nidah and a woman after childbirth immerse at night, everyone else by day, and one who had a seminal emission may immerse through the whole day from the start of the night. All immerse naked and entirely at one time, hair included as part of the body by Scriptural law, though clothes do not invalidate the immersion since water passes through them. (1:5-7)
- Intent, and what it is needed for. All who immerse must intend to become pure. Without that intent the immersion is still acceptable for ordinary food, and a nidah who fell into water or went in to cool off is permitted to her husband; but she is not pure for terumah or sacrificial food until she immerses with intent. (1:8)
- Nothing between you and the water. The hidden places and creases need not be reached, since only the visible body must meet the water, but they must be fit for water to reach them, so a woman rinses between the folds of her body and immerses standing as she stands when weaving or nursing. Not in a harbor unless mats are set up for modesty, and not balanced on an earthenware container or a basket, since fear of falling spoils the immersion. By Scriptural law an intervening substance invalidates only over the greater part of the person or the k'li and only where he objects to it; the Sages closed both gaps, so a mustard seed of dough that he minds disqualifies him. (1:10-12)
RememberJumping into a mikveh, immersing twice, and asking a friend to place a hand on you are reprehensible but not invalid. The tip of a little finger left above the water is simply invalid. Know which failures the law calls ugly and which it calls nothing.