One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
פָּרָה אֲדֻמָּה
Red Heifer 5-7
Sefer Taharah · Why everyone who makes the purifying ash goes home impure, what a vessel and a spring must be before their water can be sanctified, and how a second purpose in the drawer's mind empties the bucket
3
Verses teaching that every worker at the heifer defiles his own garments
7
Years, and a spring that runs dry once within them is unfit forever
1000
Barrels drawn for a thousand other people, every one acceptable
1
Of five barrels drawn for oneself separately, the only one that survives
Ch 5The workers who purify others and defile themselves
- Everyone involved, from beginning to end. All who take part in offering the heifer become impure and impart impurity to their garments while they are engaged in it, derived from three verses covering the slaughterer, the one who burns it and the one who gathers the ashes; each must immerse and wait for nightfall, and one who merely guards the heifer during the offering imparts impurity to his garments by Rabbinic decree, lest he move a limb. (5:1)
- Laundering clothes is a rule about transmission. The phrase does not mean only that a man's clothing is impure; it means he conveys impurity to every garment and implement he touches while still in contact with the source, and once he separates from it he conveys nothing further, though he himself remains impure. The heifer itself defiles neither person nor implement that touches it. (5:2)
- A disqualified heifer defiles nobody's garments. Where the heifer was invalidated, those involved in offering it are pure; a disqualifying factor during the slaughter leaves every garment unaffected, while a disqualifying factor during the sprinkling of the blood splits the day, so that those who worked before it imparted impurity to their garments and those who worked after it did not. (5:3)
- Who counts as one who burns. Once the ashes have been gathered, whoever divides, stores or touches them is pure. Among those burning the sin offerings of bulls and goats, the one who turns the meat, lays on wood, fans the flame or stirs the coals is impure, while the one who kindles the fire and the one who builds the arrangement are pure, and offerings burned in the Courtyard because they were disqualified leave their burner pure. (5:4)
- Carrying defiles, touching does not. Those who carry the bulls and goats out impart impurity to their garments only from the moment they leave the Temple Courtyard, and the man who leads the goat to Azazel from the time he leaves Jerusalem until he pushes it off the cliff; yet a person, implement, food or liquid that merely touches those bodies stays pure, since they defile only one who is occupied in carrying them. (5:5, 5:6, 5:7)
RememberThe one substance that lifts the impurity of death off a person cannot be produced without everyone who produces it walking home impure.
Ch 6The water, the vessel, and the source behind it
- Living water, drawn with a container. The water must be taken with a vessel from a spring or a flowing river, and placing the ashes upon it is called sanctification, after which it is mei chatat. All are fit to draw and to sanctify except a deafmute, one whose mind is compromised, and a minor; drawing and sanctifying are valid at night, while sprinkling and dipping the hyssop are valid only by day, and the whole day is fit. (6:1, 6:2)
- What counts as a vessel is a decision, not a material. Containers of dung, stone, earth, earthenware or a ship all serve, while the wall of a vessel, the base of an earthenware water distributor, the sealing of a jug, one's hands, an eggshell and a trough cut into living rock do not; a clay egg made by a potter and an ostrich egg are fit, and a jug sealing or a wooden, glass or bone base becomes fit once it is smoothed and repaired into a vessel in its own right. (6:3, 6:4, 6:5)
- Which face of the jug is perforated decides it. A hole wide enough for water to enter disqualifies the container, while a hole through which water only leaks out does not. A container perforated below and stopped with rags is invalid, since the water rests on the plug rather than on the base; the same container perforated at the side and stopped with the same rags is valid for drawing, sanctifying and sprinkling. (6:6, 6:7)
- The vessel has to meet the spring itself. Water splashed into a barrel with hands, feet or shards is unfit because it was not drawn with a vessel, and the rule is that whatever is used to move the water disqualifies it if that thing is susceptible to impurity and leaves it fit if it is not, so reed leaves and nutshells are acceptable. Letting a spring run into a vat or pool and drawing from there fails, since the drawing must be from the spring. (6:8, 6:9)
- Interruption disqualifies, and murkiness does not. Rivers are unfit and the Great Sea counts as a mikveh, while other seas and lakes count as springs; salty and hot springs are spoiled, and lying waters that go dry even once in seven years are unfit, though a spring that only runs strong and weak is fine. Water whose color or taste changed by itself is acceptable, and a well made murky by a fallen shard may be drawn from at once without waiting for it to clear. (6:10, 6:12, 6:14, 6:15)
RememberCloudy water from a well with a shard in it is fit. A clear cold spring that failed for one season seven years ago is not.
Ch 7Work, wages, and the second purpose
- Work before the ashes, wages after. Performing another activity disqualifies water that has been drawn until the ashes are placed on it, after which carrying it, pouring it between containers or sprinkling with one hand while working with the other is of no consequence. A wage runs the other way, voiding the sanctifying and the sprinkling but not the drawing or the transporting, and a paid sanctification leaves the water as water of a cavern and the ashes as ashes from a range. (7:1, 7:2)
- Compensation for a loss is not a wage. An elderly sanctifier or sprinkler who cannot walk may be given a donkey and paid as an unemployed worker of his former trade, and a priest who will be barred from terumah by accompanying the impure man is fed, given drink and given oil for the road, since none of this is profit taken for the act but only replacement of what he gave up. (7:2)
- Drawing is itself work. One hand drawing while the other works disqualifies the water, and drawing for oneself and for another at the same time disqualifies both, since each drawing counts as a task performed during the other. A thousand barrels drawn one after another for a thousand different people are all acceptable, and barrels drawn for oneself to be sanctified together in one container are all acceptable as a single drawing. (7:3, 7:4)
- Five barrels, and only one survives. Where a man fills five barrels for himself intending five separate sanctifications, only the last is acceptable, each being spoiled by the drawing of the next; where he filled them for one container and then sanctified each separately, only the first sanctified is acceptable. Five men filling five barrels are all acceptable either way, since no drawer drew again afterward. (7:4, 7:5)
- The order of the buckets, the rope, and the thorn. Draw your own water first and load it behind you, then fill the buckets for the ashes and carry them in front. Handing back a borrowed rope while walking is fine and going out of your way to return it is not; gathering the rope after drawing disqualifies while winding it round the hand during the drawing does not. Two men drawing for separate sanctifications, and the one who lifts his colleague's load or removes a thorn from his hand disqualifies his own water alone. (7:6, 7:7, 7:8, 7:9)
RememberA man who drew properly and afterward thought of drinking loses the water from the moment he tilted the vessel toward his mouth, though he never drank.