One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
טֻמְאַת אֳכָלִין
Defilement of Foods 10-12
Sefer Taharah · Which fluids count as liquids, when a harvest becomes ready for impurity without any liquid at all, and the Oral Tradition that makes the owner's will the hinge of the entire system
7
Liquids that prepare food for impurity, with every other fluid classed as fruit juice that neither contracts nor prepares
2
Kabbim of olives a man intends to buy and add, enough to keep his whole harvest unfinished and pure
12
Months resinous cane from an impure olive press is left before immersion, or twelve hours in hot or running water
0
Liquids consecrated food needs in order to be susceptible to Rabbinic impurity, because its cherished nature is its readiness
Ch 10Which wetness is a liquid, and which is only juice
- The body, sorted. Fluids of the eye, ear, nose and mouth and human urine, whether released consciously or not, are derivatives of water, while the urine of animals and salt that liquefied are fruit juices that neither contract impurity nor prepare food for it. (10:2)
- Blood, sorted by moment and purpose. Only blood flowing at the end of a kosher slaughter is a liquid, blood from the start resembles the blood of a wound, blood spattered and wiped between the two signs leaves the food in abeyance, and human blood let for healing is pure and prepares nothing. (10:3)
- Milk, sorted by need. Human milk that is not needed is not a liquid, so milk from a man is not, and neither is animal milk that flowed without intent, but a woman's milk is always a liquid because it is fit to be drunk by an infant. (10:4)
- What passes through a person. Impure water drunk and brought back up stays impure unless he immersed first, it became loathsome, or it left as urine, while other liquids and foods are purified only by becoming loathsome or passing as waste. (10:8)
- Holy food is already open. The blood and rinsing water of the Temple butchering area are always pure and prepare nothing, yet consecrated food needs no liquid at all to be disqualified by Rabbinic impurity, since the cherished nature of consecrated food itself makes it susceptible. (10:17)
RememberThe same fluid is a liquid or a juice depending on why it left the body and whether anyone could want it.
Ch 11Grapes, olives, and the moment the work is complete
- A decree built on a test cluster. Grapes cut for eating need a desired liquid, but grapes cut for the wine press are susceptible with none, because the farmer squeezes a cluster to check it, casts it on the pile, and cares only that its juice not run onto the ground. (11:1)
- Leaves and pits versus baskets and earth. Grapes placed in a storage pit or spread on leaves are susceptible because he is concerned with their juice, while grapes in baskets or on the earth are not, and even their drippings leave the grapes in the press pure. (11:3)
- Two decrees of the Sages meet. Grapes harvested for the press in a beit hapras are not considered susceptible until carried out of it, where pure porters receive them, and a harvester who touches a porter makes him a primary derivative of impurity who then defiles the grapes. (11:5)
- Unfinished by intention. Olives become susceptible once the harvest is complete and gathered in one place, but an intent to buy a kab or two more, or to borrow and buy, thwarted by forces beyond his control or a celebration, keeps them unfinished and pure even under the feet of zavim, unless he acts with guile. (11:8)
- Intent has a deadline. A plan to carry olives from the Upper to the Lower Galilee delays susceptibility only if formed before the harvest, an intent to sell later delays it, and an intent to cover them with leaves does not. (11:10)
RememberThe olives are judged by the plan in the owner's mind, not by the pile on the floor.
Ch 12Water lifted on purpose, and water that merely arrived
- Ki yutan, read as will. The Oral Tradition teaches that the verse includes all seven liquids and applies only when they reach the crops willfully after both were uprooted, since every crop was wet while it grew, and desire at the beginning or the end suffices while produce hidden in water from thieves is not prepared. (12:1)
- Mustache, not nose. Water rising on a drinker's mustache and mouth is lifted willfully, water on his nose, beard and head is not, and at a well only the water on the part of the rope needed to lift the jug counts. (12:4)
- Rain versus the drainpipe. Rain on a person, even a primary source of impurity, stays pure if he shakes it off at once with all his strength and becomes impure as it leaves him if it runs down slowly, while one who stood under a drainpipe to cool off or wash has willful water, impure if he is impure. (12:6)
- Lifting is the act. Produce placed willingly in water lying on the ground is not prepared while it stays there, so a niddah may wash radishes in a cave and they remain pure, but if she raises them out at all her touch makes them impure. (12:11)
- The basket in the mikveh. An impure person may take turmos beans by hand from a container soaking in a mikveh and they are pure, but if he lifts the whole container out, only the beans touching the container are impure and the rest stay pure. (12:12)
RememberNot how wet the food is, but whether a person reached for the water.