One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
שְׁאָר אֲבוֹת הַטֻּמְאוֹת
Other Sources of Impurity 18-20
Sefer Taharah · Why a pile of doubts is pure in the street and impure in an alley, why two men asking together are ruled differently from two men asking apart, and how the treatise closes by defining a domain through traffic rather than walls
9
Frog carcasses beside one creeping animal in a private domain, and the man who touched one of the ten is impure despite the odds
5
People who ate last after an impure loaf was lost among ten, and they are pure because they can hold the first five accountable
10
Handbreadths of height for a container, donkey or rock in the street, where touching the outside is pure and reaching in or over it is impure
4
Cubits alongside the public domain that are themselves treated as a public domain for impurity
Ch 18Doubts multiplied, and the night that passes
- The staircase of doubts. However many doubts and compounded doubts are multiplied in a public domain the person is pure, while in an alley, which is a private domain, he is impure even where it is unclear whether he entered, whether impurity was there, whether it had the measure, whether it was impure, and whether he touched it. (18:1)
- The room outvotes the odds. Nine frogs and one creeping animal in a private domain leave the man who touched one impure, nine creeping animals and one frog in the public domain leave him pure, and the rule is pure in public unless he says he certainly became impure, impure in private unless he says he certainly did not. (18:2)
- Sweeping is not checking. A carcass found in an alley renders impure all who passed through back to the time someone can say he checked it on a given day, even if the alley was swept in between, though a fresh carcass reaches back only as long as it could have stayed that fresh. (18:4)
- Lost, set down, or forgotten. A vessel lost and found in the public domain on the same day is pure and becomes impure once a night or part of one has passed, while a vessel deposited or forgotten there is pure even after the night, since that is uncommon and no decree was made about it. (18:7, 18:8)
- Read from the moment of discovery. One who touched a person at night in the public domain and found him dead in the morning is impure, since every question of impurity follows the situation when it is discovered, but if he saw him alive that evening it is a public doubt and he is pure. (18:14)
RememberIn the street a pile of doubts comes out pure, and in an alley the same pile comes out impure. The odds never get a vote.
Ch 19Two paths, and the company in which the question is asked
- A purification in between is a wall. One who walked one of two paths, touched pure food that was eaten, was sprinkled on the third and seventh days and immersed, then walked the other path and touched pure food, leaves the second food pure, both sets in abeyance if the first still exists, and the second set burnt if he never purified himself. (19:1)
- One after the other, or together. Two men who each walked one of the two paths and touched pure food are each ruled pure if they ask one after the other, and both are impure with the food burnt if they ask together or one asks about himself and his friend. (19:2)
- Even a Rabbinic doubt closes. The same holds for two loaves, one impure, eaten by two people, a doubt of Rabbinic law ruled pure when asked separately and impure when asked together, and one impure loaf mixed with a hundred pure ones renders them all impure and fit for burning. (19:2)
- Someone to hold accountable. Where an impure loaf was mixed with nine pure ones and five people ate five loaves and five others then ate the rest, the first five are impure since they have nobody else to hold accountable, and the last five are pure since they can hold the first accountable. (19:3)
- The burden goes to the one who can carry it. Where one of two men walking the two paths was already impure or even held in abeyance, the pure one places the onus on him, and we say the pure man walked the pure path, even if they asked at the same time. (19:4)
RememberNothing about the roads changes between the two rulings. Only the question changes, and the question decides whether the doubt has anywhere else to go.
Ch 20A map of the domains drawn by traffic
- Shabbat supplies the baseline. Any place that is a public domain for Shabbat is a public domain for impurity, as are the four cubits adjacent to it and a karmelit such as the sea or a covered walkway. (20:1, 20:2)
- Private for Shabbat, public for impurity. The paths to storage caverns, cisterns and wine presses, an enclosed valley in summer, a royal basilica, lanes to the sea whose fences people climb, pillars, bathhouses, and the entire Temple Courtyard are public domains for impurity. (20:3)
- Use decides, not fences. A guarded garden is private and an unguarded one public, a basilica is public with its gates open, a valley fenced through a winter stays private even in summer, and a vineyard is private in front of the harvesters and public behind them. (20:5, 20:6, 20:7)
- Trees, holes, and stores. A tree or a hole in a wall of the public domain is private for impurity because people do not use them, a single impure store open to the street leaves a doubtful entrant pure, and a doubt between a pure and an impure store is impure because a store is a private domain. (20:8, 20:9)
- Outside pure, inside impure, and a pure ending. A doubt whether one touched a container ten handbreadths high in the street is pure and a hand put inside it is impure, the same holds for a donkey or rock of that height, and the treatise ends on a list of doubts, from a rider beside a zav to children on their fathers' shoulders, that are all pure. (20:11, 20:12, 20:13)
RememberA domain is drawn by who passes through it, and the most crowded room in the world, the Temple Courtyard, is ruled public.