One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
טֻמְאַת אֳכָלִין
Impurity of Foods 4-6
Sefer Taharah · How much food it takes to receive impurity and how much to pass it on, why a stem is counted differently from a shell, and the rulings that decide whether cut food is still one piece by where the person means to take it
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Egg-sized portion, without its shell, before food can impart impurity, though even a sesame seed can receive it
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Peels on an onion: the inner always combined, the middle only while whole, the outer pure in both cases
100
Kor of strung nuts that are no longer joined once he begins taking them off the rope
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Liquids that alone can join food into one mass, so dough kneaded with fruit juice is not joined
Ch 4Receiving at any size, transmitting at a size, and measured as it is now
- Two different thresholds. Food contracts impurity in even the slightest amount, as the verse says any food that shall be eaten, but it does not impart impurity until it is the size of an egg without its shell, and one who eats impure food is disqualified from terumah only for an egg and a half, which is half a p'ras. (4:1)
- Liquids have no lower limit. A drop of impure liquid the size of a mustard seed renders foods, keilim and other liquids impure, though a person who drinks impure liquids is disqualified only by a revi'it, and all liquids combine toward it. (4:2, 4:3)
- Shrunk in the sun, swollen in the rain. An egg of impure food that shrank in the sun no longer imparts impurity, and an olive of fat, blood, notar or piggul that shrank carries no karet, but if rain swelled it back to the measure it returns to its original status. (4:5, 4:6)
- Only substance is measured. Puffy bread is measured as it is and its cavity is compressed, hollow onion leaves with no sap are pressed before measuring, and calf meat that expanded or old meat that shrank is measured in its present state. (4:7, 4:8, 4:9)
- Mixtures sink to the weaker degree, and division changes them. Half an egg of a primary derivative mixed with half an egg of a secondary derivative is an egg of a secondary derivative, while a full egg of each is wholly primary and each half, once divided, is secondary. (4:12, 4:13)
RememberThe law weighs what is on the table now. What the food used to be is not the question, unless the rain brings it back.
Ch 5The handle and the guard
- Yad and shomer. A yad is the thin stem the fruit hangs from, and a shomer is the shell that protects the food, and a yad receives and imparts impurity but is not combined with the food, while a shomer receives, imparts, and is combined toward the egg or half a p'ras. (5:1, 5:2)
- Both are learned from need. The shomer comes from seeds in the form people sow them, wheat in its coating and barley in its shell, and the yad from the words that they shall be impure for you, which include anything necessary so that the food can be eaten. (5:4, 5:5)
- No need, no handle. Grapes harvested for the winepress and produce cut to cover a sukkah have no yadot, stems crushed in the granary are pure, and a stripped grape sprig is pure unless one grape remains on it. (5:6, 5:7, 5:8, 5:9)
- No guard for a guard. Only the covering closest to the food counts, so of an onion's three peels the inner is combined whole or cut, the middle only while whole, and the outer is pure either way. (5:10, 5:11)
- Protection that protects nothing. When part of a pomegranate or watermelon decomposed, the remaining peel is not combined with the fruit, for its protection is of no benefit, and white leaves of vegetables are not combined for the same reason. (5:22)
RememberThe stem is part of the fig only because you need it to eat the fig. The shell counts only while it guards something.
Ch 6What is still one piece
- The cucumber and the plan for evening. A cut cucumber on the table is connected until one begins to separate it, and if he began eating one of several, or declared half for the morning and half for the evening, only what he began is connected. (6:6)
- The pot or the table. Vegetables cut to cook are no longer connected even while attached, but a vegetable cut to pickle, to cook lightly, or to serve at the table remains connected even after he begins to separate what he cut. (6:7)
- Lift it and see. Where pieces are partly attached and an impure person touched one, they are connected if lifting it would bring the other up with it, and not connected if the other would break off and fall. (6:9)
- Human joins do not hold. Nuts strung like a rope are joined until he begins removing them, and then even 100 kor are not, while a braid of garlic and a sliced esrog on a needle are never joined, and dried figs pressed into a block are not joined. (6:11, 6:12, 6:14)
- Joined at the moment of contact. Olives stored as one mass are wholly impure from a barley-sized touch until the spade goes in to turn them, and loaves of terumah attached when one became impure all keep that degree even after separation, while a tertiary loaf that later became attached leaves the others pure. (6:16, 6:18, 6:19)
RememberThe same knife, the same board, and the ruling turns on where the food is going.