One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
טֻמְאַת אֳכָלִין
Impurity of Foods 7-9
Sefer Taharah · When a poured stream, a bubble, a crust or a melting drop counts as one thing with what it touches, why the one who immersed today is judged more lightly than almost anyone, and the single egg sized measure that decides whether the first drop carries everything after it
101
The ratio checked when a tevul yom touches a poured column, since impure terumah is nullified in 101 times its volume
3
Loaves deep is as far as a chain of terumah loaves goes, while consecrated loaves with liquid in their hollows are affected to the hundredth
1
Grape squeezed by a zav, never made susceptible and never touched, and its juice is impure because the first drop was carried
100
Separate impure olives thrown into an oven, which stays pure because no single mass reaches the size of an egg
Ch 7The stream that joins nothing, and the steam that joins everything
- A poured stream is not a connection. Pure liquid poured into an impure container, or even onto a creeping animal, stays pure in the air and in the upper vessel, and it is joined neither to impurity nor to purity. (7:1)
- Except when the heat is below. Cold into cold, hot into hot and hot into cold are not joined, but pure cold liquid poured into impure hot liquid is joined, because the vapor rises like a pillar of smoke and vapor is also considered liquid. (7:2)
- Steam on a woman's hand. Pure hands that gather vapor from an impure hot pot become impure, and impure hands that gather vapor from a pot render its entire contents impure, as if she had touched the liquid. (7:3)
- Honey that holds on. Honey from Zif and Tzapachat is joined even cold to cold because it stretches like glue, while thick groats and melted fat are never joined, since they do not remain attached. (7:4)
- The one who immersed today. A tevul yom does not affect ordinary food at all, renders terumah a tertiary derivative and sacrificial food a fourth degree derivative, and in certain joined articles disqualifies only the one he touched, because he is lacking only nightfall. (7:7, 7:8)
RememberNothing climbs a cold stream. It takes heat below for anything to rise to the vessel above.
Ch 8What counts as one thing for the one who is almost pure
- Intent separates what the oven fused. Loaves stuck together while the baker meant to separate them, and the first large bubbles of boiling water, are not joined for a tevul yom, while loaves he never meant to separate and bubbling oil are joined even for him. (8:1)
- The spike, the salt and the pebble. A chirchor smaller than a fingerbreadth or a small grain of salt is part of the loaf, while a pebble, a vetch bean or a large grain of salt is not joined even to a primary source of impurity. (8:2)
- A hand over the hole. When a tevul yom closes the hole of a perforated barrel with his hand, the contents of the entire barrel are disqualified. (8:6)
- Holy coals and ordinary coals. Meal offering flour, frankincense, incense and the Yom Kippur coals held in one container are all disqualified by a single touch, but the daily coals are not holy, as shown by the spilled ones being swept into the drainage canal. (8:9)
- Declared to take effect at nightfall. Wine poured into bottles immersed that day and declared terumat ma'aser at nightfall is pure terumah, while a zav or zavah on the seventh day may not work in an olive press lest a discharge render them impure retroactively. (8:18, 8:19)
RememberWhat the tevul yom touches, he touches. The moment he becomes the stopper, everything behind it is his.
Ch 9The first drop and the size of an egg
- Liquid by nature stays liquid. Impure oil or honey that congeals and melts again remains a first degree derivative forever, while solidified sauce, groats or milk are treated as food. (9:1, 9:2)
- An egg or less, and the juice is pure. An impure frozen mass or a cluster squeezed by one impure from a corpse yields pure liquid at the size of an egg or less, provided he does not touch where it drips, and impure liquid above that size, since the first drop contracts impurity from the egg sized mass. (9:2)
- Carried by a zav. A zav who squeezes even one grape not made susceptible, or who milks a goat, produces impure liquid, because the first drop was carried by a zav. (9:2)
- A mound or a scattering. A pressed mound of impure olives larger than an egg thrown into an oven renders the oven impure, but separate olives, even a hundred of them, leave it pure. (9:5)
- Cherished to the hundredth loaf. Consecrated loaves with liquid in their hollows, touched one by one after a creeping animal, are all primary derivatives even to a hundred, while in a chain of terumah loaves only the third is disqualified and the count goes no further. (9:10)
RememberThe whole chapter hangs on one drop. Whatever it leaves behind at the moment it emerges decides everything that follows it.