One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
פָּרָה אֲדֻמָּה
The Red Heifer 11-13
Sefer Taharah · How the water of the ashes is sprinkled and upon whom, which assemblies the water must reach part by part, and the strictest purity standard in the Mishneh Torah, which ends by trusting everyone
3
Stalks of hyssop, bound as one bundle, each carrying a bud
7
The second day of sprinkling, followed by immersion and nightfall
12
Kerchiefs joined for sprinkling; add one and only impurity joins them
100
Men in a chain, all impure, since no degrees are counted here
Ch 11How the water is sprinkled, and on whom
- Three stalks, and the hour of the day. A pure man binds three hyssop stalks with a bud on each, dips the tips into the water standing in a vessel, focuses his intent, and sprinkles on the third and the seventh day after sunrise; dipping at night and sprinkling by day, or the reverse, is invalid, and the water then imparts impurity as the ashes themselves do. (11:1)
- Counting in our presence. One who let days pass counts three days before us and is sprinkled on the third and the seventh, since a common person's claim about his own third day is not accepted, for he may have contracted impurity today; a chaver is sprinkled the moment he asks. (11:2)
- Purified from one thing only. Zavim, zavot, a woman in niddah, a woman impure from childbirth and an uncircumcised man may all be sprinkled and are freed of corpse impurity while remaining impure in the other respect, as the verse has the pure person sprinkle upon the impure. (11:3)
- The plant with no second name. Only the hyssop called by that name alone is fit, while Greek, red, desert and Roman hyssop are invalid, as are underdeveloped stalks, seed pods, and hyssop from an asherah, a city led astray, a false deity or impure terumah; and where a short stalk is lashed to a needle and one cannot say whether the drop came off the string, the needle or the bud, the sprinkling is invalid. (11:4, 11:5, 11:6)
- The purpose of the reaping decides. Hyssop cut for kindling on which liquids fell may be dried and remains fit, while hyssop cut for food is unfit even after it is dried, because all foods, liquids and implements count as impure with regard to this purification. (11:7)
RememberA hyssop with an adjective is disqualified. What lifts the gravest impurity in the Torah is required to have no second name.
Ch 12What counts as one thing, and which way the water travels
- Any amount, provided it lands. The slightest sprinkling on any part of the body, or on the body of a vessel, is effective, even on a fingertip or the edge of a lip; the tongue is excluded, being a revealed organ for contracting impurity and not a revealed organ for sprinkling or immersion. (12:1)
- Water off a neighbor is not sprinkling. Where one meant to sprinkle two vessels or two people at once and the water dripped from the first onto the second, the second stays impure until water falls on it from the sprinkling itself, and where it is doubtful which occurred the sprinkling is invalid, as with a needle resting on a shard. (12:2, 12:3)
- Two decrees pointing opposite ways. Nail-joined parts such as a scissors that comes apart are joined for impurity and for sprinkling while work is done with them and for neither while idle; the sages then decreed them joined for impurity even when idle and never joined for sprinkling even at work, and the Rambam infers that every such pairing is Rabbinic. (12:4)
- Impurity crosses the seam and the water does not. Sewn garments are one entity for both, while a launderer's basting, baskets on a carrier, a threshing tool, the feet of a bed, travelers' drinking horns and a chain of keys are joined for impurity alone, so the water must reach each basket, each key, each horn and every beam of the bed by itself. (12:5, 12:6)
- Counted bundles, and the direction of repair. Three wool blankets, six of linen, three sheets or twelve kerchiefs are joined for both and anything beyond those counts for impurity alone; sprinkling the body of a chained samovar purifies the cover, while sprinkling the cover leaves the samovar to be sprinkled directly. (12:7, 12:8)
RememberDamage is charged to the whole assembly. Repair has to be delivered to each part by hand.
Ch 13The stringencies, and the word that is always accepted
- Pure for the altar is not pure for this. A man who immersed for sacrificial service and stood and served must immerse again with this purification in mind, vessels are not fit even when taken from the Temple Courtyard unless immersed for it, and all foods and liquids count as impure here without exception. (13:1)
- A derivative reaches a person here. Anything fit to be lain or sat upon is treated as a thing a zav rendered impure, which is why Yochanan ben Gudgada's head cloth was such for this purpose though he ate at the purity of sacrifices; a derivative of impurity, which cannot defile a person elsewhere, defiles both persons and vessels here, and hands made impure by foods or liquids render the whole body impure to the first degree. (13:2, 13:3, 13:4)
- No degrees at all. Ten men immersed for this process, one of them made impure and touching a colleague who touches another, defile the whole line even to a hundred, and the same holds for vessels touching one another; touching the least of the ashes counts as touching all of them. (13:5, 13:6)
- Moved, not touched. One purified for this process is defiled by moving a midras article, an impure person, or his spittle or urine, and by moving a corpse-impure vessel, as when he closes a door from which an impure key is hanging, even though a corpse-impure vessel does not otherwise defile by being carried; hands laid on foods defile the whole body while a foot laid on them changes nothing. (13:7, 13:8, 13:10)
- Everyone's word is accepted. The testimony of any person, even a common one, is believed regarding the purity of persons and vessels for this process, so that a man may bring an earthenware container from his own house, declare it pure, and have water sanctified and sprinkled from it though it would be unfit for terumah, because the stringencies have made everyone careful and the ashes are given to all Israel for safekeeping. (13:12)
RememberThe strictest chapter in the Mishneh Torah ends by taking the word of the least learned man in town, and it can afford to because the stringencies are what made him careful.