One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
פָּרָה אֲדֻמָּה · טֻמְאַת צָרַעַת
Red Heifer 14-15, Defilement by Leprosy 1
Sefer Taharah · Where the ashes may be set down and what reaches them through the floor, why the water that purifies from death is itself a source of impurity until the moment it is needed, and the opening of a new set of laws in which the shade of a blemish decides nothing and its depth decides everything
4
Shades of white that count as a blemish, two which are four
36
Hairs, six by six, the smallest square that can hold a blemish
100
Men in a chain from one impure hyssop, since degrees are not counted
2
Weeks of isolation, and there is never a third
Ch 14A pure place to set the ashes down
- The jar survives and the ashes do not. An earthenware container of ashes touched on its outside by the carcass of a crawling animal is pure, since earthenware does not contract impurity from its back, but set that container on top of the carcass and the ashes are impure though the container is not, because Scripture requires a pure place and this is not one; the same follows from setting it on a food that is only a secondary derivative of impurity. (14:1)
- Stone ends the argument about the aperture. A container over an opening into a house that holds a corpse defiles the ashes at any size of opening if it hangs into the airspace, and only at a handbreadth square if it does not; but if the container is of stone the ashes are pure whether the opening is a handbreadth or not. (14:1, 14:2)
- A sealed lid is no protection here. Ashes or sanctified water closed with a tight seal under the same roof as a corpse are impure, since articles of this purification are not protected by a seal, while water not yet sanctified and an empty vessel purified for the process are protected; and if the owner himself contracts impurity his water is disqualified wherever it is standing. (14:3, 14:4)
- What is under your feet is in your hands. A man purified for this process who stands on an oven not purified for it and holds vessels of sanctified water out past its rim has impure vessels, since being supported by the oven is as if they were placed on it; standing off the oven and passing the same water over it leaves the water pure. (14:5)
- Two vessels, and the price of lifting. Touching a vessel of sanctified water and a vessel of sacrificial food with a hand each while both rest on the ground defiles only the water, lifting both defiles both, lifting the food by a wrapping of paper saves both, and moving both without touching them leaves both pure; a dried fig of terumah that fell in defiles the water at the size of an egg whether the fig was pure or not. (14:6, 14:7, 14:8, 14:10)
RememberNothing touched the ashes. The floor of the jar was between them the whole time, and the floor is not the question. What the floor is resting on is.
Ch 15The water that defiles until it is needed
- A primary source of impurity, and a measure for garments. Anyone touching sanctified water for a purpose other than sprinkling is impure, the slightest amount sufficing by Scriptural law, and touching or carrying enough to immerse the tops of the hyssop stalks defiles his garments as well, a measure the Sages read out of the verse about laundering rather than out of the case it appears to describe. (15:1)
- Spent water is ordinary water. Once the water has performed its mitzvah it does not impart impurity at all, so water dripping from the person or vessels sprinkled, or falling on the ground or on a pure person, is pure to touch and to carry; but water dipped in order to sprinkle on something not susceptible to impurity is still fit for sprinkling and therefore still defiles. (15:1, 15:10)
- The same water splits its victims. Water disqualified by mixture or by an animal drinking defiles a man who is pure for terumah by hand or by body, while a man purified for this process touches it even with his hand and is unchanged; water that actually contracted impurity defiles the man pure for this process through his hands alone and leaves the rest of his body as it was. (15:2, 15:3)
- Majorities, and a warning against mud. Spring water, mikveh water or fruit juice falling in is judged by which is the majority, with an even mixture defiling, and heifer ashes mixed with oven ashes yield water that defiles fully when the heifer ashes predominate and only by carrying when they do not; disqualified water may not be poured into mud, since it is not nullified there and would become a stumbling block. (15:4, 15:6)
- The public window and the private one. A man sprinkled from a window used for many individuals who entered the Temple and later learned the water was disqualified is exempt, since public water may be assumed acceptable, while the same man sprinkled from a private window brings an adjustable guilt offering because he should have investigated first; and impure hyssop invalidates the sprinkling and can carry impurity along a chain of a hundred. (15:8, 15:9)
RememberTwo puddles on the same floor. One was sprinkled on somebody who needed it and is now water; the other was aimed at a case that was not real and is still an av hatumah.
Ch 1Four shades, and the only measurement that rules
- Whiter than the membrane of an egg. A tzara'at affliction turns the skin white, as white as the membrane of an egg or whiter, and any whiteness paler than that membrane is not tzara'at but bohak. (1:1)
- Two which are four. Baheret is snow white, si'ait resembles the cleaned wool of a newborn sheep, the shade of the lime of the Temple building is the sapachat of baheret and the shade of the membrane of an egg is the sapachat of si'ait, sapachat meaning subsidiary; all four join into a single blemish whether that produces leniency or stringency, and the shade petuch, white carrying a little redness, is measured against four cups of milk holding two, four, eight and sixteen drops of blood. (1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 1:5)
- The names qualify the priest, not the patient. Since all four shades join, the Sages counted them so that one would understand the appearances, and a priest who does not recognize them and their names after being taught may not assess a blemish until he can say which is baheret and which is its subsidiary. (1:3)
- Depth is the whole ruling. No appearance is a blemish or imparts impurity unless it looks deep, beneath the surface of the skin, in the way that sunlight appears deeper to the eye than a shadow; whiteness level with the flesh or raised above it is a rash like any other rash, and the minimum size is a square gris of Cilicia, a place where thirty six hairs could grow, so that a blemish five hairs wide is pure though it run a cubit long. (1:6, 1:7, 1:8)
- Read on an average complexion, then watch for three signs. Snow white appears dark on an albino and a dark shade appears intensely white on a black man, so the shade is judged as it would appear on a person of average complexion; white hair, healthy flesh within the blemish and expansion each render him definitely impure, absent all three he is isolated for seven days and at most a second seven, and darkening is no proof of purity unless the blemish goes darker than all four shades. (1:9, 1:10, 1:11)
RememberSnow white, the full size, the redness exactly as described, and if it sits on top of the skin the priest has no case to hear.