One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
מְטַמְּאֵי מִשְׁכָּב וּמוֹשָׁב
Those Who Defile Bed or Seat 1-3
Sefer Taharah · The four people who are primary sources of impurity and the nine fluids sorted into three grades, the test of whether a dried substance can still return to itself, and the hours already lived that a later finding reaches back and reopens
9
Fluids a zav produces, sorted into three grades of three
3
Of the nine that are entirely pure: sweat, pus and what the body discards
24
Hours in lukewarm water, and hours the past is reopened backward
1
Day old, and an infant girl can already contract nidah impurity
Ch 1The four people, and the nine fluids sorted into three
- Four primary sources, and the surfaces they promote. A zav, a zavah, a woman in the nidah state and a woman after childbirth are each a primary source of impurity, conveying impurity to vessels by touch and to persons by touch and by being carried, and whatever they lie on, sit on or ride on becomes a primary source in its own right; the distinctions between a minor and a major zavah, or between two discharges and three, change nothing about what they convey to others. (1:1, 1:2)
- Age is almost no barrier. An infant girl of one day can contract nidah impurity and at ten days the impurity of zivah, a boy of one day can contract the impurity of a zav, and converts, servants and natural born Jews are alike here, as are a man who was castrated and one born without capacity. (1:3, 1:4, 1:5)
- The two systems never cross, which raises the doubtful cases. A woman does not contract impurity through a zav discharge and a man does not contract impurity through uterine blood, so the stringencies of both are laid on a tumtum and an androgynus, and yet their status stays a question, terumah they touched is not burned, and they are not liable for entering the Temple, since Scripture requires that the impurity of a male and of a female each be definite. (1:6, 1:7)
- The blood is impure and the woman may not be. The slightest amount of the blood of nidah, zivah or childbirth conveys impurity by touch and by carrying, five shades render a woman impure and a green discharge does not; and blood released through a Cesarean delivery is a primary source, because the uterus is a place of impurity for all blood emerging from it, while the woman herself stays pure unless the blood came out through the ordinary channel. (1:8, 1:9, 1:11)
- Nine fluids, three grades. Saliva, semen and urine are primary sources conveying impurity in the slightest amount; tears, the blood of a wound and a woman's milk are derivatives that cannot defile a person and defile vessels by Rabbinic law; sweat, pus and what the body discards are wholly pure and identical to the same fluids from anyone else. A zav's first discharge does not convey impurity by carrying, and any bed he sat on before the second discharge is pure, since he is not a zav until there have been two. (1:12, 1:14, 1:16)
RememberSweat soaks the shirt and conveys nothing. Tears cannot reach a person and will still ruin a vessel. The list is not ranking substances by how unpleasant they are.
Ch 2Moist, dry, diluted, and what soaking would prove
- The soak test. Uterine blood conveys impurity whether moist or dry, while the discharge of a zav, his saliva and his semen convey impurity only while moist; the measure of dryness is whether twenty four hours in lukewarm water would return the substance to its natural state, and it makes no difference that the water was lukewarm only at the outset. The Rambam closes the ruling by calling all of it received tradition. (2:1)
- The flax is innocent and the saliva rides on it. One who moves flax spun by a woman in the nidah state is pure, and if the flax is still moist it conveys impurity because of the saliva from her mouth, since a spinner wets the thread at her lips. (2:2)
- One swallow decides the cup. A zav who set his mouth to a cup and then declined to drink leaves the cup harmless to whoever moves it, and if he drank the least amount the mover is impure; likewise bread and an onion he bit into convey nothing, while a zucchini or a cucumber convey impurity, because those are wet enough that the moisture of his mouth mixes in and stays. (2:3, 2:4)
- Dilution, and the rule of the majority. Impure blood mixed into water is pure once no appearance of blood remains, and pure blood or wine mixed in is treated as water; saliva that stays viscous as saliva naturally does is impure and saliva that dissolves into nothing distinct is pure; a urinal used by both gentiles and Jews goes by the majority and is impure when they are equal; and a urinal used by a zav yields impure wash water once and twice and pure water after the third washing. (2:6, 2:8)
- A decree built with a visible flaw. Gentiles do not contract this impurity by Scriptural law, and the Sages decreed that they convey impurity like zavim from the age of nine for a male and three for a female, while deliberately declining to extend the decree to a gentile's semen, so that everyone would recognize the impurity as Rabbinic and would not burn terumah on its account. (2:10)
RememberThe question is never how the substance looks now. It is whether water would bring it back to what it was.
Ch 3Retroactive hours, fixed times, and rulings held in abeyance
- A verse that reads as emphasis and works as a demotion. A man intimate with a nidah becomes a primary source like her, yet the surface he lies on is only a derivative that defiles food and drink and cannot reach persons or vessels, because Scripture, having already said her impurity is upon him, adds that his bed is impure, and the Oral Tradition reads the redundancy as removing his bed from the severe category. (3:1, 3:2)
- Twenty four hours, or back to the last inspection. A woman who inspected herself in the morning and found blood at noon renders impure retroactively everything pure she touched between the two inspections, and where inspections are days apart the reach is twenty four hours; a checking cloth used after intimacy counts as an inspection and one used beforehand does not, since she does not examine thoroughly with it. (3:4)
- A fixed time seals the calendar in advance. A woman with a fixed time who finds blood at that time is impure only from then onward with no retroactivity at all, while one whose fixed time passed uninspected and who finds blood days later is impure retroactively from the fixed time itself, and one who inspected after her fixed time and found herself pure is pure. (3:5)
- The law is written around the individual body. Women with a fixed time experience physical signs at its onset, yawning, sneezing, heaviness low in the body, trembling, a weight in the head and limbs; where the pattern is bleeding at the start of the expected span everything touched during it is impure, and where the pattern is bleeding at its end everything touched is pure and only the hour she actually bleeds concerns her. (3:6)
- The reach is long and the consequence is suspended. A stain renders impure retroactively to the last inspection she can vouch for, washing the garment does not shorten the reach and a moist stain reaches back too; and yet the fetus that put out a hand, the twenty four hours, the fixed time and the stains are all Rabbinic decrees instituted because of doubt, so terumah and sacrificial food are not burned on their account and the ruling is held in abeyance. (3:7, 3:9)
RememberA finding at noon reaches back to the morning not because anything happened in the morning, but because nobody closed it.