One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
שְׁאָר אֲבוֹת הַטֻּמְאוֹת
Other Sources of Impurity 6-8
Sefer Taharah · How the impurity of idolatry was assembled entirely out of borrowed leniencies, why the Sages built the law of a vessel's outer surface crooked on purpose, and how a treatise on the sources of impurity ends on a nursing child and a hungry woman
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Primary sources of impurity the Sages attached to idolatry: the deity itself, its accessories, what is offered to it, and wine poured out to it
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Links a chain of liquids may run and still leave every single one of them a first derivative, since liquids have no degrees
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The rank at which hands are fixed forever, a secondary derivative, whether or not anybody knows that they touched anything
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Degrees a food may descend, first through fourth, before the chain of impurity gives out altogether
Ch 6Idolatry, built out of borrowed leniencies
- Decreed, and said to be decreed. The impurity of false deities is of Rabbinic origin with only an allusion in the Torah, a verse in Genesis about removing the foreign gods and changing your garments, and four primary categories sit under that heading: the deity, its accessories, what is offered to it, and the wine poured out to it. (6:1)
- Touch and inner space, never carrying. A false deity defiles persons and vessels by touch and an earthenware container through its inner space, does not defile when carried, like the carcass of a teeming creature, and requires an olive-sized portion, since it should not turn out to be more stringent than a portion of a corpse. (6:2)
- Whole, or nothing at all. A limb cut from a false deity is pure even where it is as large as the steering rod of a plow, since only the intact image defiles, and an idol taken apart stays pure even where an ordinary person could reassemble it and every one of its parts is present. (6:3, 6:4)
- The shrine, and what is set before it. The stones, beams and earth of a shrine defile at an olive's size like the other accessories, a man who puts his head and the majority of his body inside is impure as though he touched it, and what is offered to a deity and wine poured out to it defile when carried as well, like the carcass of an animal. (6:5, 6:6, 6:7, 6:8)
- Impure inside the water that purifies. A carcass or a surface a zav rode on that was cast into a mikveh still defiles whoever touches it while it lies there, and the person who touched it becomes pure the moment he immerses and ascends. (6:16)
RememberThe most alarming object in the treatise was assembled out of the gentlest clause available in every neighboring law, and the Rambam says so on the page rather than hiding the method.
Ch 7Foods and liquids, and a rule made crooked on purpose
- Scripture says less than you would expect. Foods and liquids contract impurity by Torah law, but impure food conveys nothing to other food and impure liquid conveys nothing at all, and it is the Sages who decreed that impure food defiles food and liquid, and that impure liquid defiles foods, liquids and vessels. (7:1)
- Liquids alone reach a vessel. No derivative of impurity defiles vessels except impure liquids, a Rabbinic decree modelled on the spittle of a zav, which is a primary source and defiles vessels according to Scriptural Law. (7:2)
- The outside and the inside part company. Impure liquid falling into the inner space of a vessel makes the whole vessel impure, while liquid touching only the outside leaves the inner surface clean and does not disqualify terumah that touches it, although for sacrificial food an impure outer surface renders the vessel impure throughout. (7:3, 7:6)
- The oddness is the signal. The Sages drew that distinction so that it would be known that the impurity of these vessels is a Rabbinic institution, and so that terumah and sacrificial foods would not be burnt as a result. (7:4)
- Food counts down, liquid never does. Foods descend by degrees, first, second, third and fourth, while a liquid that touches a primary source or any derivative is always a first derivative, so a chain of wine, oil, milk, honey and water a hundred links long leaves every link a first derivative. (7:5)
RememberA law was given a visible seam deliberately, so that anyone leaning his weight on it would feel that it had been made, and would feel it in time to stop before the fire.
Ch 8Hands, and a decree that declines to accuse
- Impure to the joints and no further. Hands that touch a primary derivative are impure up to the joints while the body stays pure, the same for hands put into a house sealed on account of tzara'at, and they are fixed at the rank of a secondary derivative because the decree that made them impure also assigned their level. (8:1, 8:2)
- Piggul, notar, and a bone that is a base. Piggul, notar and the remnants of meal offering flour are primary derivatives and an egg-sized portion of them defiles hands, and even the intact thigh bone of an offering that became piggul or notar defiles hands, since it serves as the base for a forbidden entity. (8:3, 8:4)
- A doubt about hands is settled toward purity. Sacrificial meat carried outside its appropriate place is an unresolved question and therefore does not defile hands at all, and meat of the Paschal offering taken out of the house where it is eaten is pure, since the members of the company are assumed to be vigilant. (8:5)
- Hands are busy. Solomon and his court decreed that hands are always secondary derivatives even where nobody knows with certainty that they contracted impurity, at first for sacrificial food alone, and later Sages extended the decree to terumah, which is why hands are washed before partaking of it. (8:8)
- The measures, and where the treatise stops. A person who eats impure food becomes a secondary derivative at a quarter of a loaf, the size of an egg and a half, or at a revi'it of impure liquid, taken within the time it takes to eat half a loaf, and yet the nursing son of a woman who is a primary derivative is pure, and a pregnant woman may eat under the measure because of the danger and remains pure. (8:11, 8:12, 8:13)
RememberThe decree does not accuse anyone. It observes what hands are, fixes the consequence in advance so that nobody has to be interrogated, and then hands you a cup of water.