One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
טֻמְאַת מֵת
Defilement by a Corpse 18-20
Sefer Taharah · The man who conveys impurity and cannot block it, the beehive container that shelters only once it has been ruined, and the three conditions that keep a thing out of reach under the roof of a corpse
1
Handbreadth of hand span, and a man has become an ohel
3
Conditions that protect under the ohel of a corpse
24
Hours that anything but a dog protects what it swallowed
100
Cubits down, and keilim in a house's earth are still impure
Ch 18A person is a roof and never a wall
- A hand wide enough is a covering. One hand held over a corpse and the other over keilim renders the keilim impure if each hand covers a handbreadth of space, and if they are smaller the keilim stay pure. (18:1)
- Two half-olives joined by a man's arms. Half an olive of a corpse in each of two adjacent buildings, with a man reaching one hand into each, becomes a single impurity when the hands span a handbreadth, so that everything is one ohel and he and both buildings are impure. (18:1)
- A person is hollow. A man leaning over impurity from a window brings it into the house he stands in; a man lying across a doorstep with impurity above the part of him outside renders the house impure, because his upper body stands a handbreadth high, and pure people standing over him are impure too, since a person conveys impurity and does not intervene against it. (18:2)
- The oven's opening and the closet in the entrance. A corpse carried over an oven's dome-shaped opening that extends outside leaves the oven impure and the house pure, since the oven is not raised off the ground; an oversized closet in an entrance opening outward keeps the house pure, while impurity in the house reaches what is in the closet, because impurity departs and does not enter. (18:4)
- Gaps of a handbreadth, and the slant of a tent. Keilim between a closet and the ground, wall or ceiling are impure only where a handbreadth of empty space stands there; a closet in the open air keeps the keilim inside pure when impurity is in the breadth of its walls and the reverse; and every slanted wall of a tent counts as the tent itself. (18:5, 18:6, 18:7)
RememberA person conveys impurity and does not intervene against it. He can be the roof over the trouble; he can never be the wall in front of it.
Ch 19Vessel or tent, and the ruin that changes one into the other
- The beehive container in an entrance, mouth facing out. Lying on the ground it confines the impurity to a column that pierces upward and downward, and the building stays pure; impurity inside the container makes everything impure, and once it is raised a handbreadth the building, the space below and the space above are all impure, since keilim that become an ohel over impurity convey it and do not intervene. (19:1)
- Break it and it changes species. Damaged and plugged with straw, or stuffed until no cubic handbreadth of hollow remains, or simply an oversized wooden container, it is an ohel of wood and not a k'li, so raised a handbreadth over impurity it leaves its own inner space and whatever rests on it pure. (19:1, 19:2)
- Less than a handbreadth of clearance. A container filling a house to within less than a handbreadth of the ceiling, or leaning to within less than a handbreadth of a wall, sends its own impurity out into the building while the building's impurity does not enter it, because impurity departs and does not enter. (19:3)
- On its base, raised, covered, overturned. An intact container resting on its base in the open lets impurity pierce up and down past it, but raise it a handbreadth, cover it, or stand it upside down and everything above, below and within is impure; the damaged one plugged with straw goes back to piercing, and raised over impurity it confines the impurity to the ground beneath. (19:4, 19:5)
- The camel on its feet and the camel lying down. A camel standing in the open with impurity beneath it leaves the keilim above pure and the reverse, while a camel lying down is a covering and the impurity pierces upward and downward through it, as it does under a foot laid flush on the ground. (19:6)
RememberWhat has an inside conducts. What has an underneath protects. The route from the first to the second runs through damage.
Ch 20Sealed, sheltered, swallowed
- Three protections, and only one works both ways. A sealed covering, an ohel and the fact of being swallowed all keep pure things from contracting impurity, but a sealed cover and an ohel do not stop impurity from departing, so a corpse in sealed containers still defiles the house it is carried into. (20:1)
- Swallowed, and only while it is alive. A dog that ate the flesh of a corpse and entered a house leaves the house pure, and a ring swallowed by a man stays pure though the man contracts seven-day impurity; the protection ends once the majority of the signs are slit, even while the creature is still in its death throes. (20:2, 20:3)
- Three days in a dog, one day in anything else. Impurity in the intestines imparts impurity on death for three full twenty-four hour periods in a dog and one full day in other beasts, animals, fowl or fish; a wolf that swallows a baby and expels it leaves the flesh pure and the bones impure. (20:4)
- Concealment is not swallowing. A hook hidden in a spindle, a ring found in a brick, and a pin or ring covered by the clay reinforcing an oven are all impure in an ohel of a corpse, since articles encompassed by keilim are saved only by a sealed cover; if the oven itself is sealed close and therefore pure, what is under its clay is pure as well. (20:5)
- The earth of a house, the drain, and two sealed jugs. Keilim embedded in a house's earth are impure even a hundred cubits down unless a cubic handbreadth of space surrounds them; a covered drain a cubic handbreadth in size with an opening the same keeps house and drain separate, and two sealed jugs each holding half an olive stay pure while the house is impure, until one of them is opened. (20:6, 20:7, 20:8)
RememberA seal faces one way. Only what was taken all the way in is both protected and contained.