One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
כֵּלִים
Vessels 6-8
Sefer Taharah · How a vessel is purified by being broken and why the measure of broken is set by what it carried, the moment leather becomes a vessel and the line between thorns and sweat, and the rule that a thought can raise a vessel's status while only a deed can lower it
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Pomegranates lying one against the next, the picture that fixes the middling size by which an ordinary wooden vessel counts as broken
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Times in a single day a camel's saddle baskets, or leather wrapped round an amulet, can pass from pure to susceptible and back again
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Sumach berry: a fruit reaper's finger covering torn so that it cannot hold the greater part of one is pure
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Tasks may remain on a metal vessel before it can be defiled, so a sword is pure until it is smoothed and a knife until it is sharpened
Ch 6How a vessel stops being one
- Broken past its use, and pure. A vessel that contracted impurity regains purity once it is broken so that its form is ruined and it can no longer serve the purpose it was made for, and the pieces of a pure vessel that breaks are not susceptible at all. (6:1)
- The measure is set by the contents. Ordinary wooden and bone vessels are pure once a middling pomegranate would fall through, the size judged by three lying one against the next; small containers such as a quarter kab and a wicker server once an olive would; a breadbasket once a loaf would; a gardener's bushel at a bundle of vegetables, a homeowner's at a bundle of straw, a bathhouse attendant's at a wisp of stubble. (6:2, 6:5, 6:6, 6:7)
- Patched entirely, and still pure. Where an olive sized hole was patched, then another opened elsewhere and was patched, and so on until the holes together come to a pomegranate, the vessel is pure although it is now patched over completely, because it is a new entity. (6:2)
- Failing one use is not release. A chest that can no longer hold bowls is susceptible because it holds pots, and a chamber pot that holds no liquid is susceptible because it holds waste, while baskets, camel nets and vine trellises made full of holes from the start stay susceptible unless the greater part is torn, and a frame of any size makes a holed trellis susceptible again. (6:3, 6:4, 6:8)
- Tied, released, tied again. A wooden vessel split in two is pure unless it was two things from the outset, such as a double table, a double bench or a compartment pot; a table is pure once its legs are gone unless a man means to eat off it like a serving board; a collapsed bench retied with rope is susceptible; and a camel's saddle baskets pass in and out of susceptibility ten times in a day. (6:9, 6:10, 6:13, 6:14)
RememberThe measure of broken is not how much is missing. It is whether what this particular vessel carried would still stay inside it.
Ch 7When leather becomes a vessel
- Every item has its own moment. A shepherd's satchel becomes susceptible when its edges are folded and sealed into a border, the stray pieces trimmed and its closing straps made; a leather mat when its borders are trimmed and its ornament made; a shoe when it is set on its mold, or, if it is to be colored and worked, only then; and tefillin as soon as the cube is finished, though the strap is still to come. (7:1)
- A hide with no form is nothing. The covering thorn gatherers tie round their hands, a hide used to collect cow dung, a hide used to muzzle an animal, a hide used to drive bees off the honey and a hide used as a fan against the heat are all pure, because a hide that has not been given the shape of a vessel is not susceptible. (7:2)
- Thorns yes, sweat no. Anything made as a receptacle, as protection from thorns, or so that the hand will grip well is susceptible, while anything made only against sweat, so that the article being worked is not spoiled, is not, so that leather sewn over the hands of a winnower, a traveller or a flax worker is a vessel and the same leather on a painter or a blacksmith is not; finger coverings are pure except a fruit reaper's, in which sumach berries collect. (7:3, 7:5)
- Form restored, form undone. A sandal or a pouch closed with straps stays susceptible even while untied, since an ordinary person can put the strands back through the loops, yet one that had already contracted impurity is pure once its straps are off and its shape undone; a pouch flattened into plain hide is pure unless a hook was fixed to it, and leather wrapped round an amulet is pure and susceptible ten times in a day. (7:9, 7:10, 7:11)
- Four compartments, removed and restored. Head tefillin defiled by a corpse count as four separate containers, and removing and replacing each in turn lowers the impurity step by step until the whole is pure; a sandal made impure by a zav is freed from that impurity once both of its pegs have been replaced, though it stays impure at the lower level of what touched a zav's vessel; and tefillin are purified when released from the base on three sides, the head tefillin also requiring the compartments to be separated. (7:12, 7:14)
RememberLeather that guards the person is a vessel. Leather that guards the work from the person is not. Identical hide, opposite law.
Ch 8Metal, and the weight of a thought
- Nothing at all left to do. Metal is not susceptible until every task involved in making it is complete, so a sword is pure until it has been smoothed and a knife until it has been sharpened, and anything still awaiting a file, a levelling, a scraping, a polish, a hammer blow, a handle or a rim counts as unfinished and is pure. (8:1, 8:2)
- Raw is pure, once used is not. Vessels fashioned from ore, a bar, a wheel rim, plates, covers, bases, rims, handles or scrap are unfinished and pure, while vessels made from broken or worn out vessels, or from nails that were themselves made from vessels, are susceptible; nails whose origin is unknown are pure. A vessel lacking only its lid is already susceptible, since the lid is no part of it, and a needle made without a hole is susceptible if it was finished for pulling out splinters, and pure if a hole is still intended. (8:2, 8:3, 8:4)
- Wood and metal invert. Unfinished metal is pure where unfinished wood is susceptible, and flat metal is susceptible where flat wood is pure, so that a vessel impure in one of the two materials is pure in the other. (8:5)
- Ornaments for people, not for animals. Weapons and human ornaments are susceptible, down to a disqualified dinar hung at a girl's neck and a metal amulet, while ornaments for animals and for vessels are pure, except a bell whose sound a person wants, a ring used to pull an animal and a metal staff for driving one; bells for a spice mill, a cradle or a covering are pure until a clapper is added, and stay susceptible even if the clapper is later removed. (8:6, 8:7, 8:8, 8:9)
- Thought lifts, only a deed puts down. A vessel becomes susceptible through thought alone and is never released by thought, because a deed cancels a previous deed or thought while a thought cancels neither, so an animal's ring taken up in the mind for human use stays susceptible even after the owner changes his mind back, and only work on the substance of the thing will undo it; the deeds of a minor count here where his intentions do not, a craftsman's undivided stock follows its majority, and an order for two bells without saying which is which leaves both susceptible. (8:10, 8:11, 8:12, 8:13, 8:15)
RememberA change of mind was enough to take the thing up. A change of mind will never be enough to put it down.