What You Lean On

About This Talk

These last three chapters of Kelim define what makes an object a support, a surface a zav renders impure by lying, sitting or riding on it. Chapter 24 does it in leather: a long inventory of working hides is susceptible because people sit on them, and a second group, the hide over a child's heart, the harvest hide, the hide wrapped around a garment, the hide sewn into a clothes chest, is susceptible because they all get turned upside down and used as supports; nothing qualifies below five handbreadths by five, leather made as a cover for a k'li is pure from every impurity while a cover for weights is a receptacle susceptible to other impurity but not midras, a heel-and-sole hide counts only if it covers the greater part of the foot, and a shoe on the mold is already susceptible because its work is finished. From there the Rambam gives the mechanism: a finished hide becomes a support through thought alone, an unfinished one needs the work completed first, with the dust cover for a saddle the lone exception, and a leather maker's stock is presumed set aside for sale so his intent counts for nothing unless he performs a deed; no surface contracts midras unless it belongs to the one resting on it, learned from the words his couch, so a robber leaves it pure until the owner despairs while a thief is presumed to have caused despair and his intent alone works; straps torn from an impure hide do not purify it until it falls below five by five; refashioning leather from flat implement to flat implement keeps the impurity while flat to receptacle or receptacle to flat purifies it, though with cloth everything stays impure; and articles made both to hold and to sit on keep midras when damaged while articles made primarily to hold, a drinking pouch of seven kabbin, a carrying case of five, a feeding bag of four, a water sack of a se'ah, become pure from everything once they cannot hold, except that binding the tear restores nothing, Arab pouches excepted, and a bagpipe never qualifies at all. Chapter 25 asks which sitting counts: wooden implements made to sit, lie or ride on are susceptible, including the bier, the bride's chair, the birthing chair, the launderer's chair and a child's chair with legs under a handbreadth, and a leather-covered iron lavatory seat or reed basket carries midras in the leather and leaves the metal to other impurity and the basket wholly pure; a bathhouse bench on two wooden legs is susceptible and one on a wooden leg and a marble leg is not, cork-covered bathhouse boards are not, a basket stuffed with straw is not until reeds are laced across its opening, a seat at the end of an olive press beam is pure because a man sitting there would be told to stand up and let us work, the back of a carriage is pure because sitting there is uncomfortable, craftsmen's beam tops and a piece hewn from a date palm are pure because they are not keilim, and a lump of wood in a gateway facade becomes one only when designs are engraved in it; hewn beam heads follow intent, but only the intent of a sound-minded owner, since a deaf mute, an incompetent person, a minor or a stranger cannot change an object's status; a mound of dried yeast made into a seat is nullified as food and becomes susceptible, straw mats are susceptible while reed and grass mats are not, other mats follow whether they were made to lie on or to shade, and when made without intent, their size decides; reinforcing reeds laid lengthwise keep a mat susceptible while a chi pattern or widthwise reeds under four handbreadths apart purify it, a mat split across its width stays susceptible and one split lengthwise only if three bonds of six handbreadths remain; a chest opening from above is pure from midras and a chest opening from its side is not; a child's carriage is susceptible because he leans on it while an old man's walking stick is absolutely pure because it is only an aid; a limeworker's wooden sandal and a prosthetic leg both qualify; and the riding surfaces, the donkey's saddle-blanket, the horse's saddle, the camel's cushion, carry their own impurity, while boards laid on a donkey under a burden stay pure unless they are fit to serve as a saddle. Chapter 26 then takes everything apart: a support fixed in a wall with nails and built over becomes pure, affixed without building or built over without affixing stays susceptible, and the same for a mat under a ceiling; a bench loses one leg and stays susceptible, loses the second and is pure unless it still stands a handbreadth high; a bride's chair stripped of its projecting coating is pure while a chair whose non-projecting coating is removed stays susceptible because the practice is to turn it on its side; a closet keeps its impurity through either half and purifies only when both go; and a chest broken at its side carries midras and every other impurity because everyone sits on it, broken from above is pure from midras but still a receptacle, and broken from below is pure from everything, since a nullified primary purpose takes the secondary purpose down with it, which is also why a broken dispenser basket is pure though still fit to sit on. A gypsum mixing trough never takes midras; a kneading trough between two luggin and nine kabbin cracked past washing one foot does, rain swelling the crack shut makes it a trough again and the east wind reopening it makes it a seat again; a trough over nine kabbin that is damaged past holding pomegranates stays pure until its corners are trimmed, because intent alone cannot promote it, and becomes susceptible to everything once it is made a feeding trough, even affixed to a wall. The treatise ends on a bed: new sideboards in the old holes leave it impure and its whole status hangs on those old sideboards, two diagonal cuts to the cornerposts or bedposts count as broken, half of it stolen, lost or divided between brothers makes it a broken k'li that is pure and susceptible only going forward, one sideboard and two bedposts gone leaves it impure because it can be propped against a wall and slept on, a bed immersed component by component is pure, and whoever touches the cords of a bed taken apart for immersion is pure.