The Thread That Is Not the Coat

About This Talk

Chapter 21 measures how far a vessel reaches past its own body, and the answer is never how far it is attached but how much of it is needed: the loose strands at the edge of a weave, the nimin, count as part of the fabric for six fingerbreadths on a sheet, a head covering, a scarf or a veil, ten on a cloak that opens its full length and closes with loops, and three on a thick blanket, a mantle or a cloak, while a list of items including an Arab face mask, a goats' hair belt, undergarments worn against the flesh, a handkerchief and a door drape is given no measure at all; a plumb line carries twelve handbreadths of cord, a carpenter's eighteen and a large builder's fifty cubits, and past those measures a person who touches the cord is pure even if the owner desires that it be preserved, whereas the plumb lines of roofers and artists are impure at any length because the whole length is in use; scale chains run three fingerbreadths for a goldsmith holding the balance from his hand, three handbreadths with a twelve handbreadth beam for scrap metal dealers, one and six for merchants and householders, two and nine for wool merchants and glass weighers; a bed cord is joined once three squares are tied and carries three fingerbreadths outside the knot, since cutting past that would not undo the knot, while a cord running off an impure bed is pure for four handbreadths, impure from the fifth through the tenth because that is the length used to hang beds on a wall, and pure beyond ten; a mizran gets ten handbreadths and a worn one stays susceptible while seven handbreadths remain, enough for a donkey's girdle; and ten handbreadths turns out to be the limit for midras only, since for corpse impurity, a crawling carcass or impure liquids even a hundred cubits of wound band carries impurity to the bed, after which the chapter works through beds, mizranim and bedposts joined and then separated, the sprinkling of red heifer ashes, and the rule that a derivative impure only until evening imparts nothing to a person or a vessel. Chapter 22 turns to how much cloth makes a garment: exactly three fingerbreadths by three, counting the hanging strands, for corpse impurity and other kinds, three handbreadths by three for midras, and that only in wool or flax, since other fabrics need the full handbreadths for any impurity, learned from the inclusive word in the verse, as do felt and thick blankets at one extreme and the sheer Egyptian linens through which flesh can be seen at the other; those measures govern torn scraps alone, for a garment woven deliberately is susceptible at any size except to midras, while needle work such as pockets and leggings waits until it is finished and a trap until its receptacle is complete; purpose rather than fabric decides, so a worn wine filter is susceptible while it can still filter, a scroll cover with designs never is because it serves the scroll and not a person, the same cover without designs takes every impurity but midras because a man sitting on it would be told to stand up and let us do our work, and a porter's shoulder cushion does take midras; and the chapter ends on discarding, where a prepared rag is finished on the dung heap but still counts when hung on a hook or set behind the door, where throwing out purifies and taking back restores in a cycle except for remnants of purple fabric and fine red silk which are too valuable to be given up by a gesture, where a three handbreadth rag on a dung heap must hold a quarter kab of coarse salt without tearing, where a cloth on a chair is pure if flesh reaches the chair through it, and where a single very worn thread, one knot, or two strands run together purifies a cloth at the minimum measure, as does sewing it into a ball. Chapter 23 asks what it takes to be worth lying on: a mapatz, a mat of interwoven cords, reeds or grasses, is not among the vessels the Torah names and takes midras by Scriptural law anyway from all surfaces on which one lies, with the great general principle that whatever is susceptible to midras is susceptible to every other impurity; the measures climb with the coarseness of the material, cloth three handbreadths by three, goats' hair four, leather five and a mat six, and completing a minimum measure with a more stringent substance makes the piece susceptible while completing it with a less stringent one leaves it pure, so three handbreadths of goats' hair finished with one of cloth is susceptible and two of cloth finished with one of goats' hair is not; all of those measures apply to accidental tears, for a piece cut on purpose needs only one handbreadth square for a seat or three to lie on in any material, and a scrap kept in the hand as the fig harvesters do is susceptible down to three fingerbreadths; and the chapter closes on the fineness of joins, where pulling a single strand from the original woven square drops a finished garment a level or purifies it outright, where an impure patch sewn on one side or on two sides meeting at a corner like a gamma is not joined while two opposite sides make the whole garment a primary source, where a patch separated from a basket or a hide is purified by having been subsumed to it but a patch separated from a weave is not, where a cloak that contracted midras is purified by being remade into a curtain once its hanging loops are attached, and where a garment immersed that day and then torn in its majority is pure because the tearing will be finished.