Chagigah 23b (כג:) — the Talmud in English

This should not be difficult for you:

For the case of a tube used for the preparation of the

sin offering

is different, for they treated it as one who had become impure through contact with a creeping creature [that is, as one who touched a creeping creature], who requires sunset. Since you do not require sunset for it, you have thereby made a distinction for the Sadducees, indicating that one who immersed that day is valid for the parah [red heifer]. [See the additional explanation in the notes]. And we raise an objection to this:

But if that is so,

if they treated it only as one who had become impure through contact with a creeping creature—

it should not render impure

the tube

a person

who touched it, for the vessel—which is like one that touched a creeping creature—is a first-degree source of ritual impurity, and it does not render a person impure.

Then why,

and why

is it taught:

A person who

cuts

the tube,

and

the person who

immerses it must immerse

because he became impure through contact with the tube?!

Rather,

the Gemara rejects this in another way:

They treated

the tube used for the sin offering

as one who had become impure through contact with a corpse,

as though it had touched a corpse. It is a primary source of ritual impurity, renders a person impure, and requires sunset.

And we raise an objection:

If so—

if they treated the tube as one that had touched a corpse—

it should require

it should require

the person who touches the tube

sprinkling on the third and seventh days

from the ashes of the red heifer, since you are treating him as impure through contact with a corpse?!

And

then why

and why

is it taught:

A person who

cuts

the tube,

and

the person who

immerses it—

must immerse.

This implies:

Immersion, yes,

indeed, he must perform it.

But

sprinkling on the third and seventh days—

no!

Rather,

the Gemara rejects this in another way:

They treated

the tube

as one who had become impure through contact with a corpse on

the

seventh day,

after he had been sprinkled, when he requires only immersion and sunset.

This tube, too, is considered as though it had touched a corpse and were on its seventh day. It requires sunset and renders a person impure, but the person does not require sprinkling on the third and seventh days.

We still raise a difficulty concerning the Gemara’s resolution according to Rabbi Eliezer: Although other vessels completed in a state of ritual purity do not require sunset, nevertheless a tube designated for the sin offering requires sunset because they treated it as one who had become impure through contact with a corpse:

But it is taught:

Since the Sages treated the purity of the preparation of the parah leniently, requiring that the priest who burned the parah be rendered impure in order to refute the Sadducees, the Sages feared that people might come to treat the entire purity of the water of the sin offering lightly. Therefore, the Sages established many safeguards and restrictions to preserve its purity [for example, they raised children for the filling of the water of the sin offering from the time of their birth upon a rock, out of a distant concern that they might become impure through an unknown grave].

Nevertheless,

the Sages never innovated

the Sages

anything concerning the parah,

creating an impurity that does not exist anywhere else. They decreed only safeguards for the preservation of purity, involving forms of impurity that exist everywhere.

But if we resolve that ordinary vessels completed in a state of ritual purity do not require sunset, whereas vessels completed in a state of ritual purity that were designated for the water of the sin offering were treated by the Sages as one who had become impure through contact with a corpse—there could be no greater innovation than this! Why, then, did the beraita say that they did not innovate anything concerning the sin offering?! And we answer:

Abaye said:

They did not say that they had not innovated anything at all concerning the parah.

Rather, the tanna of the beraita means to say

that they did not say

that the Sages introduced an innovation whereby a vessel would become impure with regard to the water of the sin offering when it is not susceptible to this impurity.

Therefore, they did not innovate and say:

An axe,

which is not made for sitting—for in general it does not contract the impurity of a seat of a zav, since it is not made or designated for the zav to sit upon it, as the Gemara explains below—

renders impure

with the impurity of

a seat,

the severe impurity of a seat under a zav, with regard to the water of the sin offering.

This they did not innovate. But they did innovate, concerning a vessel susceptible to impurity through contact with a corpse, treating one who did not touch a corpse as one who did touch a corpse!

The Gemara now brings proof for its statement that an axe upon which a zav sits is not impure with the impurity of a seat:

As it is taught:

It is written:

“And one who sits upon the vessel

upon which the zav sat shall wash his garments and bathe in water, and he shall be impure until evening.”

One might have thought

that if

the zav overturned

a

se’a

[a vessel used to measure the quantity of a se’a]

and sat upon it,

or one might have thought that if he overturned

a tarkav

[two kav, a measuring vessel holding three kav, which is half a se’a]

and sat upon it, he should be impure

with the severe impurity of the seat of a zav?

The verse states: “And one who sits upon the vessel upon which he sat shall become impure.”

It does not say, “upon which he sat,” with the wording indicating a completed act, but rather, “upon which he sits.”

This teaches you that only

a

vessel

designated for sitting

becomes impure with the impurity of the seat of a zav.

Excluded

is a

vessel

made for measuring,

to which

the owners of the vessels say to the zav:

Stand

above the vessels

and let

us

carry out our work!

In other words, this vessel is not designated for sitting, and therefore does not contract the severe impurity of the seat of a zav.

We learned in the Mishna:

A vessel combines what is inside it with regard to sacred objects, but not with regard to teruma:

From where are these matters derived?

Rabbi Hanin said: For the verse states

in the portion concerning the offerings of the tribal leaders:

“One bowl, ten gold, full of incense.”

The verse renders everything in the bowl

like

one

piece, teaching that if part of what is inside it becomes impure, everything inside it becomes impure.

Rav Kahana raises an objection

from the Mishna in Eduyyot, in which we learned:

Rabbi Akiva added

to the testimony of Rabbi Shimon ben Beteira, who testified similarly concerning the ashes of the sin offering and said:

Even

the fine flour

of sacred offerings,

and the incense, frankincense, and coals

of sacred offerings that were in a vessel,

if one who immersed that day

[one who immersed but had not yet experienced sunset]

touched part of it,

then he

disqualified all of it.

But

what Rabbi Akiva said is necessarily

a rabbinic law,

and not a Torah law, as the Gemara explains below; and this is a difficulty for Rabbi Hanin?!

From where

do we know that Rabbi Akiva’s testimony is rabbinic and not derived from the verse cited by Rabbi Hanin?

From the opening clause,

of the Mishna in Eduyyot,

“Rabbi Shimon ben Beteira testified concerning the ashes of the sin offering”

that were found in a vessel,

that

if

an impure person touched part of it, he

rendered all of it impure.

This law is certainly rabbinic, for even if you say, as Rabbi Hanin does, that it is derived from “one bowl,” you can derive from it only a law concerning sacred objects, not concerning the ashes of the sin offering.

And it teaches, “Rabbi Akiva added,”

which implies that the law of one is like the law of the other: just as the impurity of the ashes of the sin offering is rabbinic, so too the combining effect of a vessel with regard to sacred objects is rabbinic.