Nazir 42b — the Talmud in English

Gemara:

It was stated: Rabba said that Rav Huna said:

It is written in the section of the nazirite: “All the days that he separates himself for the sake of the Lord, he shall not come upon a dead person [in the tent of the dead]. He shall not become impure for them through his father, for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die [whether through contact, through carrying, or in a tent]”:

And since

a complete verse

[a verse that fills in and completes everything]

has spoken: “

He shall not become impure,”

which includes all impurities from a dead person, then

when it says “

he shall not come”—

which implies entry into the tent of the dead alone—what does it teach us?

To warn him

who enters the tent of the dead

concerning the impurity

through which he becomes impure, and

to warn him

also

concerning the entry;

that is to say: if he entered the tent of the dead and became impure, he transgressed two prohibitions: “he shall not become impure,” since he became impure, and “he shall not come,” since he entered the tent of the dead, and he receives two sets of lashes.

And Rav Huna adds:

But

to receive lashes for

impurity and impurity

twice [without becoming pure in the meantime]—

no.

For one who was impure and remained so is no longer liable if he became impure again, even if they warned him again, for the nazirite is liable only when he becomes impure or when he adds impurity to his previous impurity.

And Rav Yosef said: By the God!

[It is an oath]

Rav Huna said: Even for impurity and impurity

he receives two sets of lashes, when he became impure and then became impure again, if they warned him between one impurity and the other impurity, even though he did not add any impurity through the second impurity beyond his first impurity.

For

indeed

Rav Huna said:

A nazirite who was standing

in a cemetery

and became impure there,

and they handed his dead relative to him

[his relative who had died]

and another person died

or another person died

and he touched him,

he is

liable

if they warned him a second time.

And

why!?

For he is becoming impure and remains so

[he is already impure and remains impure]—

Rather, can one not infer from this: Rav Huna said, even for impurity and impurity.

Abaye raised an objection

to Rav Yosef from that which was taught in a beraita:

A nazirite who had a dead person lying

to him

on his shoulders,

and they handed his dead relative to him, and another person died and he touched him—could he be liable

even for the second impurity?

The verse says

concerning the impurity of priests [Leviticus 21:4]: “He shall not become impure among his people

to profane him”—

We have therefore learned that the verse speaks

of one who has not been profaned

and warns him not to become profaned;

this one, who is already profaned and remains so, is excluded,

for he is not warned against becoming impure again. And since we have learned this from the verse concerning a priest, we also learn it concerning a nazirite by a gezerah shavah: “his mother, his mother.”

He said to him Rav Yosef to Abaye:

Rather than raising an objection to me from that beraita

—

let the objection be raised for you

from that beraita against

the Mishna

[our Mishna], in which we learned in accordance with my words, that even for impurity and impurity he receives two sets of lashes,

for we learned: If he was becoming impure through dead persons all day, he is liable only once.

But

they said to him: “

Do not become impure,” “

Do not become impure”;

he is

liable for each and every one, and why!?

For he is becoming impure and remains so!?

Rather,

necessarily, it is indeed

difficult

against each other

[the Mishna and the beraita contradict one another], and erase the beraita on account of the Mishna, and there will no longer be an objection to my words in the name of Rav Huna, which accord with the Mishna.

Abaye said:

It is not difficult

for the Mishna and the beraita to be against each other, for the beraita exempted him only when he did not add impurity to his impurity, whereas our Mishna deals with a case in which he added impurity to his impurity, and therefore he is liable. How so:

a. The dead person himself is the father of the fathers of impurity, and one who touches him becomes a father of impurity and is impure with seven-day impurity [seven days of impurity and sprinkling on the third and seventh days with the water of the red heifer], and one who touches a person impure through a dead person is impure with evening impurity.

b. One who touches a person at the time when that person is touching a dead person, or spreading a tent over him, or carrying him, is called “impurity through connection” [and sometimes it is called “he will draw near through one who draws near”], and he is impure with seven-day impurity.

c. The definition of this law was explained by the later authorities:

As long as the person who became impure has not separated from the dead person, he himself becomes the father of the fathers of impurity; therefore, one who touches him at that time becomes a father of impurity and is impure with seven-day impurity.

Here

the beraita deals with a case in which he again became impure while he was still

in a state of connection

to the dead person, as is explicit in the beraita: “A dead person was lying on his shoulders, and they handed his dead relative to him”; and if so, he did not add any impurity through his contact with the other dead person, and therefore he is not liable for the second impurity, because it is stated “to profane him.”

But

here,

in our Mishna, we are dealing with a case in which he again became impure when he was already

not in a state of connection

to the dead person, and when he again connected himself to the dead person and became the father of the fathers of impurity, he added impurity to his impurity. Therefore, he is liable even though he was already profaned and remained so, provided that they warned him between one and the other.

And consequently the words of Rav Huna are also resolved, for he said: “But for impurity and impurity, no,” even though it is explained in our Mishna that he is liable, because Rav Huna too is dealing with a case in which he had not yet separated from the dead person.

And we raise an objection:

And

is it really the case that

impurity through connection

is

of Torah origin, so that you say: when he again connects himself to the dead person, he is liable for lashes because he added impurity to himself!?

But Rav Yitzḥak bar Yosef said that Rabbi Yannai said:

But Rav Yitzhak bar Yosef said in the name of Rabbi Yannai:

They said impurity through connection

such that one who touches someone connected to a dead person is impure with seven-day impurity as though he had touched the dead person himself,

only for

the matter of

teruma and consecrated things.

But for a nazirite,

to invalidate his nazirite status and shave the “impurity shaving” when he touched one who was connected to a dead person,

and

for one

who performs the Paschal offering

to refrain, because of this seven-day impurity, from performing the Paschal offering,

no, the Sages did not say so; rather, they were lenient in these two cases.

And if you say that

impurity through connection

is

of Torah origin, then

if so,

what is the difference

between teruma and consecrated things, and a nazirite and one who performs the Paschal offering!? And we answer:

Here—

in the words of Rabbi Yannai—

it concerns the connection of one person to another person, when one person was connected to another person who was connected to a dead person; for then one who touches him is impure with seven-day impurity only by rabbinic law.

Here— in our Mishna—

it concerns the connection of a person to a dead person,

when the nazirite was connected to the dead person itself; for then the nazirite becomes the father of the fathers of impurity, and if a person touches him, he becomes impure with seven-day impurity by Torah law.

Here the Gemara returns to the words of Rav Huna, who distinguished—according to Abaye—between impurity and entry, and impurity and impurity. The plain meaning of his intention is that in the same case in which he is exempt for impurity and impurity, namely, when he did not add impurity to his impurity, Rav Huna holds him liable for impurity and entry; and we raise an objection:

But tumah and tumah, no;

for what reason is that?

For he is becoming impure and remains so

[he is already impure and has not added tumah to his tumah]; if so,

tumah

and entrance as well

in the same manner in which he was impure at the outset and did not add tumah to his tumah, why should he be liable for the entrance?

He is becoming impure and remains so!

He said

answered

Rabbi Yohanan:

The distinction that Rav Huna made between tumah and entrance and tumah and tumah does not mean that with tumah and entrance he is liable for each one successively, whereas with tumah and tumah he is not liable for each one successively. Rather, this is what Rav Huna said:

Here, in a house

[in the tent of a corpse], where he becomes liable for the entrance, it is possible to find a person liable for two, as, for example, when he was not impure and entered a house, becoming impure and entering the tent at one moment.

Here, in the field

where he did not enter the house, you will never find him liable for two, for at one moment it is impossible for him to become liable for two, even if he touched two corpses simultaneously, and if he became impure and then became impure again, and they warned him between the one and the other, he is not liable for the second tumah, since he is already impure.