Nazir 54a — the Talmud in English

For the Master said: Impurity bursts upward:

impurity

bursts downward.

But with regard to touching [

contact impurity ],

it was taught

to interpret the verse: “

And he shall take hyssop and sprinkle it upon the tent and upon all the vessels and upon the persons who were there,

and upon one who touches [

ordinary touching ]

a bone or a cavity

or a corpse or a grave”: “

A bone”—

this is a bone the size of a barley-grain,

which renders impure through touching, although it does not render impure through a tent. “

Or a cavity”—

this is a limb hollowed out from a living being, and it does not have

enough flesh to

allow healing [“

flesh in the proper measure”], which renders impure through touching, although it does not render impure through a tent. “

Or a corpse”—

this is a limb hollowed out from a corpse,

which does not have enough flesh to allow healing, and which renders impure through touching but does not render impure through a tent.

And concerning what is stated

“

or a grave”—

Resh Lakish said:

This is a grave from before the Utterance,

a grave from before the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, to Moses concerning corpse impurity, which renders impure through touching but does not render impure through a tent.

From here Resh Lakish learned that Scripture included the impurity of touching for a limb from a corpse even when it does not contain a bone the size of a barley-grain, for:

This “

limb from a corpse”

that was included with regard to touching—

what are the circumstances?

If it contains a bone the size of a barley-grain,

then

that is “

one who touches a bone,”

which we expounded as referring to a bone the size of a barley-grain.

Rather, it does not contain “

a bone the size of a barley-grain”—

And even so Scripture included it,

so we have learned in accordance with the words of Resh Lakish.

But Rabbi Yoḥanan,

who holds that a limb from a corpse that does not have flesh in the proper measure does not render impure even through touching by Torah law—

can say to you: Actually—

the limb from a corpse that was included with regard to touching is speaking of a case such as

where it contains

a bone the size of a barley-grain, and it renders impure through touching because of the bone the size of a barley-grain within it.

And what is difficult for you—“that is a bone”—should not be difficult:

and if it is not needed with regard to its touching,

that is, the touching of the bone the size of a barley-grain, since we have already expounded it from “or a bone”

assign it to the matter of carrying it,

the carrying of a bone the size of a barley-grain, which we have not yet learned.

Rabbi Akiva said: I presented the following argument before Rabbi Eliezer,

who said—as we learned earlier, on 54a—that a nazirite does not shave for a quarter-log of blood, but only for half a log of blood:

But

if, with regard to a barley-grain-sized bone, which does not render a person impure through a tent,

nevertheless

a nazirite shaves for touching it and for carrying it—

with regard to a quarter-log of blood, which renders a person impure through a tent, is it not all the more so that a nazirite should shave for touching it and for carrying it!?

He said to me

Rabbi Eliezer:

What is this, Akiva!?

And behold,

one does not derive here by kal va-chomer,

for one does not derive a kal va-chomer from a halakha, and he explains it in the Gemara.

And when I came and presented the matters before Rabbi Yehoshua, he said to me:

Indeed,

you spoke well, but thus they said as a halakha

to Moses from Sinai.