Yadayyim01

2:
Many aspects of religious life separate our religious experiences from those of the Tanna'im and the
Amora'im – the sages of the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods respectively. But one aspect in particular is
so strange to our experience that, apart from one or two vestiges, it is quite beyond our religious
experience – and this has been the case for more than 1500 years. I refer to the whole question of ritual
purity. In the written Torah the laws of ritual purity are detailed thoroughly in many places –
particularly in some of the more recondite chapters of Leviticus and Numbers. When we read Parashot
Tazri'a or Metzora, for example, we read from the Torah the laws of the woman who has given birth, the
laws of the man who has a genital emission, the leprous person – even the leprous textile and the leprous
building! Almost none of these considerations play any part in our religious lives today, but to the
sages of the Mishnah and Talmud they were of utmost importance. In the Mishnah of Rabbi Yehudah the
President of the Sanhedrin, which was published around the beginning of the third century CE, one whole
Seder, containing twelve tractates (some of them very long), is devoted to the topic of ritual purity. Of
these twelve tractates only one has Gemara in the Babylonian Talmud, which was arranged less than two
hundred years later! This must be some indication of the reduction of importance of the topic: it had
ceased to be part of everyday life.

3:
The more difficult a mitzvah [commandment] is to keep the more it is likely to be ignored by some and
elevated by others. Modern examples are so obvious that there is no need to mention them: Shabbat and
Kashrut immediately spring to mind. In the time of the sages this was true in particular regarding the
laws of ritual purity. The vast majority of the people were not punctillious in observing the multitude
of minutiae associated with these mitzvot. The sages, however, made every effort to be paragons of virtue
in this matter. Those who seriously took upon themselves the uttermost observance of the multifarious
laws of ritual purity were termed 'Ĥaverim', 'Colleagues'. The overwhelming majority of the
people who did not were termed 'Am ha-Aretz', and this must be the origin of the pejorative nature
of the term (which means literally 'the people of the land', peasants).

4:
The basic concept which underlies these laws is that ritual impurity is 'contagious'; that is to say that
it can be transferred from a source to people and things that came into physical contact with that
impurity, and that to a certain extent these secondary sources of impurity could also transmit it further
down the line. Thus it was deemed imperative that everyone make every effort to remain aloof from
contracting ritual impurity and if rendered ritually impure the person or the thing must be ritually
purified according to law.

5:
The primary source of ritual impurity is a human corpse. The Torah [Numbers 19:11-14] teaches:

6:
Other major sources of ritual impurity are insects and reptilia [Leviticus 11:29ff], the carcasses
of animals [Leviticus 11:27-28], people who suffer excretions from their genitalia
[Leviticus 15], women during and after menstruation and childbirth [Leviticus 12], and
various forms of skin disease [Leviticus 13 and 14].

7:
The most severe form of ritual impurity is what derives from physical contact with a human corpse as we
have already said in paragraph 5. This source of ritual impurity is termed 'the supreme major source of
impurity' [Avi Avot ha-Tum'ah]. The other sources, mentioned in paragraph 6, are termed 'major
sources of impurity' [Avot ha-Tum'ah]. The practical halakhic difference between them is the fact
that anyone who comes into contact with a human corpse (the 'supreme major source') immediately becomes
'a major source' himself or herself; whereas anyone who comes into contact with the others only becomes a
'minor source' of ritual impurity [Vlad ha-Tum'ah].

8:
But it is not only people who can contract and transmit ritual impurity. The list also includes clothing
and utensils made out of metal, wood, leather or bone and earthenware pottery. Foodstuffs that have come
into contact with liquids and liquids themselves can contract ritual impurity (but they do not transmit it
further down the line).

9:
Apart from ritual impurity contracted through the 'supreme primary source' (which required the ashes of
the red heifer as explained) human beings and untensils could be purified by the waters of a Mikveh
[ritual bath]. However, this is now meaningless since all human beings are considered to be in a state of
ritual impurity through contact with a corpse; and if the supreme impurity cannot be removed what point is
there in removing lesser impurities? The outstanding exception to this are human hands. Hands do not
require the water of a Mikveh to remove ritual impurity and it is deemed sufficient to wash them.

10:
This finally brings us to the topic of our tractate (but not, unfortunately, to the end of our
introduction) and we now turn our attention to the hands in particular. According to the Torah one's
hands can only contract ritual impurity if they come into contact with a 'prime source' of ritual
impurity and not with any lesser level of ritual impurity. In all our discussion so far we have not seen
any reason to assume that the minutiae of the rules and regulations governing purity and impurity as
given in the Torah had any purpose other than purely ritual purposes. It was the sages who added the
dimension of hygiene to the issue and it was in connection with the ritual purity of the hands that they
did so. To begin with they decreed that priests (and the members of their households) must have ritually
pure hands in order to touch terumah.

11.
We have explained the concept of terumah on several occasions. Here's what we said when we studied
Tractate Kiddushin:

12:
The sages had several ways of influencing the development of halakhah. One certainly was the method of
interpretive exegesis – 'explaining' the text until it says what you want it to say! We have noted this
on many occasions. However sometimes even the greatest ingenuity of rabbinic exegesis could not make the
Torah say what they wanted it to say. In such circumstances the sages did not hesitate to issue
'decrees'. Rabbinical decrees could be both positive and negative in formulation: positive decrees
(called 'takkanot') requiring something to be done and negative decrees (called 'gezerot')
requiring us to refrain from doing something that would otherwise be permitted. All such decrees were
explained as being for 'the well-ordering of society' ['tikkun olam']. The sages based their right
to issue such decrees on the passage in the Torah [Deuteronomy 17:11] –

13:
The reason given for this 'gezerah' is that "people's hands are fidgety" ['askaniyyot'].
That is to say that our hands get into all sorts of places (on our bodies and elsewhere) that are unclean
(not necessarily 'impure') without us even being conscious of the fact. It is inappropriate that hands
that may well be unclean come into contact with terumah, they argued. In order to reinforce this
decree they further decreed that

1. even someone who was certain that their hands were clean was required to wash them before touching
   terumah; and

2. even if it is not from terumah produce, bread requires us to wash our hands before touching
   it.

14:
One last introductory comment is surely required to explain the rather quaint Hebrew term for washing the
hands before eating bread: 'netilat yadayyim'. The mishnaic Hebrew verb 'natal' means quite
simply 'to take', so the original meaning of the phrase means 'taking water to or for the hands'. This
can be understood as originating in the social customs of Talmudic times. When people ate together one of
their number was always selected to be the 'waiter' ['shammash'] whose task it was to set the food
before the diners, to pour them wine – and to bring them water to wash their hands. Thus the waiter
'taking' water to or for the hands of the diners became the origin of the term 'netilat yadayyim'.

15:
Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Berakhot 6:1, sums up all the preceding succinctly as follows:

David Rosenthal writes:

As a physician, I pronounce patients [dead] when they have passed away. Part of doing this is listening
to the heart and lungs, observing the patient, strong tactile stimulation and an examination of the
pupils. Several of these tasks require that I physically touch my patient. Am I 'to'evah for 7 days
after doing so each time? Several medical halakhah books I have … do not address this matter.

I respond:

The word 'to'evah is the wrong word in this connection (it denotes something disgusting); the
correct term would be 'tamé' – ritually impure. (The abstract derivative is 'tum'ah', ritual
impurity, and its opposite is 'taharah', ritual purity.) Now to answer David's question: I have
good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that according to Torah law anyone touching a corpse for
whatever reason is deemed to be 'tamé' for seven days and requires ritual purification on the
seventh day. The good news is what I wrote in our last shiur: 'The only way in which this primary
ritual impurity could be corrected was by having water which contained ashes of the 'red heifer' sprinkled
over the person who had contracted the impurity.' No such water is available nowadays (and has not
been available for the past 1700 years). Therefore we are all in a state of ritual impurity from the
moment we are born and there is no way that the status can be resolved. (This is the main reason why we
are forbidden to go up onto the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.) So, David, your ritual status after touching
a corpse is the same as it was before you did so!

17:
According to this no less than 'one quarter' of water must be poured over the hands of each diner and the
water must reach from the fingers to the wrist. However, less water could be used for 'the second water',
which is the subject of our present mishnah. The 'quarter' to which our mishnah refers is one quarter of
a 'log'. When we studied Tractate Tamid we noted:

18:
Thus our mishnah, according to this interpretation, says that when pouring 'the second water' over the
hands of the diners the waiter may assume that 90 cc's (using the minimalist view) provides enough water
for one or two diners, 180 cc's provides enough for three or four diners, 360 cc's would suffice for any
greater number. This is because the purpose of 'the second water' is only to purify 'the first water',
therefore the smallest amount will suffice.

19:
Rabbi Yosé qualifies this view of Tanna Kamma. Rabbi Yosé agrees that even the smallest amount
of water is sufficient for the purposes of 'the second water'. However, he requires that regardless of
the amount actually poured there must remain 'one quarter' in the jug until the last diner has been served.

20:
The seifa of our mishnah states that 'more may be added to the second [pouring of water] but none
may be added to the first'. This means that if 'the first water' did not completely cover the diner's hand
from the fingers to the wrist the deed may not be considered as having been completed by 'the second
water', and the hands must be completely washed once again and only then 'the second water' may be poured
over them. However, there is no such requirement regarding 'the second water'.

You wrote: 'Therefore we are all in a state of ritual impurity from the moment we are born'. Why
from the moment we are born? Certainly the newborn has not been exposed to the 'supreme major source of
impurity'.

I respond:

I originally likened ritual impurity to a contagious disease, in that it is deemed to be passed on from
one person to another (and from one object to another and from an object to a person and vice versa) by
physical contact. (Negative implications of 'disease' should not be seen as implied here.) Once someone
has touched a corpse they have contracted ritual impurity; if the 'waters of purification' have not been
sprinkled over them they remain ritually impure and will transmit that ritual impurity by physical contact.
It is a rabbinic assumption that since the cessation of the 'waters of purification' (about 1700 years
ago) we are all in a permanent state of ritual impurity. (My guess is that the reasoning is that since
the mother is presumed to be in a state of ritual impurity any child that she carries must also be in
such a state because of physical contact.)

This next topic is recondite. If questions of Hebrew grammar are of no relevance to you – just skip this
one. Ze'ev Orzech writes:

I hate to be picky, but… You use 'taharah' but the Encyclopedia Hebraica uses 'tohorah'.
Siddur Sim Shalom, in the introduction, makes a special point about this and gives as an example the
word 'tzohorayim'. (I seem to remember your stating that 'tzahorayim' or 'tahorah'
was the correct pronunciation.)

I respond:

Ze'ev's memory serves him well! This topic is a bone of contention between various traditions. The
Ashkenazi tradition is that a Kamatz coming before a Chataf-Kamatz is attenuated into Kamatz Katan (and
pronounced 'o'). The Sefaradi tradition is that a Kamatz coming before a Chataf-Kamatz is a full long
vowel (and pronounced 'a'). The Sefaradi tradition seems to fit in better with the tradition of the
Masoretic text in all cases. Using as an example the word as it appears in the Hebrew text of Leviticus
12:4, we note that the first syllable is marked with a meteg, which must indicate that the vowel is pure
and long: thus 'tahorah'.

2:
Our mishnah teaches that any utensil may be used to hold the water that is to be poured over the hands,
even utensils which logic might have assumed were not acceptable. It is no surprise that the rich may use
metal jugs (of silver and even gold) to pour water over the hands; but it must be very surprising that
the poor were permitted to use jugs and pitchers made from baked animal ordure and from earthenware
either fired (called 'stone' in our mishnah) or unfired ('earth'). None of the classical commentators
find any need to comment on this beyond noting the fact that utensils made from such materials do not
contract impurity. But we must ask ourselves how such leniency is possible.

3:
My own view is that the answer must be sought in the dual nature of the society of the sages. This has
been noted and documented beyond all doubt by several scholars, not the least of whom was Rabbi Eli'ezer
(Louis) Finklestein z"l, a former Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, in his works
on the Pharisaic movement and society. (The most readable of these for the ordinary lay reader is surely
his biography of Rabbi Akiva: Scholar, Saint and Martyr.) Throughout the tannaitic period
the society of the sages was a dual society, consisting of both landed gentry and wealthy burgers on the
one hand and peasants and the proletariat on the other. Each of these components had its own leadership,
traditions and peculiar customs, which the members of the other component were obliged to respect. (In
this sense the society of the sages was a truly pluralistic society.) In the first and second centuries
of the present era these two components coalesced into Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai. Bet Shammai
represented the more wealthy and more conservative elements, whereas Bet Hillel represented the much more
liberal and poverty-stricken element. It was essential to the pluralistic ethos of the society of the
sages that the utensils which the poorest of the poor had to recognized as no less acceptable than the
utensils of the monied citizens and the landed gentry.

4:
The only condition concerning the utensil was that it had to be whole. 'Water may not be poured on
the hands from the sides of utensils, from the edges of a bucket or from the plug of a barrel'.
The 'sides of utensils' and the 'edges of a bucket' means fragments of broken utensils, which may well
have served the poor. Even though they could still hold water, such as what had once been the walls of a
jug, such fragments could not be used. On the other hand, the rich could not use the plug which bunged
their huge storage barrels: even if its hollow inside was large enough to hold the necessary amount of
water it could not be used.

5:
One person may not pour water over the hands of another from their cupped hands. This is because only a
utensil may be used for this purpose – presumably to ensure that the minimum amount of water was used.
This is also linked with the fact that when the 'waters of purification' which contained the ashes of the
red heifer were prepared and used this could only be done by using a utensil: the container that would be
used to house the 'waters of purification' had to be filled with water from a living spring by a utensil;
the ashes had to be added to it with a utensil; and the mixture had to be removed from the container by a
utensil in order to sprinkle a small amount of it over the person who had been rendered impure by a
corpse.

6:
Leviticus 11:29-33 reads:

Although we are all considered to be in a state of ritual impurity nowadays, I thought a newborn baby was
the only exception to that. Is that the case? There are two reasons why I thought this would be so.
First, a friend who was a rabbinical student once told me about a passage in the Talmud where the wives
of the kohanim gave birth in a special underground chamber so that the newborn kohanim could be ritually
pure from birth onward. This, I believe, was a way to get back to ritual purity after a break in the
chain of 'parot adumot'. I'm not sure if the passage described a hypothetical or historical
situation. Second, in the following article (about precautions a Kohen's pregnant wife might want to
take) the author notes that the rule forbidding a Kohen from being in the same room as a corpse applies
also 'to a newborn baby who will become ritually impure for the first time.'

I respond:

When we examine texts we must be very careful to note the period to which they belong. The texts to which
Josh refers all refer to the period when it was possible for a person to purify themselves from ritual
impurity through the good offices of the 'waters of purification'. Thus it made sense for the wife of a
Kohen [priest], who was ritually pure, to give birth in a place where her newborn Kohen would also remain
ritually pure. (Incidentally, the passage is to be found in Mishnah Parah 3:2.) The second text to which
Josh refers is only concerned with the elucidation of the Torah text 'as is' (when ritual purity was
possible).

Juan-Carlos Kiel writes:

The present Mishna deals with the removal of ritual impurity (tum'ah) from the hands, but I am not
sure I understand what is ritual impurity. What was the implication of being ritually
impure in ancient times? Was the impure person forbiden to share the tents – be sent 'michutz
lamaĥaneh'? Was he precluded from participating in certain rituals? Contacting people? Working?
Eating? Reading the Torah? Could you please elaborate the concept? What are the present day implications
of the tum'ah? If we are all tamé, why are cohanim excluded from cemeteries?

I respond:

As far as the first question of Juan-Carlos is concerned – see Numbers 19:11-16.

Obviously the ritually impure person is not precluded from society and ritual since we are all permitted
these activities today. No ritually impure person (a menstruant woman for instance) is precluded from
touching even a Sefer Torah or a Mezuzzah or Tefillin since 'the words of Torah cannot contract ritual
impurity but constantly maintain their sanctity' [Rambam, Hilkhot Sefer Torah 10:8].

As for the last question that Juan-Carlos asks: all Kohanim today are Kohanim only by presumption and
their ritual status is that of ritual impurity just like everyone else. Our tradition requires them to
remain aloof from contact with a corpse so that the duties of the priesthood in this regard will not be
forgotten and die out.