Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: How Tuma Leaks Out and How to Contain It

Tuma is kind of like the spiritual equivalent of radioactivity.  You can't see it, taste it, nor smell it; but it's there and it can do damage.  It only affects Jews, though it affects some Jews -- notably kohanim -- more than others.  So let's suppose you have a kohein coming for dinner and you have a ladle full of corpse lying around.  (I don't know how you ended up with that problem -- kasha af ah maisa/figure out a scenario.)

First of all, like everything else in halacha, there are shiurim/sizes.  It takes at least a k'zayis of corpse to cause any problems at all.  If the ladle of corpse (LOC, going forward) is under the sky, then the kohein would have to actually step over or under it to be affected (unless its in a cemetery, but he probably shouldn't be anyway).  If, however, the LOC is covered by at least a tefach (about 4") square of ceiling that is at least a tefach away, then the tuma is contained; the kohein could even pick up that box and walk around with it.  That's because one cubic tefach is the minimum size of a halachic oheil (tent/room -- would still likely run you pr 100$/month in Manhattan).  If the box is smaller than that in any dimension, then you have "tuma r'tzutza"/crushed tuma and it again leaks; straight up and straight down, just as if it weren't there.

The down side of being inside an oheil is that the tuma essentially fills all available space.  Suppose you have a house with a hole in the ceiling/attic/roof (all the way through).  If your LOC is directly under that opening, then the tuma goes straight up (and straight down), but the house itself is not filled with tuma.  On the other hand, if the LOC is not under the chimney, then your kohein friend can walk on the roof and even step over the chimney without fear of tumafication.  More than that, your other kohein friend can stay in the house as long as he restricts himself to the area directly under the chimney (think Mr. Freeze vs Batman).

All of this, of course, is true as along as your friend on the roof doesn't actually step on the chimney, thus completing the roof and causing the tuma to fill the void previously left pristine.  In that case your friend in the house has just been dosed with tumas meis and will need to wait for the next (and final) red heifer before he can begin  the purification process.  What about your friend on the roof with the big foot?  If the chimney is less than a tefach square, then he is fine.  You see, tuma can't travel through holes that are smaller than a tefach square.  If the chimney is bigger than a sqare tefach, of course, then the tuma will not only fill the house, but it will also travel through the chimney and also tumify the roof walker.

What if half the LOC is under the roof and half under the chimney?  Go see the 10th perek of the masechta ohalim... I don't want to ruin it for you.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aru...
Post a Comment
Read more