Q&A: Doubt Regarding Ritual Impurity
Doubt Regarding Ritual Impurity
Question
A doubt regarding ritual impurity in the public domain is ruled pure.
The reason for this was brought by Maimonides and the Raavad from Tosefta Taharot, chapter 6:
They asked Ben Zoma: Why is a doubtful case in the private domain impure? He said to them: With regard to a sota, what is her status toward her husband—certain or doubtful? They said to him: Doubtful. He said to them: Yet we find that she is forbidden to her husband. From here you derive the law for a creeping creature: just as there it is in the private domain, so too here it is in the private domain; and just as there it involves something that has awareness and can be asked, so too here it is something that has awareness and can be asked. From here they said: in the case of something that has awareness and can be asked, in the private domain its doubtful status is impure, and in the public domain its doubtful status is pure. And why is a doubtful case in the public domain pure? He said to them: Because the community offers the Passover sacrifice in impurity when most of them are impure; and if definite impurity is permitted to the community, then all the more so doubtful impurity. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Why is a doubtful case in the private domain impure and a doubtful case in the public domain pure? Because it is possible to ask an individual, but it is impossible to ask the public.
The connection between setting aside impurity for the community because of the community is not all that clear. And Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel as well, who explains that it is because you cannot ask the public—his reason is also unclear, since a doubt regarding impurity in the public domain is a personal doubt about one person who may have become impure, not about many people who became impure. And in general the reason sounds a bit strange—do we really treat a concern about impurity more leniently because we cannot ask?
In truth, the same difficulty applies to the simple rule of something that has no awareness to be asked: why should that be grounds for leniency?
In short… what is the difference between a doubt regarding prohibition and a doubt regarding impurity?
Maybe the questions are not difficult, and indeed doubt regarding impurity is just not such a severe matter and “the sages were lenient with it,” in Maimonides’ language,
where there is need or when there is no awareness to be asked? That sounds a bit too much like a balebatish answer and not very deep.
I would be glad to hear the Rabbi’s opinion
Answer
At one time I thought that impurity in its essence is a kind of death. A corpse is the supreme source of impurity. A woman after childbirth also becomes impure because she has been emptied of the life that was inside her. And a metzora is considered like the dead, etc. So perhaps impurity does not apply to a public, because a public does not die. As is known, later authorities brought proofs and sources for this—for example Tosafot on Me'ilah 9b, and many others. True, according to this there would still be room to discuss a case of definite impurity in the public domain, and also to ask the following, since we are speaking about the place where the impurity is located and not about the person who became impure. But the two questions can be resolved in one stroke: impurity does not apply to a public, as we see from the Passover offering, which is not postponed to a second Passover. But also when the impurity is located in the public domain, the claim that this place is impure basically means that the whole public that passes there becomes impure; alternatively, they cannot pass there. That is a statement about the public, and therefore we do not say it. And from here you can understand that this is only when we are dealing with doubtful impurity. If it is definite impurity, then we are making a determination about each individual person who passed there, that he is impure, and therefore it is a statement about individuals and not about the public.
But this is of course only a suggestion that requires clarification. Is this a conceptual definition, or only the rationale of the verse? What is the connection to whether one can ask, and to the reasons given by the sages? And more besides.
Incidentally, as is known, Tosafot on Bava Kamma 11a distinguish regarding the impurity of a woman after childbirth between prohibition and impurity—that is, with respect to the very same thing one may conclude that she is impure regarding the prohibition but not impure regarding impurity, and vice versa.
Discussion on Answer
With definite impurity, we are discussing a question about each individual who passed there, and the answer is that he became impure. With doubtful impurity, the question from the outset is whether one may pass there at all—in other words, the question is what the status of the place is. And that answer concerns the public and the public space.
I didn’t understand the suggestion—the “perhaps”—about the public. Impurity is connected to death, and a public does not die, meaning it does not generate impurity; therefore a public does not contract impurity? In other words, is the suggestion that only something that can generate impurity is affected by proximity to it? If so, why according to this do vessels contract impurity?
The ability to generate impurity is a sign, not a cause. Impurity does not apply to a public; death does not apply to it, because in its essence it is alive. A vessel or food is not dead, but it is also not alive. In other words, if it does not generate impurity, that is not because it is alive, but because it is not a person.
Thanks! A follow-up question, if I may: “A public does not die”—is that a general claim about all collectives, or specifically about Israel? If, say, all the descendants of the Girgashites died, did the Girgashite people die, or does the abstract collective still remain in force and just no longer have individuals in whom to be realized? Among Jews, perhaps a convert could be the first Jew, like Abraham or Adam, and that would seem to be a sign that the Jewish collective survives even the disappearance of all the individuals.
In my opinion this is true of any collective. True, only regarding Israel is there a promise of eternity, and other collectives may disappear from the world. But it seems to me that this is not a relevant distinction. That is why even a community counts as a public for some matters, even though a community can become extinct.
I do not think that if Judaism were to disappear, a convert could continue it.
I hope I’m not asking too much, and in too crowded a fashion; in any case this will be the last one. Could you explain a bit the thought that a convert could not continue a Judaism that had become extinct?
A. Do you mean that he could not be Jewish at all—that is, become obligated in the commandments—or that he would indeed be Jewish but would actually be opening a new collective?
B. (It seems you expected me to understand this on my own, but I didn’t manage.) As for what you meant by “a public does not die” applying to any collective: I understand that to mean that the collective that emerged at a certain time remains in existence even without individuals. If so, why could a convert not continue it?
True, our cousins the mathematicians treat the empty set as a set, but there is no nation without individuals who make it up. The moment the individuals are gone, there is no longer a nation. The claim that a public does not die is not purely metaphysical—that the spirit of the nation does not depend at all on the individuals and exists somewhere in the heavens, Hegelian-style—but rather that even if the individuals are replaced, as long as they have not vanished, it is still the same nation.
Incidentally, if all the Jews were wiped out, there would be no one to convert him, so there would be no conversion either. Though it is possible that the Holy One, blessed be He, would convert him and declare that he continues the people of Israel in some sense. I’m not one to say.
Understood. Thank you very much.
With regard to doubtful impurity in the private domain, one should ask in the first place what the similarity is between the impurity of a sota—where a hidden place is necessary in order to carry out her act, and therefore even a concealed place that is not defined as a private domain for Sabbath purposes, for example an open valley, would still be considered a private domain for impurity. It follows that the sages understood there to be a special scriptural decree here regarding impurity. The question is whether the fact that the public domain is lenient in cases of impurity is the novelty, or perhaps the private domain is the novelty—and this depends on the dispute between Maimonides and the Rashba, as explained at length in Shev Shema'tata.
Simpleton, do you mean to say that if the private domain is the novelty, then there is no need to engage in pilpul to explain the rule in the public domain? But after all, before you they brought a derivation both for the private domain—from sota—and for the public domain—from impurity of the community. That is, even if, for example, the novelty is that doubtful impurity is impure, and by external reasoning we would have said that every doubtful impurity is pure, once there is a verse saying impure in the case of sota, we should have made a broad paradigm for every doubtful impurity. And the distinction—this is private domain, that is public domain—would not even have been much of a refutation. Rather, there is an opposing derivation from the community, which perhaps works like a refutation of the derivation from sota. How do you understand the need for the two derivations?
That very issue is discussed at great length in Shev Shema'tata there and by other later authorities as well.
Just a comment: the use of the quote “the Eternity of Israel does not lie” is, in my opinion, mistaken in this context. In the verse, the meaning is God, who is “the Eternity of Israel,” as opposed to a human being, who is not “eternal”; and certainly it would not make sense to say of a human being that he does not lie and does not relent. As the verse continues: “The Eternity of Israel does not lie and does not relent, for He is not a man that He should relent.”
Indeed. It was just a turn of phrase.
Many thanks for the response.
I didn’t understand well enough why, when it is definite impurity, that is not a statement about the public.
Whether it is doubtful or definite, many people won’t pass there, and if they do pass there they will become impure.