Q&A: A Simple Question – Impurity
A Simple Question – Impurity
Question
Hello and blessings.
Why is it that a single impure drop of water that falls into a cup of water renders all the water impure? Why don’t we say, on the contrary, that the impure drop is nullified by the majority?
Thank you very much.
Answer
This is a question raised by the Ritva and Tosafot HaRosh in the passage about “the priest who forcibly seized,” and Rabbi Gustman addressed it in his lectures there in Bava Metzia. He explains that nullification comes into being only after impurity. The drop renders all the water impure, and therefore there is nothing left to nullify it. Only if the drop does not render the water impure is there pure water, and then it can nullify it. The logic is apparently that impurity is a reality, whereas nullification is a legal rule. The rule applies only after there is an established reality.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand the question. I explained it.
All right. I learned the commentary of the Rosh and the Ritva. I also saw the Kuntres Shiurim.
In all of these it is explained that the reality of the thing in itself is not changed by following the majority (and therefore a majority will not help remove a doubtful case from the category of “a definite tenth and not a doubtful tenth”).
My question is: since we do find that impurity is nullified by majority, then given the above principle, it is proven that impurity is not a reality but rather a mode of conduct in relation to reality, and therefore it could be nullified.
None of those mentioned above touched the question I asked at all. They discuss it *after* nullification by majority has already been stated. But I am asking *before* nullification is stated: why indeed is it not stated?
Thank you very much.
Not at all. Following the majority does not change reality, but it does change the legal status. So there is also a rule of nullification by majority regarding impurity, which indeed does not eliminate the metaphysical impurity itself but does permit it halakhically.
But as I explained, when an impure drop falls into a pure liquid, it renders all of it impure in reality, and therefore there is nothing left to nullify it. Everything was explained, and I do not understand what your question is. As far as I remember, that is also what they themselves write (though this is a memory from decades ago).
Much thanks!
I’m just trying to sharpen the point a bit more, even before enough analysis—
Why are we discussing the “reality” of the majority of the water first (and saying it becomes impure), before discussing the “reality” of the minority itself first (and saying that it should lose its impurity through nullification by the majority)?
*And you can’t say it’s because the reality of the minority itself cannot be changed through nullification by majority, because we do in fact find impurity nullified by majority where the majority itself cannot receive impurity. For example, a minority of impure water in fish brine is nullified. Bekhorot 22a.