Keilim, Chapter 8, Mishnah 2. Our chapter is occupied with the tumah of an oven of earthenware and with what happens when other vessels are suspended inside its airspace. This mishnah takes up the case of a container hanging inside the oven that is fully intact, and it asks what happens when that container later develops a hole.
The Source: Only the Innermost Space
The verse in Vayikra, having enumerated the sheratzim that transmit tumah, teaches that an earthenware vessel becomes tamei when one of them falls "el tocho", into its interior, and that whatever is found within such a vessel contracts tumah as well. The Sages weighed the force of the word "betocho", within it. The vessel that receives the tumah is precisely the one whose inner space the sheretz is occupying. Should the sheretz be resting inside an earthenware vessel, and that vessel be standing within a second vessel, an oven for instance, the oven itself escapes untouched. Nothing ever fell into its cavity; what was entered was the cavity of the vessel placed inside it.
This is the principle of a keli within a keli. Wherever one vessel sits inside another, the tumah stops at the first interior, the innermost one in which the sheretz is actually found. The outer vessel is treated as though the sheretz never came into its space at all, because the sheretz is not in the oven, it is in the inside of the inside of the oven.
An Intact Container Hanging in the Oven
The previous mishnah dealt with a basket that was broken and therefore had lost the status of a keli altogether. Our mishnah turns to a basket that is whole and thus still counts as a genuine vessel.
"Haytah sheleimah", if the basket hanging in the oven was intact, it retains the status of a keli. The same applies, the mishnah adds, "vechen hakupah", to a box hanging there in place of the basket, "vechen hachemet", and likewise to a leather flask. In every one of these cases we are dealing with a real, functioning vessel, and therefore the halachah runs in both directions:
- "Hasheretz betochah, hatanur tahor": if the sheretz is inside the hanging container, the oven remains tahor. The sheretz did not enter the oven's space, it entered the space of the innermost vessel, and that alone is what becomes tamei.
- "Hasheretz batanur, ochalin shebetochah tehorin": if the sheretz is in the oven itself, the foods lying inside the hanging container stay tahor. They are not in the oven's airspace but in the airspace of the container, which stands as a barrier between them and the oven.
When the Container Develops a Hole
The mishnah now asks the natural follow-up question. Suppose one of these containers becomes perforated. At what point is it damaged enough to lose its standing as a keli, so that it resembles the broken basket of the previous mishnah, whose airspace is no longer reckoned as separate from the oven's?
"Nikvu", if they became punctured. Here the required size of the perforation varies according to the use for which the vessel was fashioned:
- "He'asui le'ochalin, shi'uro bezeitim": a vessel fashioned to hold solids is gauged by an olive. From the moment olives can pass through the perforation, it has ceased to be a keli.
- "He'asui lemashkin, shi'uro bemashkin": a vessel fashioned to hold liquids is gauged by liquid. From the moment liquid escapes through the perforation, it has ceased to be a keli.
- "He'asui lechach ulechach, matilin otah lechumra bichnisat mashkeh": a vessel fashioned for both uses is assessed by the more demanding standard, which is liquid entering. A perforation through which liquid can seep inward already disqualifies the vessel, since such an opening is narrower than the one needed for liquid to pour out, and where a vessel serves two purposes we decide the matter strictly.
The Consequence of the Broken Container
In each of these cases, once the hole has reached its measure, the container no longer counts as a vessel and its interior is no longer a separate space at all. It is simply part of the oven, exactly like the broken basket taught in the previous mishnah. The results now reverse themselves in both directions: a sheretz lying in the container renders the oven tamei, since it is effectively lying in the oven itself, and foods resting in the container become tamei when the oven becomes tamei, since nothing intervenes between them and the oven's airspace.
The whole mishnah therefore turns on a single question: is the hanging container still a keli? As long as it is, the Torah's word "betocho" keeps the two spaces apart and each side stays tahor. Once the container is holed to its measure, that inner space vanishes, and oven and contents meet as one.