Keilim, Chapter 9, Mishnah 8. Our chapter has been occupied with the earthenware vessel that is closed with a tzamid patil, a tight seal, which shields it and its contents from the tum'ah of a corpse in a tent, and with the question of what sort of breach undoes that protection. This mishnah returns to the sealed oven, but from a fresh angle, and from there it moves on to sealed barrels and to large casks.
An earthenware oven normally has an ayin, an eye or vent, through which the smoke escapes so that the oven does not overheat. That is how it is built to function. Our mishnah imagines a case where the owner took clay and plugged that vent shut, closing the oven completely. Now a hole opens up in the clay plug itself. How large must that hole be before we say the oven is no longer sealed and is once again exposed to tum'ah?
The measure of the spindle
The wording of the Mishnah is "Tannur shenikav me'eno" - a sealed earthenware oven whose stopped-up vent has now been pierced. And what size? The Mishnah gives "melo kush nichnas veyotze" while the spindle remains "dolek": the gap must be roomy enough for a lit spindle to travel through it and back out without its flame being smothered by the tightness of the passage. Anything narrower than that is not considered a rupture of the seal at the vent.
To this Rabbi Yehuda responds with two words, "shelo dolek," setting a more demanding standard. In his view the breach need not be so generous. Even if the spindle passes through and out again while its flame dies on the way because the space pinches it, the oven's seal has already been undone.
A hole at the side of the plug
The Mishnah now takes up the opposite case: the breach appeared not at the center of the clay that stops the vent, but off to the one side, along the seam where the clay meets the wall of the opening. And here the two Tannaim trade places. Apparently a tradition had been handed down concerning these two shiurim, the spindle that goes through with its flame intact and the spindle whose flame is quenched, and the dispute was over which shiur belongs to which type of breach.
Its language: "Nikav mitzido" - the sealing clay was pierced at its edge. The Mishnah again supplies "melo kush nichnas veyotze," a spindle entering and emerging, but this time with the qualification "shelo dolek": even where the flame is put out en route, such an opening voids the tight seal. So in this instance it is the first Tanna who holds the stricter position. Rabbi Yehuda answers with a single word, "dolek": for a breach on the side he insists on the wider gap, one that lets the spindle in and out with its flame still burning.
Rabbi Shimon's stricter measures
A third Tanna is more demanding than the two of them. Rabbi Shimon's formulation has two clauses. "Min ha'emtza nichnas": when the breach sits at the center of the clay, he does not require that the spindle traverse it and come back out. If the spindle can merely be inserted, even with its flame snuffed out by the very entry, and the diameter of the opening is only a hair wider than the spindle, the oven has lost its seal. "Min hatzad eno nichnas": for a breach at the edge his shiur is smaller still, an opening exactly as thick as the spindle, into which the spindle cannot in fact be pushed at all, and even that suffices to undo the seal.
Compare this to the earlier opinions. They spoke of a spindle going in and out; Rabbi Shimon is satisfied with entry alone in the middle, and at the side with a hole into which the spindle does not even fit. He is therefore stricter than both of them in both cases.
The stopper of a barrel
Rabbi Shimon carried this same distinction into another area: "Vechen haya omer bimgufat hehavit shenikeva." He said the parallel thing about the clay lid sealing an earthenware barrel once it has been punctured: a breach at the edge of that lid strips the barrel of its seal while still smaller than a breach at its center.
The size that voids the barrel's seal is given as "melo mitza sheniya" - the width of the second joint - "shel shifon," of a rye stalk. Rye grows in jointed segments, each thinner than the one below it: the bottom segment is thickest, the one above it somewhat thinner, the third thinner again. The shiur here is the thickness of that second segment, counted from the ground upward.
And the two spots are not measured alike. "Min ha'emtza nichnas": a breach at the center of the lid must be broad enough to admit that second joint of the stalk. "Min hatzad eno nichnas": at the edge, less is required, an opening matching the stalk's thickness precisely, so that the stalk cannot actually be inserted, and with that the barrel already counts as unsealed.
The stoppers of large casks
The same held true, Rabbi Shimon said, for big casks: "Vechen haya omer bahatzavin gedolim shenikvu," concerning large earthenware casks whose sealing clay has been punctured. Their shiur is "melo mitza sheniya" - the fill of the second joint - "shel kaneh," of a reed, a plant that likewise grows in joints, broad at its base and tapering as it rises.
Once more the placement matters. "Min ha'emtza nichnas": a puncture at the center of the sealing clay has to be wide enough for that second reed joint to go in. "Min hatzad eno nichnas": at the edge it need only equal the reed's own width, so that the reed will not pass through, and the cask is treated as no longer sealed.
Two qualifications
After supplying these shiurim of rye and reed for barrels and casks, the Mishnah restricts them. "Bameh devarim amurim?" - to which situations do these minimum sizes apply? "Bizman shena'asu leyayin": exclusively where the vessel was manufactured to hold wine. "Aval im na'asu," but if it was produced "lish'ar mashkin," for other sorts of liquid, oil or honey or milk, then no minimum exists whatsoever: "afilu kol shehu, teme'in," the merest puncture in the sealing clay robs the vessel of its seal, and it contracts tum'ah from a corpse lying with it beneath one roof.
A second restriction follows. "Bameh devarim amurim?" - with wine too, when do those measures hold? "Bizman shelo na'asu," when the opening came into being of itself and not "bidei adam," not through human hands. "Aval im na'asu," but if it was made deliberately "bidei adam," by a person, then no minimum applies: "afilu kol shehu, teme'in," a pinprick is enough to void the seal of the wine barrel or cask, so that they receive tum'ah from a corpse under the same tent.
When the wall of the vessel itself is pierced
Up to this point the discussion concerned the sealing clay laid over the mouth of an earthenware vessel. The Mishnah now shifts to a puncture in the vessel's own body. "Nikvu": should a barrel or cask itself be pierced, how large an opening lets in the tum'ah of a corpse? That depends on the purpose for which the vessel was fashioned.
"He'asui le'okhlin, shiuran bezeitim": a vessel intended for solid food is measured by whether it still retains olives. From the moment the breach is wide enough that an olive would drop out of it, tum'ah has a way in. "He'asui lemashkin, shiuran lemashkin": a vessel intended for liquid is measured by whether it still retains liquid, and once liquid can trickle out through the opening, tum'ah passes in as well.
"He'asui lekakh ulekakh, matilin oto lechumro": a vessel made to serve both purposes is judged by the stricter of the two standards, "betzamid patil uvekhones mashkeh." Liquid is the stringency, since a far smaller opening already permits liquid to seep in, while an olive needs a noticeably larger gap. Consequently, though such a vessel be shut all around with a tight seal, tum'ah still enters through any opening through which liquid could seep in.