Parah, Chapter 10, Mishnah 6. Our chapter is devoted to the unusual severity attached to chatas: the ashes of the parah adumah and the water sanctified with them. Whatever has not been guarded with the taharah that chatas specifically demands, even an object whose purity would be perfectly adequate for kodesh or for terumah, transmits tumah to any person or utensil that does carry taharah for chatas. In this mishnah we follow a series of cases in which a flagon of mei chatas and a flagon of kodesh or of terumah either meet one another or are carried together by a single man, and in each situation we are told which of them is spoiled and which survives.
Contact Between the Flagons
"Lagin shel chatas shenaga b'shel kodesh u'v'shel terumah" a lagin is a flagon, and here a flagon of chatas came into contact with one belonging to kodesh or to terumah. The ruling is: "shel chatas tamei" the chatas flagon is spoiled, "u'shel kodesh u'shel terumah tehorin" while the other two are left in their purity. Since neither the kodesh utensil nor the terumah utensil was guarded to the standard that chatas requires, their touch is enough to ruin the chatas flagon, whereas the contact itself does nothing whatever to them.
Both in His Two Hands
"Sheneihem bishtei yadav, sheneihem temei'in." When one man holds the two flagons at the same time, one in each of his hands, neither of them escapes: both contract tumah.
Picture a man who has kept himself tahor for chatas, gripping the flagon of mei chatas with one hand while his other hand holds the flagon of kodesh or of terumah. The instant that second hand takes hold of something whose purity does not reach the level chatas demands, the man himself loses his taharah for chatas, and he immediately passes that tumah along to the flagon in his first hand and to the water inside it. The kodesh or terumah flagon suffers as well: mei chatas renders whoever carries it tamei, and the tumah the man has now contracted travels onward to the utensil in his other hand.
Both Wrapped in Paper
"Sheneihem bishnei neyaros, sheneihem tehorin." With each of the flagons resting in a wrapping of its own, both come away tahor. The paper stands between the man's hands and the utensils, so that he never actually handles anything whose purity falls short of what chatas requires. He therefore does not forfeit his taharah for chatas at all, and nothing he is holding is harmed.
One Wrapped, One Bare
"Shel chatas bineyar, ushel terumah beyado, sheneihem temei'in." The chatas flagon is wrapped, but the terumah flagon (and a kodesh flagon would be no different) sits directly against his skin. The wrapping now gains him nothing: his uncovered hand upon the terumah utensil costs him his taharah for chatas, and once that has happened, both flagons he is carrying are tamei.
"Shel terumah bineyar, ushel chatas beyado, sheneihem tehorin." Reverse the arrangement, so that the terumah is in paper and the chatas is held bare, and neither one is spoiled, for the man's hand never reaches the terumah utensil itself. Rebbi Yehoshua disagrees: "shel chatas tamei" the flagon of chatas, in his opinion, does become tamei.
The View of Rebbi Yehoshua
Rebbi Yehoshua's position reaches further still: to his mind the chatas flagon is ruined even in the earlier case, where each of the two was held in a paper of its own. He maintains that a tahor utensil which is capable of receiving tumas mes takes on the status of madaf as far as chatas is concerned, and a madaf spreads tumah not through touch alone but through being lifted or moved as well. Accordingly, the terumah utensil, sealed in its paper though it is, strips the man of his taharah for chatas purely because he is bearing its weight, and from him the tumah travels on to the flagon of chatas he is holding or carrying. The terumah utensil, by contrast, comes away tahor, since it would require direct handling to be affected, and that is precisely what the paper prevents. The halacha is not in accordance with Rebbi Yehoshua.
When the Flagons Lie on the Ground
"Hayu nesunin al gabei ha'aretz venaga bahem" the flagons were set down upon the ground and the man laid a hand on them. Then "shel chatas tamei" the chatas flagon contracts tumah, while "shel kodesh ushel terumah tehorin" the kodesh and the terumah flagons keep their purity. Handling the kodesh or the terumah utensil deprives the man of his taharah for chatas, and he transfers that tumah onward to the chatas flagon beneath his hand. In this case, however, the mei chatas never made him tamei at all, for it does so only by way of carrying, and here the utensils rest on the ground and are not being carried. Having contracted nothing from the mei chatas, he has nothing to convey to the kodesh or to the terumah.
Moving Them Without Touching
"Hesitan, Rebbi Yehoshua metamei ve'Chachamim metaharin." If he set them in motion, in the opinion of Rebbi Yehoshua the two of them are tamei, while the Chachamim rule that both stay tahor.
The mishnah is speaking of a man who sets both flagons moving without any hand reaching either of them. Picture the two utensils standing on a board, and a man who is tahor for chatas striking that board so that it shifts and the flagons travel along with it. Rebbi Yehoshua treats them as tamei, in keeping with his ruling that such a utensil counts as a madaf with respect to chatas and therefore spreads tumah through movement. In the view of the Chachamim both remain tahor, since to their mind no madaf status for chatas attaches to the kodesh flagon or to the terumah flagon at all. Here too the halacha rests with the Chachamim.