Tevul Yom, Chapter 1, Mishnah 1. This chapter, and especially the mishnayos that open it, takes up the case of a tevul yom whose hand reaches an item of food that happens to be resting up against a second item. The Mishnah's aim is to settle one question: once he has touched the first item, does the tumah continue on and take hold of the second one too?
What makes this genuinely uncertain is the rank of a tevul yom. Of all the categories of tumah, his is the weakest and mildest there is. Precisely because so little force is left in it, we may well find that food A and food B are joined tightly enough for other teme'im to transmit tumah from the one to the other, and yet a tevul yom who handles food A leaves food B completely untouched.
The Cases of the Mishnah
The Mishnah presents a list of borderline cases, foods that are stuck to one another or resting against one another without truly being one item:
- "Mikratzos noshkos zo bazo": lumps of dough that adhere to one another.
- "Vechikaros noshkos zo bazo": loaves whose sides cling together, either because they were baked side by side or because they were placed next to each other while still soft.
- "Ha'ofeh chamita al gabei chamita": a person who stacks cakes in the oven, laying one over another, "ad shelo karmu batanur": and they fuse to each other while their surfaces are still soft, before any crust has hardened on them.
- "Vechulis shel mayim hamechulcheles": the scum that gathers on top of boiling water, in a case where that scum is hollow, that is, full of bubbles and air rather than solid.
- "Rischas grisin shel pol rishonah": the foam that comes up first when a bean porridge is cooked.
- "Rischas yayin chadash": the foam on freshly made wine.
- To this list Rebbi Yehuda appends "af shel orez": foam rising from cooking rice belongs here as well.
The Dispute of Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel
None of these pairs is genuinely one single food. No one ever wanted two separate lumps of dough to merge into a single loaf; each was supposed to stay on its own, and they are simply leaning against each other by chance. Even so, Beis Shammai omrim, "chibur betevul yom": in Beis Shammai's view every one of these cases counts as joined where a tevul yom is concerned. Let a tevul yom lay a hand on a single lump of dough, or on one loaf, or on the foam, and the tumah moves along into whatever is clinging to it.
Beis Hillel omrim, "eino chibur": Beis Hillel hold that this degree of contact is not considered a connection. Accordingly, if a tevul yom touches the froth sitting on the water, the water itself remains tahor.
Where Both Houses Agree
The Mishnah closes: "Umodim bish'ar kol hatumo'os, bein kalos bein chamuros": both Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel agree that with regard to every other form of tumah, whether the lighter forms or the more severe ones, these items do count as attached, and the tumah does cross over from the one to the other.
The logic is precisely the point with which we began. A tevul yom stands at the very bottom of the scale of teme'im, the most lenient of them all, and it is only there that Beis Hillel are prepared to say "eino chibur." But when any other tamei person touches the froth, the liquid beneath it becomes tamei, and when he touches the one piece of dough, the piece clinging to it becomes tamei as well.