Tevul Yom, Chapter 4, Mishnah 7. This is the closing mishnah of the masechta, and it turns to a practical worry that faced anyone separating terumah, or terumas maaser from maaser, out of a large quantity of wine. The wine is sitting in a pit, and the owner lowers a barrel into the pit in order to draw out the portion that will serve as terumah. Once he declares that barrel to be terumah, the wine left behind in the pit is plain chullin. But what happens if the barrel does not make it safely out?
The danger is real. If the barrel cracks or spills on its way up after the declaration has already taken effect, terumah wine now runs back into the pit and mingles with the chullin. The entire pit would then have to be treated as a mixture of terumah and chullin, a mixture that is meduma, and its use would be restricted accordingly. To avoid losing an entire pit of wine, the owner protects himself in advance with a condition.
The condition he makes
Our mishnah speaks of "hatoreim es habor," a man removing terumah from the pit. Before he raises the barrel he attaches a stipulation to his declaration: the wine is "harei zo terumah," this is terumah, and to that he appends the words "al menas sheta'aleh shalom," meaning that the status should take hold only if the barrel arrives above unharmed. The sanctity he creates is therefore not fixed and final. It settles on the wine only once the barrel has completed its climb intact. Should anything go wrong along the way, the wine in that barrel never carried terumah status for even a moment, and consequently nothing forbidden has fallen back into the pit.
How far does the stipulation reach? The mishnah defines its scope: "shalom min hashever umin hashvicha," protection against the vessel shattering and against the wine being poured out. Then come the words "aval lo min hatumah," teaching that tumah is left outside the stipulation. According to the first view, when a man asks that the barrel arrive above unharmed he has in mind only physical accidents, a cracked vessel or wine lost on the ground. The possibility that the barrel might become tamei during the ascent never occurred to him, and a stipulation reaches no further than what the person actually had in view, so in that eventuality it gives him no protection.
Rebbi Shimon disagrees: "af min hatumah," the condition includes tumah as well. In his view, a person who stipulates that the barrel must come up safely means safe in every respect, and he intends to shield himself even from the barrel becoming tamei on the way out of the pit.
When the barrel breaks
Now the case itself: "nishbera," the condition was made and the barrel broke on its way up. The ruling is "einah medama'as," it does not render the pit a mixture of terumah and chullin. Because the designation was conditional and the condition failed, the wine that spilled back was never terumah, and the owner is left with an ordinary pit of chullin wine.
This raises the obvious question, and the Mishnah asks it: "ad heichan tishaveir velo sedamei'a," up to what point can the barrel break without causing dimua? At some stage the removal is complete, the wine in the barrel is fully terumah and the wine in the pit is fully chullin, and from then on a spill really would create a forbidden mixture. Where is that line drawn?
The answer is "kedei shetisgalgeil vesagia labor," as long as the barrel is close enough that it could still roll and reach the pit. While the barrel remains within rolling distance, the process of removal is not yet finished, and a break or a spill at that stage carries no consequence of dimua. Once the barrel has been carried beyond that distance, the separation has taken effect: the barrel is terumah, the pit is chullin, and if the two were now to mix, the result would indeed be medama'as.
The one who thought but did not speak
The masechta's final teaching belongs to Rebbi Yosei, who widens the leniency remarkably: "af mi shehaya bo" is his phrase, even someone who possessed "da'as lehasnos velo hisna," the presence of mind to stipulate yet who never actually said the words. Picture the man's distress as the barrel shatters and he suddenly recalls that his stipulation stayed in his thoughts and never reached his lips. Rebbi Yosei sets his mind at rest: "einah medama'as," the pit is not turned into a mixture, and the reason is "shehu tenai beis din." The court long ago legislated this arrangement on behalf of every person who finds himself in exactly such a position, so an unspoken intention suffices, and the wine in the pit remains plain chullin.
With this the masechta comes to an end: Salik Maseches Tevul Yom. It is fitting that a tractate devoted to the fine gradations of tumah and taharah should conclude with a case in which the Chachamim went out of their way to spare an ordinary person the loss of his wine.