Yadayim, Chapter 2, Mishnah 4. This is the final mishnah of the chapter. The chapter has dealt with the water used for washing the hands and with the purity status of hands generally, and it established a broad rule: when a doubt arises regarding the taharah of a person's hands, we do not move anything off the footing it already had. Whatever was tahor stays tahor, and whatever was tamei stays tamei, unless we know for a fact that something changed. Our mishnah asks "keitzad," in what sort of situation does this actually come up, and then walks through a series of cases so that the principle can be seen in action.
The mishnah's five doubtful cases
- The opening case: "hayu yadav t'horos," his hands carry taharah, while resting before him are two loaves that bear tumah, "shnei kikarim tme'im." The uncertainty is stated as "sofek naga sofek lo naga": perhaps contact was made with them and perhaps no contact was made at all.
- Now the picture is reversed: "hayu yadav t'me'os," tumah rests on his hands, and the pair of loaves set out before him are tahor. Here too the mishnah says "sofek naga sofek lo naga," since there is no way to establish whether any contact took place.
- A case of mixed hands: "hayu yadav achas t'me'ah," one hand is tamei, "v'achas t'horah," while the second is tahor, and a pair of tahor loaves is lying there. Contact with one of the loaves certainly occurred; what cannot be determined is which hand did it. The mishnah puts it: "sofek bat'me'ah naga," maybe the tamei hand reached the loaf, "sofek bat'horah naga," or maybe it was the tahor hand.
- A case of mixed loaves: both of his hands are tahor, and of the two loaves before him "echad tamei v'echad tahor," one bears tumah and the other is tahor. He certainly made contact with one loaf, but which one is unknown: "sofek batamei naga," perhaps the tamei loaf, "sofek batahor naga," perhaps the tahor loaf.
- The last case combines both uncertainties. One of his hands is tamei and the other tahor; likewise, of the two loaves, one is tamei and one is tahor; and he did make contact with both of them. The unresolved question is how the pairing worked out: "sofek t'me'ah batamei ut'horah batahor," the tamei hand may have met the tamei loaf while the tahor hand met the tahor loaf, "o t'horah batamei ut'me'ah batahor," or it may have gone the other way, the tahor hand reaching the tamei loaf and the tamei hand reaching the tahor one.
The ruling
In every one of these situations the mishnah rules: "hayadayim kimo shehayu v'hakikarim kimo shehayu." The hands keep the status they had, whether that was taharah or tumah, and the loaves likewise keep the status they had, whether that was taharah or tumah.
That is the lesson of the entire list. A doubt has no power to move anything from where it stood. So long as we do not know that a change was actually brought about, we continue to hold the position we held before the question ever came up.