Keilim, Chapter 17, Mishnah 1. A basic rule accompanies us throughout Masechet Keilim: kelim made of wood, of bone and of leather lose their tumah once they break to the point where they can no longer serve the purpose for which they were made. As long as the item still functions, it carries its status; once it is finished as a utensil, the tumah leaves it on its own. Our mishnah asks the practical question that follows from this rule: how large must a hole in such a container be before we declare that the container has stopped being a container?
The measure of a pomegranate
The mishnah opens: "Kol kelei baalei batim, shiuran berimonim" - all the vessels of householders (those made of wood, bone and leather) have their measure determined by pomegranates. Meaning: the hole becomes significant when a pomegranate can pass through it. At that point the vessel is no longer usable for anything, it has lost its identity as a kli, and it becomes tahor automatically.
Why specifically a pomegranate? Because that is how a householder behaves with his own possessions. He does not discard something the moment it develops a flaw; he tries to rescue it. A container he had been filling with beans develops a hole through which the beans slip out, so he says to himself that he will use it for something bigger, for olives. The hole widens and the olives begin falling out, so he switches to nuts. He keeps adapting the same container upward, item by item, until he reaches produce as large as pomegranates. But once even a pomegranate drops through the opening, there is nothing left to salvage, and a householder simply gets rid of it. That is the moment the Torah recognizes as the end of the vessel.
Rabbi Eliezer: measured by its own use
"Rabbi Eliezer omer: bemah shehen" - Rabbi Eliezer says the measure follows what the vessel was actually being used for. If the container was holding olives and a hole develops through which olives fall out, it is finished and becomes tahor immediately. According to Rabbi Eliezer we do not credit the householder with all those successive improvisations that the first opinion assumed. We do not say that since the vessel could still serve for something larger it retains its status. If it no longer serves the very item it was serving, it is no longer a kli. Rabbi Eliezer therefore removes the status of a vessel far more quickly than the first opinion does.
Containers meant for large loads
The mishnah now returns to the view of the Tana Kama and refines it. The pomegranate was named because it represents the largest item a householder's container would normally end up holding. But when we are dealing with a container whose regular contents are larger than a pomegranate, it is obvious that the hole is measured against those contents.
- "Kupot hagananin, shiuran ba'agudot shel yarak" - the baskets of gardeners are measured by bundles of vegetables. A gardener counts as a householder here, since he uses his baskets himself rather than manufacturing them for sale. His basket is meant for bundles of vegetables, so only when a bundle of vegetables can pass through the hole does the basket become tahor.
- "Shel baalei batim, beteven" - baskets of householders are measured by bundles of straw. If straw is what such a basket regularly carries, it retains its status until a bundle of straw would fall through.
- "Shel balanin, begavava" - the baskets of bathhouse attendants are measured by bundles of stubble, which they would gather as fuel to heat the water. A hole large enough for a bundle of stubble to fall through is what ends the life of that basket.
Rabbi Yehoshua: everything by pomegranates
"Rabbi Yehoshua omer: kulan berimonim" - according to Rabbi Yehoshua, the pomegranate governs every one of these baskets, wooden vessels included, and the particular use to which a given container was put makes no difference at all. The moment a pomegranate can slip through the opening, that vessel is tahor. Granted that its owner habitually loaded it with bundles far bulkier than a pomegranate, Rabbi Yehoshua does not let that prolong its status as a kli. For him the pomegranate is a single uniform standard applied to all of them alike.
So we are left with three approaches to one question. Rabbi Eliezer ties the measure entirely to the vessel's actual contents, and therefore ends its status the soonest. The Tana Kama sets the pomegranate as the standard measure, yet allows a larger measure for a container whose normal load is larger. And Rabbi Yehoshua fixes the pomegranate as the measure in every case, neither shortening it for smaller contents nor extending it for larger ones.