Keilim, Chapter 28, Mishnah 5. This mishnah continues the chapter's discussion of cloth articles and how a change in the way an object is used affects its tumah. Here the Mishnah presents two separate movements: an item that is removed from human use and given over to a sacred purpose, and items that are reshaped from one kind of keli into an entirely different kind of keli. The mishnah closes with a general rule that governs all such transformations.
The Kipah That Became a Wrapper for a Sefer Torah
The Mishnah begins: "kipah shehu tamei midras." A kipah here is a cloth head covering that a woman would wear. Like a handkerchief, it is the sort of soft cloth article that a person might also sit upon, and that is precisely why it is susceptible to tumat midras: if, for example, a niddah sat on it, it contracted midras tumah.
The Mishnah proceeds: "untano al hasefer." The owner takes this very head covering, which already bears midras tumah, and winds it around a sefer Torah so that it serves as the scroll's wrapping. The verdict: "tahor min hamidras," its midras tumah falls away, since a cloth handed over to the honor of a Torah scroll no longer stands ready for its owner's own use and enjoyment, and whatever does not serve a person lies outside the category of midras altogether. Yet the Mishnah adds "aval tamei tamei met": corpse tumah can still take hold of it, for it has not ceased to be a keli.
This last point requires a careful reading. If the object were flat and no longer served people, it could not receive tumah at all, even though it does serve a purpose for another utensil. That is the principle we know from the previous teaching in this chapter. So when our Mishnah says that this cloth can still become tamei through tumat met, even though it no longer serves a person directly (we have just established that it is dedicated to the sefer Torah and is not for personal benefit), it must be that we are dealing with an object shaped as a receptacle, a container rather than a flat cloth. A container-shaped keli remains susceptible even when it is not in the service of a person. Read that way, our mishnah sits comfortably alongside the previous one.
From One Kind of Keli Into Another
The Mishnah now lists pairs of transformations. "Chemet she'asa'ah shetiach": a leather water bottle that was tamei, and its owner opened it out and made it into a flat leather mat. "Ushetiach she'asa'o chemet": or the reverse, a tamei flat leather mat that was fashioned into a bottle. The ruling is "tahor." The keli has lost its earlier tumah.
The reason is the sheer size of the change. A bottle is a receptacle; a mat is flat. Turning one into the other is treated as though the original keli had been broken and then rebuilt. And just as any keli that breaks becomes tahor from the tumah it had carried, so too here. Going forward the new item can of course contract tumah again, but the tumah it held as a bottle, or as a mat, is gone. It is regarded as a brand new utensil.
Three further pairs follow. "Chemet she'asa'ah turmal": a bottle carrying tumah whose owner reworked it into a turmal, the leather satchel in which shepherds kept their belongings; "veturmal she'asa'o chemet": and the identical case in reverse, a satchel bearing tumah refashioned into a water bottle. Then "kar she'asa'o sadin": a cushion carrying tumah that its owner spread out as a sheet, and "vesadin she'asa'o kar": a sheet bearing tumah that he gathered up into a cushion. And finally "keset she'asa'ah mitpachat": a mattress carrying tumah reworked as a covering, and "umitpachat she'asa'ah keset": a covering bearing tumah reworked as a mattress. Each of these is tahor, since in every one of them the owner's labor has brought a fresh keli into existence.
The General Rule
A closing principle rounds off the discussion: "zeh haklal." The Mishnah then supplies the test. "Kol sheshinahu lishmo tamei": where the owner reworked a tamei article yet ended up with a keli belonging to the very same category, the tumah remains with it, because nothing of consequence has occurred; what he now holds is in substance the article he started with. "Leshem acher tahor": where his labor yielded a keli of an entirely different category, the earlier tumah drops away. That is what happens when a flat article becomes a receptacle, or a receptacle is spread out flat, or a keli built to hold one thing is rebuilt to hold something else. A shift of that magnitude registers as a real change, and the tumah of the old keli does not travel into the new one.