Keilim, Chapter 16, Mishnah 6. Our Mishnah turns to a very ordinary item of a working man's equipment: the leather glove. Does a glove count as a vessel that can contract tumah, or is it merely a covering for the hand? The Mishnah answers by dividing gloves into two groups according to the job they do for their owner.
The Mishnah opens: "Kasyah shel zorei geranot", the glove of those who winnow at the threshing floors. Picture the work. The farmer lifts the mixture of kernels and chaff on his shovel and tosses it upward. The wind carries off the light outer husks, while the heavier kernels drop back down to the ground. To do this hour after hour, the worker needs a firm hold on the handle of his shovel, and the leather glove is what gives it to him.
Two further tradesmen appear in the same clause. "Shel holchei derachim", the glove of those who travel the roads, which lets a man keep a steady hold on his walking stick mile after mile; and "shel osei pishtan", the glove of the flax workers, whose hands are wrapped around the rod with which the flax is beaten. Of all of them the Mishnah rules "teme'ah": such a glove is able to receive tumah.
Why? For two reasons that come to the same point. The glove shields its wearer from harm, from thorns along the road or from a splinter off the wooden handle he is gripping all day. And beyond that, the handle of the tool actually sits inside the glove. The leather closes around the stick and holds it. That makes the glove a leather receptacle, something that receives and contains, and a receptacle of leather is a kli that tumah can take hold of.
Against these stands the second group. "Aval shel tzaba'im", as for the glove of the dyers, "veshel nafachim", and that of the smiths, the ruling is "tehorah". Nothing is being gripped inside this leather; it encloses no handle and holds no object. It is put on so that a hand busy at hot, heavy labor will not be left dripping. Leather worn only to draw off moisture performs no act of holding, and what does not hold is not a kli that tumah can seize.
"Rabbi Yose omer": Rabbi Yose adds a trade of his own to the tahor side, "af shel garosot", also the glove of those who crush and grind beans, "kayotzei bahen", it is like these. He sets it beside the dyer and the smith. The grinder's leather encases no shaft or handle; he wears it so that his palm will stay dry through his labor, and a covering worn for that purpose alone remains tahor.
From these cases the Mishnah extracts a measure that decides any glove. "Zeh ha'kelal", here is the governing rule. "He'asui lekabalah, tamei": if the leather was fashioned so as to take something into itself, that is, to enclose the shaft of a tool and give the worker a firm hold on it, the glove counts as a vessel and is susceptible. "Mipnei haze'ah", if it was made on account of perspiration, then "tahor", it stands outside tumah altogether.
The lesson of the Mishnah is that the leather itself tells us nothing. Two gloves can look identical on the shelf. What determines their status is the purpose for which they were made and worn: does the glove hold something, or does it only cover a hand? Where there is kabalah, receiving, there is a kli, and where there is a kli, there is tumah.