Ohalos, Chapter 15, Mishnah 9. Our Mishnah continues the discussion of the golel, the covering placed over a kever. The rule under discussion is a striking one: the golel conveys tumah to whoever touches it, even when the golel itself is an object that by its nature cannot become tamei at all. The Mishnah brings two such cases, one from the world of vessels and one from the world of living creatures.
A sealed earthenware barrel placed over a kever
The Mishnah opens: "chavis she'melei'ah mashkin tehorim umukefes tzamid pasil," a barrel of earthenware filled with liquids that are tahor, and sealed shut with a tight-fitting seal. We have met the concept of tzamid pasil many times already. A kli cheres does not receive tumah through its outer surface, only through its inner space. Therefore, once such a vessel is properly sealed, the tumah of an ohel hameis has no way in. The vessel itself remains tahor, since its outside is never susceptible, its inner space is sealed off, and the contents inside remain tahor as well. A sealed earthenware barrel standing in a tent with a meis is completely protected from every side.
Now the Mishnah introduces a change: "va'asoh golel l'kever," the owner decided, for whatever reason, to use this sealed barrel as the covering over a kever. The halacha is: "hanogea bo tamei tum'as shiv'ah," whoever touches it, so long as it is still serving as the covering of the kever, contracts a seven day tumah.
The novelty here is considerable: before us is an object that halachah says can never take on tumah, and merely because it rests over a kever, anyone who touches it carries a seven day tumah. We already encountered this idea with a stone, which is not susceptible to tumah, and yet when it serves as a golel, a person who touches it becomes tamei for seven days. Chazal learn this from the posuk that imposes a seven day tumah upon one who touches a grave out in the open, "al pnei hasadeh," and from there they derive that the covering of a kever transmits tumah. Nor is touch the only route: one who bends over the golel and forms an ohel over it also becomes tamei, and so does one who carries it, b'masa. On masa there is a machlokes, with Rebbi Eliezer holding that tum'as masa operates in this case too.
A picture of the halacha in practice
Picture the scene, purely for illustration. The Beis Hamikdash will be rebuilt b'ezras Hashem, and life will look altogether different. It will not only be a question of whether food is kosher; it will be a question of whether it is tahor. Someone offers you a drink. You are careful to eat your chullin b'taharah, or you are a kohen who eats terumah, so you ask: is this tahor? He answers yes, but with the slightest hesitation. You press him. Finally he explains: the liquid was stored in a chavis, and that chavis had been used as the covering over a kever.
Your reaction would be immediate: that barrel is something that would make me tamei for seven days if I so much as touched it, and you are pouring me its contents? Yet the halacha is exactly as our Mishnah teaches. You are entirely correct that touching the barrel while it lies on the kever renders a person tamei for seven days, and according to most Rishonim it conveys tumah only so long as it remains in place over the kever. Nevertheless, the barrel itself is tahor, and the liquids inside it are tahor. Whether one has the appetite to drink them is another matter, but that is the din. This is the fascinating point of the Mishnah: the golel of a kever makes the one who touches it tamei for seven days, while the golel itself remains tahor.
An animal tied over a kever
The Mishnah continues: "beheima she'asoh golel l'kever," an animal that was made into a covering over a kever. The Rambam explains that the animal must have been tied down; if it is free to walk away on its own, it does not qualify as a golel at all. A living animal, like the sealed barrel, is not fit to receive tumah. Even so, teaches the Tanna Kamma, "hanogea bo tamei tum'as shiv'ah," one who touches this animal that is tied over the kever becomes tamei for seven days, exactly like one who touches any other golel.
Rebbi Meir now voices his dissent, distinguishing sharply between the barrel and the animal. With the sealed barrel he has no quarrel: someone who touches it takes on a seven day tumah, while the barrel keeps its taharah. But a beheimah, even one fastened in place above the kever, transmits nothing in the role of a golel. In Rebbi Meir's view, anything possessing "ruach chaim" cannot serve as a halachic barrier, and since it is the animal's own body that would have to be doing the covering here, there is no valid mechitzah, and consequently the kever has no golel at all. The Tanna Kamma, naturally, holds otherwise.
Summing up the halachos of the Mishnah
Our Mishnah has taught that a golel conveys a seven day tumah, certainly through touch and also to one who leans over it forming an ohel, even when the golel itself is an object incapable of receiving tumah. That includes a stone, klei adamah (earthen vessels), and, as the Rambam adds although it is not stated in our Mishnah, a very large wooden vessel with a capacity of forty se'ah of liquid. And it includes the case our Mishnah does state: an earthenware barrel that is sealed with tzamid pasil, which in an ohel hameis would enjoy complete protection, both the vessel and its contents remaining tahor. Set that same barrel over a kever, and whoever touches it is tamei seven days, while the liquids inside it stay tahor.
The same applies, in the view of the Tanna Kamma, to the beheimah fastened above the burial place. The animal has no susceptibility to tumah of its own; of all living creatures, only a person can contract tumah while alive. Even the shmoneh sheratzim transmit nothing during their lifetime, and a live animal is surely not tamei. Nonetheless, once it is positioned over the kever, anyone touching it bears a tum'as shiv'ah. It is only this second case that Rebbi Meir rejects: he grants the ruling about the barrel, but maintains that a creature with ruach chaim in it does not transmit tumah in its role as a golel.
How can touching something tahor make a person tamei?
The halacha itself invites a question. How can I touch an object that is not tamei and yet become tamei myself? Some explain it this way: a person who touches a kever becomes tamei, and this barrel has become an extension of the kever. The barrel is not itself tamei; rather, by touching the barrel one is effectively touching the kever. That is one approach in learning the halacha.
The Mishnah Achronah presses the question further. What does it actually mean to say that the barrel is tahor? If touching it makes me tamei for seven days, in what sense is it tahor? That the liquid inside remains tahor is understandable, but with regard to what din is the barrel called tahor? According to those shittos that hold the barrel reverts to taharah once it is lifted off the kever, the statement is clear: while it rests over the kever, touching it conveys tumah, and once it is removed it is tahor. But there are shittos that hold nothing changes even after it is lifted, and touching it still conveys tumah. On that view, how can the object be called tahor at all?
The Mishnah Achronah answers, and Rebbi Akiva Eiger notes a Tosfos in Berachos that reads this way as well, that the intent is that the inside of the barrel is tahor. That is precisely why one may serve the liquid stored in it.
There is something worth taking to heart here. A person often senses that he does not belong in a certain place, that the atmosphere is not good for him, and yet he can point out that technically there is nothing wrong with this and nothing wrong with that. It may be perfectly true that nothing there is objectionable in itself. But a thing can be entirely tahor and still be a connection to something that is not, and through that connection a person becomes tamei. A kever, of course, carries nothing wrong with it whatsoever. But in the realm of tumah and taharah, this is a lesson well worth understanding.