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Keilim 9:1-2

Keilim 9:1

Let’s say that a (ritually unclean) needle or ring was found in the floor of an oven – visible but not sticking out. If a person bakes in this oven and it touches that object, the dough is rendered unclean. This refers to a dough of medium consistency. If the needle or ring was found in the oven’s outer coating, sealed by a tight lid (and a corpse was then brought into the house), then if the oven is ritually unclean, the object is rendered impure by the corpse, but if the oven is ritually clean, the object is protected from corpse impurity by the tight seal. If the needle or ring was found in the (earthenware) lid of a jar by the edges, it is rendered unclean (by a corpse), but if opposite the mouth of the jar, it remains clean. If the needle or ring was visible in the lid but did not protrude into the interior of the jar, it remains clean. If it protrudes into the jar’s airspace but is covered by an earthenware layer even as thin as a garlic skin, it remains clean.

Keilim 9:2

Imagine an earthenware jar full of a ritually clean liquid. It has a metal syphon in it and is sealed with a tight lid. If this jar is put into a tent where there’s a corpse, Beis Shammai say that the jar and the liquid remain clean but the syphon is rendered unclean. Beis Hillel originally ruled that the syphon also remained clean but they later retracted and ruled like Beis Shammai.

Author: Rabbi Jack Abramowitz