Ohalos 6:2-3

Ohalos 6:2

Let’s say that people carry a corpse through a portico in front of a house and one of them closes a door and locks it with a key. If the door can remain shut on its own (i.e., without being locked), then the contents of the house remain clean; if such is not the case, then they are rendered unclean. The same is true of a cask of dried figs or a basket of straw in a window: if the figs or the straw could remain in place on their own, then the contents of the room remain clean; if not, then they are rendered unclean. If a house was partitioned with jars that had been coated with plaster, then if the plaster can remain in place on its own, the partitioned area remains clean; if not, then it is rendered unclean.

Ohalos 6:3

A wall serving a house is treated as two halves, as follows: if a wall in the open air has something ritually unclean inside it, then if it’s in the inward half, the house is rendered unclean but things above the wall remain clean. If the impure substance is in the outward half, the house remains clean but things above the wall are rendered unclean. If the impurity is in the middle, then the house is rendered unclean. Rabbi Meir declares what’s above the wall to be unclean, while the Sages declare it clean. Rabbi Yehuda says that the whole wall is counted towards the house.