Resources for Chagigah daf 24
1. The גמרא says in the name of רב שיזבי that our משנה that says that one hand is מטמא the other hand for קודש is only talking about "בחיבורין". There is an important מחולקת ראשונים as to what the meaning of “בחיבורין” is. רש"י says that בחיבורין means that we only consider the second hand to be טמא if the first hand which is טמא is touching the טהור hand while the טהור hand is holding the קדשים. The fear is that the טמא hand will touch the קודש directly and be מטמא it. תוספות in ד"ה בחיבורין שנו asks if so why wouldn’t you just need to be טובל the טמא hand and not both? He gives his own explanation that בחיבורין means that both hands are touching each other while one hand is touching the ספר (which causes טומאה). The fear is that the טהור hand directly touched the ספר. This is consistent with the usual usage of the term טומאה בחיבורין. See the בעל המאור (there is a small amount of בעל המאור in the back of the גמרא) and the רמב"ן who learn that בחיבורין just means the טמא hand touches the טהור hand but neither hand is holding anything. According to that, when the גמרא asks from the ברייתא that says a נגובה hand is מטמא the other, the word נגובה there means that both hands were already טמא but one was put in the מקוה while the other one (the נגובה) was not. The גמרא’s proof was that if one hand is only מטמא the other when they touch, then why would you think just because you toveiled one that it wouldn’t be מטמא the other? However, if they are mtamei each other without touching then you might think that once you toveiled one we are no longer גוזר on the other.
The רמב"ם in the פּירוש המשניות here explains our גמרא in a fascinating way. He says that the משנה has two seemingly repetitive lines: אם נטמאת אחת מידיו...מטביל שתיהן, and then שיד מטמא חבירתה בקודש. It must be that the משנה is teaching us two הלכות: 1)if one hand is wet, then the other hand becomes טמא even without touching the other hand, 2) if they do touch each other then they are both טמא even if they aren’t wet. See the מרומי שדה who explains that the רמב"ם understood that רב שיזבי who said “בחיבורין” meant simply that the hands had to touch (like the בעל המאור). However, those who did not require חיבורין held that one hand would be מטמא the other hand without touching only if the טמא hand had touched liquid. However, if there was no liquid then then both would agree that one hand would only be מטמא the other hand if they touched. The proof is from the ברייתא is that sounds like it is talking about a case where the hands touched each other and it says it is only by נגובה.
2. The גמרא says that ר חנין holds צירוף כלי is a דין דאורייתא. Based on that, we are forced to say that the ברייתא of ר"ע who was talking about a דין דרבנן must be teaching us that a כלי is מצרף even if the item doesn’t need a כלי or that a כלי is מצרף even if it has no walls. Presumably, if you hold like the other מ"ד that צירוף כלי is only דרבנן, then we have no proof that צירוף כלי works if the item doesn’t need a כלי or if the כלי has no walls. However, see the רמב"ם in who paskens that צירוף כלי is a דין דרבנן and yet paskens that it works even with no walls to the כלי and no need for the כלי. See the חזון אי"ש in מנחות סימן ל"א ס"ק ו who says you must say the רמב"ם understood that there was no מחלוקת as to what צירוף כלי helps for—the גמרא was just suggesting that it might be a way to explain what the ברייתא meant if you hold it is a דין דרבנן.
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