Commentaire sur Le Lévitique 11:32

במים יובא IT MUST BE PUT INTO WATER — but even after it has been immersed, טמא IT IS UNCLEAN in respect to using it to hold the heave - offering,

AND EVERY THING UPON WHICH ANY PART OF THEM, WHEN THEY ARE DEAD, DOTH FALL, SHALL BE UNCLEAN: WHETHER IT SHALL BE ANY VESSEL OF WOOD etc. It appears to me in the interpretation of this verse that most likely the expression any of them, when they are dead, alludes to all those mentioned above — impure animals, creeping things, and beasts. For why should He mention the law of impurity of vessels and garments only with reference to creeping things, when it applies also to carcasses? Similarly, all the rules that He mentions with reference to making food susceptible to impurity²⁴⁰Further, 34, 37-38. [conveyed by creeping things], apply equally to all [forms of] impurity, and Scripture speaks of the general concept of them. Do not find it difficult to accept that the expression touch them when they are dead in the first verse²⁴¹In Verse 31: These are which are unclean to you among all that creep; whosoever doth ‘touch them, when they are dead,’ shall be unclean until the even. applies to the creeping things, while the same expression any of them when they are dead [in Verse 32 before us] applies to all things that convey impurity, for such is the case in many places in Scripture [where similar words apply to different things].
It is possible to say that Scripture waited until it had mentioned all impure things amongst cattle, beasts, and creeping things, and then at the end mentioned impurity of vessels with reference to one of them [namely, the creeping things], with which it had concluded this theme, in order that the law of all the others be derived from it, for the opinion of our Rabbis²⁴²Chagigah 11 a. is that the expression any of them when they are dead [in Verse 32 before us] refers [only] to creeping things, and from that they learn that a creeping thing in [a minimal] size of a lentil conveys impurity.²⁴³Since Scripture (here in Verse 32) states ‘any of them’ when they are dead, it shows that even though one has not touched the whole creeping thing but “any” part of it, he is rendered impure. “Now since the sand-lizard [one of the eight creeping things that convey impurity] when born is the size of a lentil,” therefore that amount of any of the eight creeping things when dead also conveys impurity (Chagiga ibid.). Thus according to the interpretation of the Rabbis, Verse 32 before us also speaks only of the impurity conveyed by creeping things, and not, as explained above, about all other impurities. Scripture dealt likewise with the subject of immersion, in mentioning at the end of all [the laws of] impurity, the impurity [conveyed by creeping things] to vessels and their purification by immersion,²⁴⁴Verses 34-36. and from it we learn the law of man and vessels with reference to all the impurities mentioned above.

מכל כלי עץ, the legislation mentioned here does not apply to vessels constructed out of stone or out of earth.