פירוש על במדבר 19:21

ומזה מי הנדה AND HE THAT SPRINKLED THE WATER OF SPRINKLING [SHALL WASH HIS GARMENTS] — Our Rabbis said that the one who sprinkles remains clean, and this statement is intended to intimate that one who bears the waters of purification becomes unclean with a more stringent uncleanness, in that he renders unclean the garments that are upon him (for it states here that he shall wash his garments), which is not so in the case of one who only touches these waters. And this fact that it here expresses it (the idea of “bearing the waters”) by the term “he that sprinkles” is only to tell you that they (the waters) do not render a person who bears them unclean unless they contain a quantity capable of being sprinkled (Yoma 14a).

ומזה מי הנדה יכבס בגדיו, “the one who administers the ash/water mixture has to wash his clothes.” Seeing that he himself is ritually pure and he administers the ash/water mixture to a ritually impure person why should he be required to immerse his clothing in a ritual bath? The reason is that in the process of sprinkling the ash/water mixture on the ritually impure person some of it may have splashed his clothing. This is what I have heard as an explanation of this halachah. However, the collective opinion of the sages in Yuma 14 is that the person concerned does not need to immerse his clothing in a ritual bath at all. The sages there understand the word מזה in our verse to mean נושא, “carries.” The reason why the Torah chooses the unusual word מזה to describe carrying is that the amount of water needed to wash the clothes in question is no larger than the amount of the ash/water mixture needed to sprinkle on the ritually impure person, just enough water as is absorbed by dipping the tips of the hyssop stalks in the mixture.

That the sprinkler is actually pure. Since it is written “the pure person shall sprinkle on the unclean person” (v. 19), but it is obvious that he was pure, for if he was impure then he would make the water impure [through contact with it]. Rather it was to teach that even though he sprinkled, he remains pure.

V. 21. והיתה להם לחקת עולם. Es ist dies ein noch für uns heute folgenreich bestehendes Gesetz. Da wir alle טמאי מת sind und aus Mangel an אפר פרה keine טהרה zu erlangen vermögen, schwebt noch heute כרת über jedem, der die Tempelstätte auf Moria im טומאה-Zustande betritt. Mit der Zertrümmerung des Tempels hat die Stätte ihre Heiligkeit nicht verloren, קדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה וקדשה לעתיד לבא ,הל׳ בית וזבחירה ,רמב׳׳ם) siehe jedoch ;6 ,14 ראב׳׳ד daselbst).

ומזה מי הנדה יכבס בגדיו, “and the person who sprinkles the waters containing the ash of the red heifer, called here מי הנה, “water designed to purify by removing the offending substance.” This verse has been abbreviated; its meaning is as follows: “the waters designed to remove the offending substance;” however, the person coming into contact with these waters must subsequently immerse himself in a ritual bath, as well as his clothing, and he remains in a state of ritual impurity until the evening of that day.

והנגע…יטמא AND HE THAT TOUCHETH … SHALL BE UNCLEAN, but does not require washing of his garments.

That one who carries the purifying water becomes [extremely] impure … unlike one who touches. Meaning: One should not question the explanation that “One who sprinkles…” comes to teach that one who carries it becomes impure if he carries an amount sufficient for sprinkling. [For one might say:] Surely afterwards it is written that “One who touches the sprinkling water shall remain impure until the evening,” which also implies that if there is an amount sufficient for sprinkling that he becomes impure. But if “One who sprinkles” refers to one who carries, why does Scripture write “and one who touches.” If one who carries becomes impure, then surely the one who touches [would also become impure]. Rashi explains that the verse, “One who sprinkles…” comes to teach that one who carried the purifying water has to immerse his clothes, which is not the case for one who merely touches it. There he does not need to immerse his clothes. Though Rashi says “To contaminate the garments he wears,” this is also the case for any clothing or utensils that an impure person touches when he is in contact with the source of impurity. The reason why Rashi refers to garments that he wears [because the garments referred to here] would ordinarily be worn at the time of his contact with the impurity. When Rashi writes that he becomes extremely impure, this refers to one who does not carry the water in order to sprinkle it and before the commandment [of sprinkling] was performed. However, if it was carried in order to sprinkle or after the commandment [of sprinkling] had been performed, one who touched or carried the water would be pure. Re’m.

ומזה מי הנדה וגו׳ Mit dem והיתה להם לחקת עולם ist der zweite Teil des פרה-Abschnittes, der הזיה-Akt abgeschlossen, wie oben V. 10 in ähnlicher Weise והיתה וגו׳ לחקת עולם der erste Teil, der Verbrennungsakt. Schon aus diesem Grunde bezieht sich das folgende: ומזה וגו׳ nicht auf den zur טהרה eines טמא das Wasser Sprengenden. Es heißt auch nicht: וכבס המזה על הטמא את בגדיו wie V. 19 und analog dem 10. sondern ומזה מי נדה ohne Beziehung auf eine Person oder ein sonstiges Objekt, ganz so wie das folgende, והנגע במי הנדה das ja unzweifelhaft nicht von dem הזיה-Akt spricht, bei welchem ja gar keine Berührung des Wassers vorauszusetzen ist. Vielmehr spricht ומזח מי הנדה offenbar von dem Fall, dass jemand nicht zum טהרה-Zwecke das מי הנדה in Bewegung setzt, und ist damit der Gegensatz ausgesprochen: der מזה על הטמא bleibt טהור, aber der מזה מי נדה außer zum טהרה-Zwecke wird טמא. Es ist aber ein solches in Bewegungbringen nichts als משא, identisch mit היסט (siehe Wajikra 11, 24-25). Es lehrt daher auch die Halacha (Joma 14a), dass unter diesem מזה nichts als נושא zu verstehen, dies hier aber durch מזה ausgedrückt sei, um zu sagen, dass נושא מי חטאת nur טמא wird, wenn es ein zu הזיה taugliches Wasserquantum ist, דבעינן שיעור הזיה und ein solcher טעון כבוס בגדים. Wer aber bloß נוגע במי נדה ist, ist nicht מטמא בגדים, er wird aber durch solche Berührung טמא, selbst wenn das Wasser kein שיעור הזיה hat. Daher Kelim 1, 1 u. 2 die Sätze: אבות הטומאה השרץ וכו׳ ומי חטאת שאין בהם כדי הזיה הרי אלו מטמאין אדם וכלים במגע וכלי חרס באויר ואינם מטמאין במשא. למעלה מהם נבלה ומי חטאת שיש בהם כדי הזיה שהם מטמאין את האדם במשא לטמא בגדים במגע וחשוכי בגדים במגע (siehe Wajikra 11, 24-25).

והנוגע במי הנדה יטמא, “anyone coming into contact with that water will become ritually unclean.” This is the answer to the deviationist cults among Jews who claim that the reason why the red heifer confers ritual impurity on all the people involved with it, is, because the whole ritual was performed outside the camp of the Jews. They claim that if people involved with it would not become ritually impure, we are afraid that anyone could henceforth claim a special status of superior sanctity for himself and take from the ash of the cow and sprinkle himself with this “holy” water, claiming that thereby they would achieve a higher degree of purity. To forestall such practices, the Torah decreed that everyone involved with the red heifer would become ritually unclean as an immediate result of this. (Compare B’chor shor) If you were to ask that if a mere sprinkling of the water caused ritual impurity, should not direct physical contact, touching it, do so even more so? So why did this have to be spelled out in our verse? The answer is again that penalties for incorrect behaviour must have been spelled out, and cannot be meted out when based only on our logic. I am not like many commentators who query the words of our sages, all of which are words of truth; [Our author is absolutely correct. [This editor has never come across a commentator whose work he has translated, in which some of these commentators have not only disagreed with the words of their colleagues usually of former years, so that these commentators could no longer defend their opinions, but they even questioned those commentators’ very legitimacy, and berated them. Ed.] Nonetheless, I cannot conceal that I am puzzled by a statement in the tractate פרה, chapter 3, mishnah 3, where we read that at the entrance to the עזרה, courtyard of the Temple, was set ready a pitcher of the ashes of the red heifer, a sin offering, and they brought a male from the sheep, and tied a rope between its horns and they tied at the end of the rope a stick with a pine cone and threw it into the pitcher, and the male was struck so that it fell over backwards, and he took it and sanctified it so that the ashes became visible above the waters in the pitcher to the onlookers. [The purpose of all this was to avoid the person handling the ashes to have to touch it personally and thus contract ritual impurity. Eliezer HaKalir composed a liturgical poem based on the text of this mishnah, recited in many synagogues in the morning prayer on the Shabbat on which this section of the Torah is especially read out of turn shortly before Passover. Ed.] According to our author that everyone involved in these procedures requires to have himself sprinkled in order to regain ritual purity, how can the last person in the chain regain it? By whom will he be sprinkled?[Rabbi Chavell in his annotations quotes the Talmud in Yuma folio 14 as answering this by saying that a minor who is not subject to becoming ritually impure was used to do this. Ed.]

But his garments do not require ritual washing. Meaning that because “one who sprinkles” refers to the one who carried the water, it should have said “one who touches” along with “one who sprinkles” [in the first part of the verse]. For it is the manner of Scripture to include both touching and carrying together, but here they are mentioned separately. Rather it is to teach that “[his garments] do not…”