Kommentar zu Oholot 9:1

כוורת – that it has rims [at the bottom] and holds forty Se’ah in wet which are two KOR in dry, that it is susceptible to receive ritual defilement, and reclines on its side within the opening and part of it is outside and part of it is in the house.

Introduction Chapter nine deals with an empty beehive (or something shaped like it) that has impurity either in it, above it or below it and is found either in a house, in the doorway to a house or outside of a house. The beehive itself is one that is not susceptible to impurity. Within each scenario, the mishnah discusses various possibilities as to the exact position of the hive vis a vis the impurity. We should conceive of this chapter as not dealing with a practical/actual problem but as a kind of theoretical exercise of what happens when a smaller structure (the hive) is found within a larger structure (the house). We could even think of these mishnayot as an extended geometrical/scientific word problem; we know how impurity travels and we know how an ohel works. Now we just have to work out the results in various scenarios.

ופיה לחוץ – and its rim is inside.

The mishnah describes a beehive that is lying in the doorway to a house, open to the outside of the house. The beehive itself is one that is not susceptible to impurity. There will now be three different scenarios as to where the source of impurity is located with three different halakhot as to what is impure.

כזית מן המת נתון תחתיה – from outside.

[If the uncleanness is] within the house, nothing becomes unclean except that which is within the house. The piece of corpse is either above or below the hive, and is outside of the house. Everything that is above and below that piece of corpse is impure for vessels do not act as barriers to impurity (see 6:1). However, the impurity does not spread to the sides. Thus anything that is not directly above or below the piece of corpse remains clean. Anything in the hive is clean because the impurity cannot enter the hive since it does not receive impurity. Anything in the house is also pure.

כל שהוא כנגד הזית – if the olive’s bulk [of the corpse] is underneath it and vessels are on top of it opposite it, or the olive’s bulk [of the corpse] is upon it and vessels are underneath it opposite it.

[If the uncleanness is] within [the hive] everything becomes unclean. If the impurity is in the house, the house is of course impure. The contents of the hive are pure because its opening is to the outside.

תחתיה וגבה טמא – but what is within it is ritually pure. For even though the hive protects over what is within it, it does not protect on what is underneath it or on top of it opposite the olive’s bulk of defilement, for on what is within it, it is the law that it protects, for even if it is placed in the tent of a corpse it protects with a tightly-sealed cover/airtight lid, since it is not susceptible to receive ritual defilement, but what is underneath it and on its back it does not protect since it is a vessel, as is taught in the Mishnah above in Chapter 6 {Mishnah 1]: “Humans and vessels are made into tents to defile, but not to purify.”

If the uncleanness is within the hive everything is impure, meaning anything found in the hive, on top or below the hive or in the house. The hive does not act as an ohel to block the impurity but it does bring the impurity. This was stated explicitly in 8:3, where the mishnah listed things that bring impurity but do not block against it.

וכל שאינו כנגד הזית תוכה והבית טהור – this is what he said: vessels that are underneath it and on top of it that are not opposite the olive’s bulk of defilement, and within it, meaning to say, vessels that are within it and even if hey are opposite the olive’s bulk [of defilement], and vessels also that are in the house, everything is ritually pure.

בבית אין טמא אלא הבית – if the olive’s bulk [of defilement] is in the house, there is nothing ritually impure other than the house, but the vessels that within the hive are pure, for its mouth is towards the outside.

בתוכה הכל טמא – if the olive’s bulk [of defilement] is within the hive, everything is ritually defiled, for we are dealing with a hive which is perforated from the walls with an opening of a handbreadth, as we are required to state further on [Mishnah 3] but rather that the incisions/holes are stopped up with straw, but the closing is not fastened, and it is the manner of the holes/incisions that the defilement goes out to the house since they are not fastened, and even vessels that are under it and on top of from the outside are ritually impure, for since the olive’s bulk [of defilement] we see it as is if it is filled with defilement, and a vessel cannot protect what is underneath it or on top of it. But when the defilement is in the house, we stated above [in this Mishnah] that there is no defilement other than the house, for the defilement does not enter in the hive through the incisions/holes even though they have an opening of a handbreadth, for since they are stuffed up, but it (i.e., the defilement) does not enter through its mouth for its mouth is towards the outside.