The following impart impurity and make [food] susceptible to impurity: The flow of the <i>Zav</i> [a man suffering from gonorrhea], and his spit, and his semen, and his urine, and a <i>Revi'it</i> [a specific unit of volume] of a corpse, and the blood of a <i>Niddah</i> [a woman who has menstruated and is thereby impure]. Rabbi Eliezer says: Semen does not make [food] susceptible to impurity. Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah says: The blood of a <i>Niddah</i> does not make [food] susceptible to impurity. Rabbi Shimon says: The blood of a corpse does not make [food] susceptible to impurity and if it fell on a gourd, one may scrape it off and it is pure.
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
ואלו מטמאים ומכשירים – that they themselves are impure liquids and they defile and make susceptible [to receive ritual defilement] as one..
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
English Explanation of Mishnah Makhshirin
The following cause uncleanness and also susceptibility [to uncleanness]; The fluids in this mishnah are both impure and they make food susceptible to impurity. Two for the price of one!
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
זובו של זב – as it is written (Leviticus 15:2): “[When any man has] a discharge [issuing from his member,] he is impure.”
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
English Explanation of Mishnah Makhshirin
The flow of a zav, his spittle, his semen and his urine; A zav is a person with some sort of unnatural genital flow (i.e. not semen and not menstrual blood). If a zav emits the fluids listed here they cause food to become impure immediately, even if it hadn't previously come into contact with water.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
ורוקו – (Leviticus 15:8): “If one with a discharge spits [on one who is pure].”
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
English Explanation of Mishnah Makhshirin
A quarter-log of blood from a corpse, and the blood of a menstruant. Both of these types of blood cause impurity and susceptibility.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
ומימי רגליו – (Leviticus 15:3): “The impurity from [his discharge] shall mean the following –“/"וזאת תהיה טומאתו" – [the word] "וזאת"/and this – to includes urine.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
English Explanation of Mishnah Makhshirin
Rabbi Eliezer says: semen does not cause susceptibility. Rabbi Eliezer holds that semen does not cause susceptibility. Therefore food will have to first be made susceptible for contact with semen to cause it to be impure.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
ורביעית דם מן המת – as it is written (Numbers 19: 13): “Whoever touches a corpse, the body of a person [who has died],”/"כל הנוגע במת בנפש האדם" – “the body of a person is a quarter-log of blood, as it is written (Leviticus 17:11): “it is the blood, as life, [that effects expiation]”/"כי הדם הוא בנפש [יכפר]"(note that there is a slight variant in the way the verse is read from what Bartenura writes: "כי הדם הוא הנפש").
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
English Explanation of Mishnah Makhshirin
R. Elazar ben Azariah says: the blood of a menstruant does not cause susceptibility. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah hold that menstrual blood does not cause susceptibility.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
ודם נדה – as it is written (Leviticus 15:33): “and concerning her who is in menstrual infirmity”/"והדוה בנדתה" - just as that which flows from her, is impure like her.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
English Explanation of Mishnah Makhshirin
Rabbi Shimon says: the blood of a corpse does not cause susceptibility, and if it fell on a gourd, he can scrape it off, and it remains clean. Rabbi Shimon is even more lenient and he holds that even the blood of a corpse doesn't cause susceptibility. The Talmud explains that in all of these cases since the substance is referred to by two words (shikhvat zera is the Hebrew for semen, dam niddah for menstrual blood and dam hamet for blood of a corpse) the fluid doesn't cause susceptibility. Only fluids referred to by one word blood, milk, etc. cause susceptibility.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
שכבת זרע אינה מכשרת – that it is not considered a liquid, and it has the epithet.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
דם הנדה אינו מכשיר – a thing that a person with abdominal troubles/piles that he also does not make susceptible [to receive ritual impurity].
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
דם המת אינו מכשיר – that since he died, his blood has left the category of a liquid. But the Halakha is not according to any one of these Tannaim/teachers, but rather, all of them defile and are susceptible [to receive ritual defilement] according to the first Tanna/teacher [of the Mishnah].
