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Text Excerpt
נשאלין עליה, אפילו בכלי המונח על גבי קרקע — כדבר שיש בו דעת לישאל.
its owners will have no choice but to consult a Sage about it to determine whether or not it is ritually pure, as even with regard to a vessel that is placed upon the ground, which is certainly not capable of providing an answer if asked, its legal status is like that of an item that has knowledge to be asked. The fact that the knife is an inanimate object is not reason enough to rule it ritually pure. It was therefore necessary to say that the knife is ritually pure because the Temple courtyard is a public domain. If it was a private domain, the knife would be deemed impure.
״והבשר טמא״. האי בשר דאיתכשר במאי?
It was taught that if an impure needle were found in an animal, the meat is ritually impure. The Talmud asks: With what liquid was this meat rendered susceptible to impurity? A food can become impure only if it were rendered susceptible to impurity through contact with a liquid; how, then, could the sacrificial meat become impure immediately after the animal was slaughtered?
אי נימא דאיתכשר בדם, והא אמר רבי חייא בר אבא אמר רבי יוחנן: מנין לדם קדשים שאינו מכשיר — שנאמר: ״לא תאכלנו על הארץ תשפכנו כמים״, דם שנשפך כמים — מכשיר, ושאינו נשפך כמים — אינו מכשיר.
If we say that it was rendered susceptible to impurity by the blood that flowed when it was slaughtered, didn’t R' Ḥiyya bar Abba say that R' Yoḥanan said: From where is it derived with regard to blood of consecrated offerings that it does not render produce susceptible to impurity? As it is stated: “You should surely not eat the blood; you should pour it upon the earth like water” (Deuteronomy 12:16). The rabbis derived from this verse: Blood that is poured like water, i.e., blood from a non-sacred domesticated animal that is poured out when it is slaughtered and not received in a vessel like sacrificial blood, assumes the legal status of water and renders food susceptible to ritual impurity. Blood that is not poured out like water, but is received in a vessel to be sprinkled on the altar, does not render food susceptible to impurity.