Study Shabbat folio 17A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
אקפח את בני שזו הלכה מקופחת, ששמע השומע, וטעה: האיכר עובר ומרדעו על כתפו ואיהל צדו אחד על הקבר — טימאו אותו, משום כלים המאהילים על המת.
I will bury my sons if this is not a truncated halakha, i.e., that the one who heard it, heard a halakhic ruling concerning a different situation and erred. He thought this halakha was established with regard to the following: Movable objects with the thickness of an ox goad transmit impurity to another vessel when the movable object is over both the source of impurity and the vessel at the same time. However, the original halakha is as follows: If the farmer was passing and his ox goad was on his shoulder and one side of the ox goad covered the grave, the rabbis deemed the ox goad itself impure due to the impurity of vessels that cover a corpse. Any object located over a grave becomes impure. However, just because the ox goad itself became impure, this does not necessarily mean that it transmits impurity to other objects.
אמר רבי עקיבא, אני אתקן שיהו דברי חכמים קיימים: שיהו כל המטלטלים מביאין את הטומאה על האדם שנושא אותן בעובי המרדע, ועל עצמן בכל שהן. ועל שאר אדם וכלים — בפותח טפח.
R' Akiva said: I will correct and explain the halakha so that the statements of the rabbis will be upheld as they were originally said, and this halakha will be explained as follows: All movable objects transmit impurity to the person carrying them if the objects are at least as thick as an ox goad. As will be explained below, there is room to decree that a round object with the circumference of an ox goad should have the legal status of a tent over a corpse. Something that serves as a covering over a corpse not only becomes impure itself, but also transmits impurity, as it is written: “Anything that is in the tent will become impure for 7 days” (Numbers 19:14). Therefore, even the person carrying the ox goad becomes impure due to the ox goad. And, however, movable objects that covered the corpse bring impurity upon themselves by means of this makeshift tent at any size, and there is no minimum measure. And, however, those objects that cover the corpse do not transmit impurity to other people who are not carrying them. And the same is true with regard to vessels, unless the width of these vessels is at least one handbreadth.