Study Zevachim folio 79B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
תנו רבנן: חרסן של זב וזבה – פעם ראשון ושני טמא, שלישי טהור.
§ The Talmud continues its discussion of cases involving a mixture of one substance in contact with the same type of substance, in which according to the opinion of R' Yehuda in the Mishnah the prohibited substance is not nullified. A baraita states a baraita (Tosefta, Teharot 5:3): In a case where a broken earthenware flask had absorbed the urine of a zav or a zava, whose urine is a primary source of ritual impurity, which imparts impurity to one who carries it, in such a case, if one poured water into this flask to clean it, after the first time and the second time one washed it, it remains ritually impure, but after the third time it is ritually pure, as the impure urine has been expelled from the flask.
במה דברים אמורים – שנתן לתוכו מים; אבל לא נתן לתוכו מים – אפילו עשירי טמא. רבי אליעזר בן יעקב אומר: שלישי, אף על פי שלא נתן לתוכו מים – טהור. מאן דשמעת ליה דאמר: מין במינו לא בטיל? רבי יהודה.
The baraita continues: In what case is this statement said? It is said when one placed water into the flask. But if he did not place water into it, but instead placed the urine of a ritually pure person into it, even after the tenth time he places this urine into the flask it remains ritually impure, as one substance in contact with the same type of substance is not nullified. R' Eliezer ben Ya’akov says: After the third time, even though he did not place water into it, but rather urine, it is ritually pure. The Talmud comments: Whom did you hear who says that a substance in contact with the same type of substance is not nullified? R' Yehuda, and therefore he is the first tanna of this baraita.