pours a liquid from a clean vessel into a vessel that is unclean ye maintain that what is left in the upper vessel remains clean', and that the Pharisees rejoin thereto, 'We have as much right to find fault with you that ye declare clean the stream of water that issues from a cemetery'. This interpretation of the Mishnah appears to me unacceptable. For, aside from our not being able to find any evidence that the Sadducees ever declared unclean the water that remained in the upper vessel when part thereof had been poured into an unclean vessel, and aside from inability to see whereon they could base such a view—according to this interpretation, the answer that the Pharisees give does not fit in with the question that the Sadducees propound. The Sadducees are thus represented as asking why they (the Pharisees) declare clean the water in the upper vessel when a part has been poured therefrom into an unclean vessel, and the Pharisees are represented as answering with the query, why they (the Sadducees) declare clean the water that issues from the cemetery—which is wholly irrelevant and bears no relation to the original question.
The word ניצוק which almost everywhere has the connotation of pouring out from one vessel into another, has, it appears to me, misled the commentators; they thought that in this passage also it had that connotation. Here, however, ניצוק, nifʻal of יצק, refers to the status of that which has received the water. The dispute resolves itself thus: 'The Sadducees say, We object to your declaring seed clean in case water has been poured thereon—we mean that ye make distinction (as far as the Law is concerned) between that which is attached to the soil and that which is detached—which is above the ground, and claim that
