Page:Takkanot Ezra.djvu/4

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64
THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

Similarly in the matter of sunset. For according to the Torah, mere bathing of the body in water would not have been deemed sufficient to render a person pure, unless the sun had set on him thereafter, and he is called by the Talmud מבו־יום. The Sages then ordained that, if he had taken the prescribed bath, he was ipso facto pure, and relieved of the necessity of waiting until sunset.[1] This reform the Talmud ascribes to Ezra in these words, לבעלי קרי הוא תיקן בילה, meaning to say, that it is sufficient for him to undergo ṭebilah, as he need not leave the city nor concern himself as to when the sun will set.

The law of טבול יום, according to which ṭebilah alone does not suffice, but it is necessary to wait for sunset, the Pharisees made, by their decree, apply in cases of terumah—if a priest was unclean, he would not only have to undergo ṭebilah, but be inhibited from eating terumah until night.[2] This is one of the 'Eighteen Measures' that were decreed by Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel.[3] And

  1. Sifra Emor 4, 1: הרי הן אוכלים במעשר יום מה ישראל שאינם אוכלים בחרומה במעורבי שמש. Tosefta Parah 3, 6: בטבול יום מעשר נאכל.
  2. יטמא עד הערב . . . מהור לחולין מבעוד יום ולתומה משתחשך. Sifra Shemini 8.
  3. See Zeitlin ibid. This decree was a consequence of the Pharisees' hostility to the priesthood which was particularly strong in the last days of the Second Temple so strong indeed that they virtually decreed that almost everything disqualified terumah, and terumah disqualified had to burnt (see my article, ibid.); and also that almost everything rendered the priest unclean and unfit to eat terumah and ḳodesh, going so far as to say that if any man (of the priesthood) carried any object on his shoulder, though it touched nothing unclean, still some object polluted might be lying underground as far down as the spade might dig—and who knows but that there might be some pollution at that depth?—consequently it would also render unclean the man who carried the object (see Ohalot 16. 1). In line possibly, with this general principle they made the ruling that the