of becoming unclean. For in Leviticus 11.38 the expression occurs וכי יתן מים על זרע. However, the earlier Sages so revised the Law, that seed is rendered susceptible of receiving impurity through the pouring of water thereon, only when detached, not when attached (by nature) to the soil (Sifra Shemini 11, 3); and this taḳḳanah the Talmud ascribes to Ezra.[1] What hitherto was obscure now becomes clear — we are able to understand a Mishnah in Yadaim 4 which brings in a disputation between the Sadducees and the Pharisees: אומרים צדוקים קובלים אנו עליכם פרושים שאתם מטהרים את הנצוק; אומרים הפרושים קובלים אנו עליכם צדוקים שאתם מטהרים את אמת המים הבאה מבית הקברות 'The Sadducees say, We complain against you, Pharisees, because ye declare clean the נצוק. The Pharisees say, We complain against you, Sadducees, that ye declare clean the stream of water that comes from the cemetery.' All the commentators who have discussed this Mishnah, and all the scholars who have spoken about the matters of dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, have taken for granted that the word ניצוק implies pouring from one vessel into another, and hence they interpret the Sadducees as saying, 'We find fault with you, O Pharisees, because in case a man
- ↑ This enables us to understand the answer the Sages gave Ḥalafta ben Ḳonia: אם כן יהא טמא לחילפתא בן קוינא וטהור לכל ישראל (Tosefta ibid.), equivalent to saying, 'Ye who do not avail yourselves of the taḳḳanah at seed never comes susceptible of uncleanness through pouring thereon of water save when detached from the soil have occasion to investigate but not the great bulk of Israel who abide by that taḳḳahah; for them it is clean and unquestionably permissible as food'. Similarly they disposed of the objection that Joshua ben Peraḥiah made to imposing wheat from Egypt where as no rain falls water is necessarily poured upon the seed making it according to that teacher susceptible of uncleanness. The Sages, applying to Egyptian wheat the ruling concerning that which was attached to the soil observed that it might be unclean for Joshua ben Peraḥiah but not for the vast body of Israel who abided by the taḳḳanah.
