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1) THE "CHIDUSH" OF RABAH'S TEACHING

(a) Question (Rava): Why must Rabah teach about Tum'ah and Taharah Belu'ah - both may be derived from Mishnayos!

1. (Mishnah): If one swallowed a Tamei ring, after he immerses, he may eat Terumah (even though the ring touches and moves inside his innards, he remains Tahor!)
2. (Mishnah): If one swallowed a Tahor ring and entered a room with a Mes, and after he became Tahor, he vomited out the ring, it is still Tahor.

(b) Answer: Rabah taught about swallowing two rings, one Tahor, one Tamei, that the Tamei ring does not Metamei the Tahor one.
(c) Question: But a midwife that touches a fetus (in our Mishnah) is like two swallowed rings, yet she becomes Teme'ah!
(d) Answer #1 (Rabah): A fetus is not considered Tum'ah Belu'ah, because it is destined to leave the womb.
(e) Objection (Rava): A swallowed ring is also destined to leave the digestive tract!
(f) Answer #2 (Rava citing Rav Yosef): The midwife is not Teme'ah mid'Oraisa, rather mid'Rabanan.
(g) Question: It suffices to say, she is only Teme'ah mid'Rabanan!
(h) Answer: He comes to teach that the Mishnah is not only like R. Akiva, who is Metamei a dead fetus inside the womb (mid'Oraisa), rather, it is even like R. Yishmael, who is Metaher;

1. Chachamim decreed that a midwife who touches it becomes Teme'ah.
2. Question: Why did they decree?
3. Answer: Perhaps the fetus' head came out (and she did not see it), and she does not realize that she is Teme'ah.
4. Question: If so, the mother should also be Teme'ah!
5. Answer: The mother can feel if the head came out.
6. Question: If so, she will tell the midwife!
7. Answer: In the throes of labor, she might neglect to tell her.

(a) Question: Where do R. Akiva and R. Yishmael argue about this?
(b) Answer (Beraisa - R. Yishmael): "Anything that will touch (a Mes) on the face of the field (will become Tamei)" - this excludes (touching) a fetus in the womb;

1. R. Akiva says, this includes (touching) a Golel and Dofek (Rashi - a coffin cover and a support for the cover; Tosfos - a monument and stones marking the location of the coffin).
2. R. Yishmael learns Golel and Dofek from a tradition from Moshe from Sinai.

(c) Question: What is R. Akiva's source to say that a (dead) fetus in the womb is Tamei?
(d) Answer (R. Oshiya): "If one touches a Mes in a Nefesh" - this refers to a fetus in the womb.

1. R. Yishmael learns from this verse that a Revi'is of blood from a corpse is Tamei (like a full corpse), for the blood is the Nefesh.
2. R. Akiva holds that even a Revi'is of blood that came from two corpses is Tamei.

i. (Beraisa - R. Akiva): "On all dead *Nefashos* he will not come" - this teaches that a Revi'is of blood from two corpses is Metamei in an Ohel.

(a) (Mishnah): A fetus stuck a limb out of the womb. It was cut off, then the mother was slaughtered - the meat (the rest of the fetus) is Tahor.
(b) R. Meir says, if the mother was slaughtered and then the limb was cut off, the meat (of the fetus) is Tamei because it touched a Neveilah;

1. Chachamim say, it is like meat that touched a slaughtered Treifah (this will be explained).

(c) Chachamim: We find that slaughtering a Treifah is Metaher (inhibits Tum'as Neveilah) - similarly, slaughtering the mother is Metaher the limb of the fetus (that left the womb!)

1. R. Meir: Slaughter is Metaher the animal itself - you have no source that slaughter is Metaher something else (the limb, which is not part of the mother!)

(d) Question: What is the source that a slaughtered Treifah is Tahor?

1. We should compare it to a Tamei (species of) animal - just like slaughter does not permit eating a Tamei animal, and it becomes a Neveilah, the same should apply to a Treifah!

(e) Answer #1: We do not learn from a Tamei animal, for it was never fit to be permitted.
(f) Rejection: A Tahor animal that was born Treifah was never fit to be permitted, yet slaughter prevents it from becoming Neveilah!
(g) Answer #2: We do not learn from a Tamei animal, for slaughter does not apply to the species (to permit eating it).
(h) Slaughter does not Metaher a Nefel (stillborn calf), since slaughter does not apply to Nefalim (they are like a species unto themselves.)
(i) (Gemara) Question: According to R. Meir, how does the fetus become Tamei - it touches the forbidden limb internally, not externally!
(j) Answer #1: This is consistent with R. Meir's opinion that Tum'ah is transferred by internal contact.

1. (Mishnah - R. Meir): If a Mishkav (something people sit on) three Tefachim by three Tefachim was Tamei Medras (an Av ha'Tum'ah, i.e. a Zav or Nidah sat on it) and it was torn in two, each piece is not Tamei Medras (it is too small to sit on), but it is Tamei because it touched a Tamei Mishkav;
2. R. Yosi: The pieces did not touch the whole Mishkav! They are Tamei only if the Mishkav had (also) received (standard) Tum'ah (an Av ha'Tum'ah touched it).

(k) Objection: Even R. Yosi agrees in our case!

1. (Ula): They argue only if each piece is less than three by three Tefachim, but if a piece three fingers by three fingers was cut off, leaving three by three Tefachim, all agree that the former piece became Tamei when it was cut off (for it touched the latter, which remians an Av ha'Tum'ah.)
2. Here also, when the limb is cut off, it makes the fetus Tamei!