Purity
Sefer Taharah, the Book of Purity · commandments 443–462
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Clean and unclean: the dead, the red heifer, leprous disease, bodily discharges, unclean creatures, food, and immersion in water.
On this page: Uncleanness from the Dead (443) · The Red Heifer (444–445) · Leprous Disease (446–453) · Bodily Discharges and Childbirth (454–457) · Other Sources of Uncleanness (458–460) · Uncleanness of Food and Drink (461) · Immersion (462)
Uncleanness from the Dead
Tum’at Met · 1 commandment
443. To keep the law of one who dies in a tent. DO
This is the law: If a person dies in a house, everyone who enters the house and everything in the house shall be unclean for seven days.
Numbers 19:14
The Red Heifer
Parah Adumah · 2 commandments
444. To prepare the red heifer. DO
This is the provision of the law that the Lord has commanded: Speak to the sons of Israel, and let them bring you a red heifer, unblemished and without defect, on which no yoke has been laid.
Numbers 19:2
445. To keep the law of the water of purification. DO
This shall be a perpetual ordinance for you. The one who sprinkles the water for sprinkling shall wash his clothes, and whoever touches the water for sprinkling shall be unclean until evening.
Numbers 19:21
Leprous Disease
Tum’at Tzara’at · 8 commandments
446. To judge leprous disease in a person as the Law prescribes. DO
If the leprosy blossoms out in the skin and covers all the skin of the lesion from head to foot, within the priest’s whole view,
Leviticus 13:12
447. Not to neglect what the priests teach concerning leprous disease. DO NOT
In a case of leprosy, be very careful to follow all the law the Levitical priests declare to you. Carefully do as I commanded you.
Deuteronomy 24:8
448. Not to shave the place of the scaly patch. DO NOT
the skin shall be shaved, but the broken patch shall not be shaved. The priest shall isolate the broken patch for a second seven days.
Leviticus 13:33
449. The afflicted person is to tear his garments, unbind his hair, cover his lip and cry, Unclean. DO
The person with leprosy who has the lesion shall have his garments loosened, his head uncovered, and a covering around his mouth, and he shall be called unclean.
Leviticus 13:45
450. To carry out the cleansing of the one healed. DO — Christ’s teaching: 22
This is the law of the person with leprosy on the day he is cleansed: he shall be brought to the priest,
Leviticus 14:2
451. He is to shave off all his hair on the seventh day. DO
On the seventh day he shall shave off all his hair: his head, his beard, and his eyebrows; he shall shave off all his hair. He shall wash his garments, bathe his body in water, and be clean.
Leviticus 14:9
452. To keep the law of leprous disease in a garment. DO
If a garment has a lesion of leprosy, whether a woolen garment or a tow garment,
Leviticus 13:47
453. To keep the law of leprous disease in a house. DO
the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying: Something like a lesion has appeared to me in the house.
Leviticus 14:35
Bodily Discharges and Childbirth
Metamei Mishkav u-Moshav · 4 commandments
454. To keep the law of a woman’s monthly flow. DO
If a woman has a flow of blood, her flow shall be in her body; she shall remain in her menstrual discharge for seven days. Whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening,
Leviticus 15:19
455. To keep the law of uncleanness after childbirth. DO
Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: If a woman receives seed and gives birth to a male, she shall be unclean for seven days; as in the days of separation for her menstrual discharge, she shall be unclean.
Leviticus 12:2
456. To keep the law of a woman’s discharge beyond her time. DO
If a woman has a flow of blood for many days outside the time of her menstrual discharge, or if she also has a flow after her menstrual discharge, all the days of her unclean flow shall be like the days of her menstrual discharge; she shall be unclean.
Leviticus 15:25
457. To keep the law of a man’s discharge. DO
This is the law of his uncleanness: discharging seed from his body through the flow by which his body has become stopped up—this is his uncleanness within him. All the days of his body’s flow, in which his body has become stopped up through the flow, are his uncleanness.
Leviticus 15:3
Other Sources of Uncleanness
She’ar Avot HaTum’ot · 3 commandments
458. To keep the law of the carcass of a clean animal. DO
If an animal that you may eat dies, whoever touches its carcass shall be unclean until evening.
Leviticus 11:39
459. To keep the law of the eight swarming creatures. DO
These are unclean for you among the creeping things that creep on the earth: the weasel, the mouse, and the land crocodile;
Leviticus 11:29
460. To keep the law of an emission of seed. DO
If a man has an emission of semen, he shall bathe his whole body in water and be unclean until evening.
Leviticus 15:16
Uncleanness of Food and Drink
Tum’at Okhalin · 1 commandment
461. To keep the law of food and drink made unclean. DO
Any food that may be eaten, on which water comes, shall become unclean, and any drink that may be drunk in any vessel shall become unclean.
Leviticus 11:34
Immersion
Mikva’ot · 1 commandment
462. One who is unclean is to bathe his whole body in water. DO
If a man has an emission of semen, he shall bathe his whole body in water and be unclean until evening.
Leviticus 15:16
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Saints Translation · The Commandments · the traditional count of 613 after Maimonides; statements in our own words; verses quoted from the Saints Translation · working draft awaiting specialist review.