Ki Sisa
ועשית כיור נחשת וכנו נחשת לרחצה... ורחצו אהרן ובניו ממנו את ידיהם ואת רגליהם בבאם אל אהל מועד ירחצו מים (שמות ל, יח-כ)
You shall make a copper laver and its copper base for washing… Aharon and his sons shall wash from it their hands and their feet. Upon their entry into the Tent of Meeting they shall wash with water.
The Gemara in Zevachim (21b-22a) discusses the nature of the keilim, utensils, used for this hand and foot washing. It begins by citing a beraisa which teaches that in order to be fit for this mitzvah, the kior must hold a volume of water sufficient for the washings of four people, as implied by a verse later in Shemos.
This is challenged by citing another beraisa which states that any kli, utensil, may be used, even if it does not contain so much as a revi’is of water – a paltry measure, so long as it is a kli shareis, a utensil sanctified for service in the Beis HaMikdash. The answer, responds the Gemara, is that, indeed, the kli must be able to hold four measures. The exception is if one bores a hole in the wall of the kior and siphons water from it – the kli used for the siphoning need not contain a minimal amount, and it is that that the second beraisa refers to.
Having mentioned that the washing may be done from any kli, the Gemara challenges this from the word ממנו, from it, which indicates that only the designated kior may be utilized. To this comes the response that the superfluous word ירחצו, they shall wash, is a ribui, an inclusive clause which expands the usage to all keilim. If so, counters the Gemara, even klei chol, mundane utensils, ought to be derived; why does the beraisa limit it to klei shareis? The answer is because we derive their exclusion from a kal ve-chomer from the kan, the base, of the kior. If the kan, despite its having been sanctified together with the kior, is unfit to wash from, all the more so klei chol which do not have this distinction.
The Gemara digresses to cite yet another beraisa which contains the source of the kan’s exclusion from this mitzvah. Moshe was commanded to construct a kior of copper and a kan of copper. Now, if the juxtaposition of these two items was intended to instruct a hekeish, the sharing of their particularities, why was it necessary for the Torah to single out the material of the kan as copper? It ought to be derived from that which the kior is made of copper. Perforce, the items must not be comparable (other than in their material which is explicitly stated) and there are, therefore, no grounds to assume that the washing can be done from the kan.
The Gemara returns to our discussion of the keilim, and challenges the kal ve-chomer made from the kan. The kan is more removed from being used for washing as it is not designed to hold water; klei chol, on the other hand, which are designed as such are more relevant to this task. How then can one derive the disqualification of the latter from the former?
The Gemara concedes that the kal ve-chomer is faulty. We therefore return to the word ממנו, taking it as an exclusionary clause which disqualifies klei chol. We thus have an inclusionary clause (ירחצו) and an exclusionary one (ממנו). What is the logic in including klei shareis and excluding klei chol – perhaps the opposite approach should be taken? Simple, concludes, the Gemara: sacred ones are more similar to the kior in their common anointment; thus, they deserve to be included.
Before continuing to analyze this passage, it bears mentioning a comment of Tosafos. Due to a technicality, they take issue with the manner in which we presented the Gemara’s question in the third paragraph above, which follows Rashi’s interpretation. Instead, they explain the Gemara as addressing the answer given a moment before, that if one siphons water off of the kior a minimum amount of water is unnecessary. To this comes the challenge that the word ממנו implies that under all circumstances, even when the water is removed in such a fashion, must the requisite volume be available.
There are two difficulties to raise about this sugya. First, why does the beraisa from which the initial contradiction was raised need to mention that the kli must be a kli shareis? Being that the salient point is the lack of a minimum measure, the category of kli is irrelevant to the question. Second, according to Rashi’s explanation of the question in the third paragraph above, why does the Gemara feel that this is the appropriate place to challenge the beraisa’s allowance of other keilim other than the kior, being that this is not the focus of our sugya?
In order to resolve these questions, let us first raise another: why indeed is it necessary for us to be told that the kan is to be made of copper when it could be derived from a hekeish, a comparison to the juxtaposed copper kior? Perhaps the answer is (as implied in the beraisa back in paragraph four) that if the word נחשת is absent from the kan and we have a viable hekeish, we would have no impediment to deriving that the kan could be used for washing as well. But this is not so, for we could derive the disqualification of the unreceptive kan from a kal ve-chomer from klei chol, which, despite their receptivity, are excluded, as per ממנו. And if one will respond that such a kal ve-chomer is faulty for the kan has an edge over the klei chol in its anointedness, it could be countered that such a quality is irrelevant, as evidenced by the need to include anointed klei shareis through the superfluous ירחצו.
The answer is that, in truth, anointment is a legitimate reason to qualify for the washing. The inclusion of klei shareis from ירחצו is not to for their very usage, but that they, unlike the kior itself, do not need the four-man volume of water. For absent such an inclusion, we would have understood the word ממנו as indicating – as Tosafos understands – that all utensils require that measure. As such, we can now understand why נחשת is necessary by the kan, to disrupt the hekeish from which we would have justifiably derived that it is fit for washing – for we cannot derail such a derivation through a comparison to mundane keilim, as the kan has the advantage of anointment.
With this understanding of the sugya, we can resolve another basic question that it prompts. What sense is there in demanding that the kior, the kli designated for the mitzvah of washing for the Avodah, contain a certain amount of water, while run-of-the-mill klei shareis can be used regardless?
The answer may be that the original question of the sugya – the contradiction between the two beraisos as to whether a minimal volume is required – was posed with full knowledge of all that we have explained above. That is, the questioner was aware that the only way to resolve the interplay between ממנו, ירחצו, and כנו נחשת is through the above calculation, which necessitates the conclusion that klei shareis need not the measure demanded by the kior. His problem, therefore, is not a contradiction between the two sources, rather the one that we posed a moment ago: why is there this difference the kior and klei shareis?
Now, one could seemingly defuse the entire contradiction between the two beraisos with the following observation: Rashi, * in his comment to the original statement about the required measure, writes, שאין מחזיק מים כשיעור ארבע קידושין, that [the kior] does not hold water of the amount necessary for four acts of ritual washings. The implication is that the kior is not required to actually contain this amount of water, only that it be capable of doing so. As such, we could posit that the first beraisa is referring to the capacity of the source of water, while the second is referring to the amount that it actually contains.
To preclude such a resolution, the beraisa concludes with the suspicious words that we had highlighted at the outset, “so long as it is a kli shareis.” Knowing as we do – and, as we contended, as the questioner knows – that the word ירחצו by necessity includes a detail for klei shareis unlike the kior, namely, that it need not even have the capacity for the measure, the above stipulation renders impossible the suggestion that the second beraisa is only discussing the actual amount of water present.
Returning to the Gemara’s question, it answers (as per our approach) that the beraisa’s allowance for the non-capacity for the measure is limited to when siphoning off from the kior, as it can assume the same rules that govern the kior itself. Other klei shareis, however, would require the actual presence of the measure of water. Thus, the counterintuitivity raised in the question is incorrect: in fact, it is the kior which has a more lenient standard.
To this the Gemara challenges from the word ממנו. It implies that the klei shareis have the same standards as the kior, namely, that only capacity is necessary not actual content. How then can we peg the second beraisa as referring to only siphoning or where there are actually four measures of water? (With this new explanation of the question we resolve the difficulty that we had with Rashi’s reading.)
The answer is that ממנו is not referring to klei shareis, rather klei chol. How so? Being that we expound ירחצו to include klei shareis, the default assumption must have been to not equate them to the kior. As such, even after including them, the exclusionary assumption should limit their usage to those that have the capacity and the content of four washings. The term ממנו is therefore no longer necessary for klei shareis, and it can be appropriated for klei chol. As such, we can maintain the reasonable disparity between the kior and klei shareis.
But, continues the Gemara, if that is the case that klei chol are limited in their usage for washing, it nonetheless emerges that they can be used for washing, unlike as stated in the beraisa! Indeed, answers the Gemara, that would be the case if not for the kal ve-chomer from the kan.
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1 19b, ד’ה שאין בו.