Parah Adumah - Chapter 10

When a person draws water to be sanctified, he does not have to be the person who sanctified and sprinkles the water on an impure person. Instead, another person may sanctify it and another may sprinkle it. Similarly, a person may draw water with one container and pour it from container to container. And he may sanctify it in a different container, pour the sanctified water from one container to another, and sprinkle it from a different container.

A person may draw water for the ashes of the red heifer and keep it in his possession without sanctifying it for as long as he desires. There is no difficulty in this. He may transport it from place to place and from city to city and then place ashes upon it and sanctify it whenever he desires.

Similarly, a person may keep sanctified water in his possession for many days or years and sprinkle from it on any day that he needs to until it is used up. He may transport it from place to place and from city to city. Similarly, a person may keep the ashes of the red heifer in his possession and transport it from place to place and from city to city. Once a container in which the ashes of the red heifer were held was transported in a ship on the Jordan River and an olive-sized portion of a corpse was discovered on the bottom of the ship, making the water impure. At that time, the High Court decreed that the water for the ashes of the red heifer and the ashes themselves should not be transported on a river, nor on a ship. Similarly, one should not float them on water, nor should a person stand on one side of a river and throw them to the other. A person may, however, pass through water until it reaches his neck while holding the ashes of the red heifer or sanctified water.

Similarly, a person and empty containers that were purified for the ashes of the red heifer and water that was drawn for the sake of the ashes of the red heifer that was not sanctified may be transported on a river and on a ship.

Sanctified water may be transported on the Mediterranean Sea and it may be floated on such water. The decree encompassed only sanctified water and ashes on a river.

When a person is transporting water to be sanctified - and, needless to say, water that has been sanctified - he should not sling the container over his back, but instead, should carry it in front of him, as implied by Numbers 19:9: "as safekeeping, as water for sprinkling." One can infer when it is watched, it may be used as water for sprinkling. If not, it is disqualified. If one filled two jugs, he should carry one in front of him and one behind him, because it is impossible to do otherwise.

When water for the ashes of the red heifer was weighed on a scale, it is disqualified if one diverted his attention from it. If not, it is acceptable. If, however, one weighed other entities with water for the ashes of the red heifer, it is disqualified. The rationale is that since one used it as a weight, it is not considered as having been "watched."

All of the pure individuals who draw water, sanctify it, and sprinkle it and, similarly, all of the utensils used for drawing water, sanctifying it, and sprinkling it are acceptable if they were immersed on that day even though night has not fallen upon them. For all of the activities involving the red heifer, drawing the water, and sprinkling it are acceptable when performed by individuals who had immersed that day, as we explained.

Because of the Sadducees, all of the utensils that can be purified are made impure, immersed, and then used for the water for the ashes of the red heifer.

Everyone is acceptable to sprinkle the water with the ashes of the red heifer with the exception of a woman, a tumtum, an androgynus, a deafmute, an intellectually and/or emotionally compromised person, and a minor who is not intellectually mature. [Similarly,] an uncircumcised person is acceptable, for an uncircumcised person is not impure.

When an intellectually mature minor sprinkles such water and a woman helps him, she holds the water in her hand, his sprinkling is acceptable provided she does not hold his hand while he is sprinkling. If she held his hand while he is sprinkling, the sprinkling is unacceptable.

The person sprinkling the water must have the intent to sprinkle on the impure person to purify him. If he sprinkled without such an intent, the sprinkling is invalid. The person upon whom the water is sprinkled, by contrast, does not need to have any intent. Instead, water may be sprinkled on a person with his knowledge or without his knowledge.

When a person has the intent to sprinkle such water in front of himself and he sprinkles behind himself, or he had the intent of sprinkling water behind himself and he sprinkled in front of himself, his sprinkling is invalid. If he had the intent to sprinkle such water in front of himself and he sprinkled in front, but to the sides, his sprinkling is acceptable.

The person sprinkling the water need not dip the hyssop in the water for every sprinkling. Instead, he may dip the hyssop and sprinkle once and again until the water was completed. He may sprinkle on many people or many utensils - even 100 - at a time. Anyone who was touched by even the slightest amount of the water is pure, provided the one sprinkling had the intent of sprinkling on him.

If one dipped the hyssop with the intent of sprinkling on an entity that is susceptible to ritual impurity or on a person and, instead, sprinkled the water on an entity that was not susceptible to ritually impurity or on an animal, he need not dip the hyssop again if water remained on it. Instead, he may sprinkle the remainder on an impure person or utensil. The rationale is that, at the outset, he dipped it in the water in an acceptable manner. If, by contrast, he dipped the hyssop in the water in order to sprinkle it on an entity that is not susceptible to ritual impurity or on an animal, and sprinkled it on an impure man or utensil, the sprinkling is invalid until he dips the hyssop in the water a second time, while having the intent to sprinkle on a person or on an entity that is susceptible to ritual impurity.

If he dipped the hyssop in the water with the intent of sprinkling on an entity that is not susceptible to ritual impurity, the water that drips from the hyssop are still acceptable. Therefore if it drips into a container and one dips the hyssop in it with the intent of sprinkling it on an entity that is susceptible to ritual impurity, the sprinkling is acceptable.

Although the volume of the water of the ashes of the red heifer has been reduced, one may dip even the tips of the hyssop stalks and sprinkle, provided one does not use it like a sponge. When a flask has a thin opening, he may dip and withdraw the hyssop in the ordinary manner and then sprinkle with it. He need not be careful that it does not touch the sides of the container a second time.