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Interest,
Loans, Business, Heter Iska
by
Rabbi Michael Unger
"There was a synagogue of Jews from
Rome that was open to a room with a corpse
and the Cohanim could not enter the synagogue to
pray. They went and told Rava. He told them to
lift up the ark and put it between the two rooms because the ark is a
wooden utensil that is made to stay in one place and therefore does not
become TAMAY (ritually impure) and can be a partition that the TUMAH will
not pass through. The other Rabbis told Rava that
sometimes the ark is carried around with the Torah Scroll on it. Rava then replied to the Cohanim
that he has no solution (and must pray somewhere else)."
There are several categories of things
which are TAMAY. None of them have the capability of causing the TUMAH to
pass to something else unless it is touched or carried - except one*. A
corpse or a piece of a corpse is TAMAY and can transfer its TUMAH
throughout a house and into the next house as long as they are under one
roof. If they are under one roof but in separate rooms, if there is a
window between them as big as a hand-breadth, so the two rooms are filled with
TUMAH and a Jew who is a COHEN is forbidden to enter either room. One way
around the problem is to plug up the window. Then the Cohen can enter the
room without the corpse. However not every plug will work. For instance,
plugging it with a handkerchief or pieces of bread will not work.
Another way around it is to cover the
window with a utensil - but the utensil must be incapable of becoming
TAMAY. There are rules to these things. One rule is that anything which is
sometimes empty and sometimes full that can be moved only when empty - is
not able to be TAMAY. The example might be a portable bath-tub that when
filled is too heavy to move.
Rava thought the ark of the synagogue was
never moved when the Torah Scroll was on it. Therefore he concluded that the
ark could not become TAMAY and could be placed next to the window between
the rooms and block the hole. The other Rabbis
informed him that he was incorrect in his assumption since the ark was
sometimes moved when "full". Rava
switched his opinion and told the Cohanim that he
had no solution to their problem.
The truth is that if we had more
information about the size and placement of the window between the rooms
and if we had materials on hand to plug it up, we could succeed in fixing
up the place for the Cohanim to pray. However,
the story related by the gemorrah should be
understood as I explained above.
* I should mention that there are cases
of Zaraas that transfer TUMAH under one roof. I
have reasons for not discussing that point now.
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