TalmuDigest - Nazir 51 - 57

THE CONSOLING TOOTH ___________________ - Nazir 51a

When one comes into contact with a human corpse he becomes ritually impure, even if the contact is with only a portion of the corpse. The exceptions to this rule are the teeth, hair and fingernails and toenails that have become detached from the corpse.

The rule regarding teeth helps explain what Rabbi Yochanan did when he went to comfort mourners. In order to express his empathy with their grief he pulled out of his pocket a small object that he said was a remnant of the tenth son he had buried in his lifetime.

Rashi (Berachot 5b) understood this object to be a bone, but of so tiny a size that it did not cause one to become ritually impure. The Sefer Aruch, however, defines the object as a tooth which, once detached from the corpse, no longer causes such impurity.

WHAT THE SAGES SAY __________________

"His teeth became black from fasting."

- The gemara's description of the long fasting of Rabbi Shimon in penitence for speaking irreverently about his departed master Rabbi Akiva

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