Zavim is the ninth tractate in the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

and

Tosefta The Tosefta ( "supplement, addition") is a compilation of Jewish Oral Law from the late second century, the period of the Mishnah and the Jewish sages known as the '' Tannaim''. Background Jewish teachings of the Tannaitic period were cha ...

of the sixth Talmudic order Tohorot. It deals with the laws of the

zav In Jewish ritual law, a ''zav'' (; lit. "flowing") is a man who has had abnormal seminal discharge from the male sexual organ, and thus entered a state of ritual impurity. A woman who has had similar abnormal discharge from her genitals is kno ...

and

zavah In Jewish ritual law, a ''zavah'' (Hebrew זבה, lit. "one who e bodyflows") is a woman who has had vaginal blood discharges not during the usually anticipated menstrual cycle, and thus entered a state of tumah and taharah, ritual impurity. Th ...

, based on .

The treatise consists of five chapters, divided respectively into 6, 4, 3, 7, and 12 paragraphs, or mishnayot. It gives in detail all particulars of uncleanness and purification, specifies the degrees of the discharges which render an individual subject to the laws stated above, and mentions what persons are subject to those laws and in what way they cause vessels or other people to become unclean. The contents of the respective chapters may be summarized as follows: * Chapter 1: In order to be liable for the full length of impurity, a zav must have his discharge three times, either all on one day or on two or three consecutive days; consideration of the length of the intervals between the discharges. * Chapter 2: All are subject to the laws of Zavim, including proselytes, slaves, minors, deaf-mutes, and eunuchs; description of the different methods by which the zav is examined, and an explanation of the manner in which he makes people and things unclean by his touch. * Chapters 3 and 4: Specification of the different ways in which a man or a woman suffering from a discharge makes unclean another person. For instance, if a zav and a clean person sit together in a small boat or ride together on a beast, even though their garments do not come in contact the clean person becomes unclean by the pressure; but, according to R. Judah, if both of them sit on a tottering bench, the clean person does not become unclean. * Chapter 5: The ways in which a person becomes unclean by touching a zav, and also in which things become unclean through the touch of the zav and by touching other unclean things.

References

{{Mishnah Jewish ritual purity law

Contents

References