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Siman קל״ה — In which vessels there is concern of libation
בְּאֵיזוֹ כֵּלִים יֵשׁ לָחוּשׁ מִשּׁוּם נִיסּוּךְ
Sixteen seifim that never speak of the wine but of the vessel: what it took in, and what takes it back. Three variables — material, use, coating — and a ladder of six remedies running from a rinsing to the mere passage of time
Structured review, ruling tables, quick memorisation
Source: Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah קל״ה — 16 seifim
Nosei kelim: ש״ך (Shach) · ט״ז (Taz) · באר היטב · פתחי תשובה · בית יוסף · טור
Compilation: הרב יוסף חיים סממה · DAAT
For students who have worked through Levels 1 and 2
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📑 Plan of the synthesis
- The axiom: it is not a taste, it is a moisture
- The three reflex questions
- Master table A — material × use
- Master table B — the ladder of remedies
- The protocol of מילוי ועירוי, step by step
- What counts as מכניסו לקיום
- The glaze: the colour, then the cracks
- The two boundaries of the siman: heat and a full day
- The points of dispute, and where they are settled
- The six golden rules
- Mnemonic — the aid “כלים”
- The five classic pitfalls
- Recap of the sixteen seifim — one line each
1. The axiom: it is not a taste, it is a moisture
The starting point:
The preceding simanim asked who had touched the wine. Siman 135 is not concerned with the wine at all: it is concerned with what the vessel retained of it. And it gives that retention a precise nature — it is not a taste cooked into the wall, it is a moisture left inside, absorbed cold.
Everything that follows flows from this mechanically. Moisture is diluted by water (seif 12), burnt by fire (seifim 14 and 15), carried away by the peel together with the layer it sits in (seif 13), and made to vanish by time alone (seif 16). Four heterogeneous remedies reaching the same result: that is the signature of one single thing to be removed.
The gemara says it in five words about glazed vessels: chametz is used in them hot, wine cold. From this comes all the leniency of the siman — and from this too comes its boundary, which the Rama will set in seif 6.
2. The three reflex questions
1. What is the vessel made of? Glass and metal do not drink, or barely; stone and wood drink little; leather and earthenware drink a great deal; natron drinks endlessly. This is the first fork, and it already settles half the cases.
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2. What use does it serve? Carrying, or keeping? A vessel designed for wine to stand in it — three days, says the Rama — passes into the regime of emptying, whatever the material (except glass).
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3. What is on its wall? Pitch — the wine was driven in; wax — nothing entered; a mere pitch plug — nothing either; a glaze — look at its colour and its cracks.
These three questions are not asked in any order. The material gives the basic regime; the use aggravates it; the coating aggravates it further. And a fourth question comes before them all in practice: did the wine stay twenty-four hours? If so, we have left this siman.
3. Master table A — material × use
| Material | Passing use | Storage | Seif |
|---|
| Glass | שכשוך | שכשוך | א · ח |
| Metal | שכשוך | עירוי | א · ח |
| Stone | שכשוך | עירוי | א · ח |
| Wood | שכשוך | עירוי | א · ח |
| Leather | שכשוך; pitched: עירוי | עירוי + גדנפא | א · ח · י |
| Earthenware not yet sated | מילוי ועירוי | עירוי | ד · ז |
| Earthenware already sated | שכשוך | עירוי | ד · ז |
| Green glaze | אין להם טהרה עולמית | אין להם טהרה עולמית | ו |
| White or black glaze, smooth | ככלי מתכות | ככלי מתכות | ו |
| Cracked glaze | כשאר כלי חרס | כשאר כלי חרס | ו |
| כלי נתר | אין להם טהרה עולמית | אין להם טהרה עולמית | ה |
Only one row of the table has no solution — two, if one counts the green glaze, which is merely a particular case of natron. Everywhere else the right-hand column names a remedy, and table B says how to carry it out.
4. Master table B — the ladder of remedies
| Remedy | What it requires | Where it is given | What it does not redeem |
|---|
| שכשוך | Three rinsings with water, not wine | Seif 11 | Anything that entered the wall |
| קליפת הזפת | Scrape the coating, then rinse | Seif 1 | A storage vessel (seif 13) |
| מילוי ועירוי | 3 × 24 h, fresh water, up to the brim | Seif 12 | The כלי נתר, and earthenware after hot use |
| מי מלח חזקים | 24 h of strong brine | Rama, seif 12 | The same |
| כדי קליפה | Plane, gouge or axe on the wall | Seif 13 | Nothing: this is the very limit of absorption |
| הגעלה | Boiling water from a keli rishon | Seif 15 | A vessel still pitched (Taz) |
| כבשן | Heat from the outside until it glows | Seif 14 | A fire lit inside that does not pass through |
| יישון י״ב חדש | Wait, with no act at all | Seif 16 | The כלי נתר |
The remedies are not cumulative by accident: they are ordered by the depth they reach. Rinsing treats the surface, emptying the wall, peeling the thickness, fire the whole material. Aging is outside the series — it reaches nothing, it waits.
5. The protocol of מילוי ועירוי, step by step
1. Fill with water up to the brim — the water must reach everything the wine reached. For a wineskin, add a leather rim, or invert it in a full vessel (seif 10).
2. Leave a full twenty-four hours, from one moment to the same moment.
3. Pour out. The water is permitted according to the Mehaber; some forbid it (Rama), and the Shach confines that prohibition to water put in to make the vessel fit.
4. Begin again with fresh water, twice more.
5. The three days may be spread apart, even at the outset.
6. Water left for several days counts only as one day; water poured off before twenty-four hours does not count at all (and the Taz permits relying after the fact on the Rashba, who completes the missing hours the next day).
The point where one goes wrong: thinking that emptying is a prolonged washing. It is not. The Shach, in his נקודות הכסף as reported by the Beer Hetev, gives the exact reason — it is a pickling, and a pickling does not add up in fragments.
6. What counts as מכניסו לקיום
The criterion is purpose, not accident. A vessel designed for wine to stand in it — three days according to the Rama — is a storage vessel; a vessel that only carried is not one, even if wine happened to stay in it once.
Two opposite examples from the Mehaber, more instructive than a definition: the wineskin does not store — it leads the wine from press to barrel; the caravan trader’s flask does store — it is always full; the cup does not store — it is filled, drunk from, and emptied.
The Shach’s reservation: if we know the wine stayed there three days, emptying no longer suffices, for there was pickling. The Levush, reported by the Beer Hetev, is more lenient.
7. The glaze: the colour, then the cracks
Green? → it contains alum: it is a כלי נתר, and there is no remedy.
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White or black, and smooth? → the wall is closed: the law of metal.
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Cracked? → the crack opens toward the bare clay: the law of earthenware.
The Taz’s pitfall: narrow-necked vessels whose inside cannot be inspected. One then knows neither the colour nor the state of the surface — and the Taz warns against using them without looking.
8. The two boundaries of the siman: heat and a full day
Everything the siman permits rests on a single premise: the wine entered cold. Two facts remove that premise, and they must be checked before anything else.
First boundary — hot use
With heat, earthenware has no remedy left, and the other materials leave the regime of the sixteen seifim for the general law of prohibitions: hag‘ala.
Second boundary — a stay of twenty-four hours
The Shach returns to this point in s.k. 33 and leaves the question open; the Pitchei Teshuvah reports the Noda biYehudah, who rules that emptying suffices even then.
9. The points of dispute, and where they are settled
| Question | The opinions | Where it is written |
|---|
| Does mere contact affect a storage vessel? | Perishah and נקודות הכסף: no — Taz: yes, as a use | ט״ז ס״ק ט · באר היטב ס״ק י״ג |
| Is the water of the emptying permitted? | Mehaber: yes — Rama: some forbid — Shach: only water put in to kasher | שו״ע סעיף י״ב · ש״ך ס״ק כ״ט |
| Do interrupted hours add up? | Rashba: yes — Rosh, Tur, Bach and Shach: no — Taz: after the fact yes | ש״ך ס״ק ל״א · ט״ז ס״ק ט״ו |
| Does a sated vessel still need emptying? | Bach: no — Shach: yes as long as it is not sated | באר היטב ס״ק ט׳ · ש״ך ס״ק ט״ו |
| After twenty-four hours of wine, does emptying suffice? | Shach: צריך עיון — Noda biYehudah: yes | ש״ך ס״ק ל״ג · פתחי תשובה ס״ק ב |
| The brine: one third or two thirds salt? | Printed Rama: one third — Shach (נקודות הכסף): a misprint, two thirds | באר היטב ס״ק כ״ב |
On the first row the Beer Hetev reports both views without deciding. This is the point of the siman where one asks, and does not decide alone.
10. The six golden rules
- It is not a taste, it is a moisture. That is why cold water suffices, and why time suffices too.
- The material gives the regime, the use aggravates it, the coating aggravates it further. Three questions in that order, never in another.
- The coating is not dirty: it is a conductor. Pitch drives in; wax does not enter; a pitch plug does not count.
- Emptying is not a washing: it is a pickling. Twenty-four unbroken hours, three times, with fresh water.
- Absorption does not go beyond a peel. Hence the plane — and hence the fact that an untreated vessel is often permitted after the fact, there being no sixtieth to contend with.
- Two facts take one out of the siman: heat, and a stay of twenty-four hours. Check them first.
11. Mnemonic — the aid “כלים”
| Letter | Key word | What it recalls |
|---|
| כ | כדי קליפה | Absorption stops at a peel — hence the plane, and the leniency after the fact |
| ל | לחלוחית | What is in the wall is not a taste but a moisture — hence water and time |
| י | יישון י״ב חדש | The remedy that asks nothing: twelve lunar months |
| מ | מכניסו לקיום | The variable that changes everything: to keep, or only to carry |
And a second word, for the remedies in order: שכשוך · עירוי · קליפה · הגעלה · כבשן · יישון — from the surface into the depth, and then outside time.
12. The five classic pitfalls
1. Confusing the two peelings. Peeling the wall redeems everything (seif 13); peeling the pitch does not redeem a storage vessel (Rama, seif 13).
2. Thinking the siman covers the winepress implements. It does not — the Taz writes so in his very first word; they belong to siman 138 and are more severe.
3. Treating earthenware as a material with a fixed status. It has a history: new it drinks, sated it drinks no more.
4. Adding up hours of emptying. The days may be spread apart; the hours of a single day do not add up.
5. Reading the brine proportion as printed. The Shach shows that the fractions were reversed: it is two thirds salt.
13. Recap of the sixteen seifim — one line each
| Seif | What it says |
|---|
| א | Vessels of passing use: rinsing; pitched: scrape or empty; Rama: leniency after the fact and where the loss is great |
| ב | A hole stopped with pitch does not make a pitched vessel — hence the funnel |
| ג | Wax is not pitch: it does not absorb |
| ד | Earthenware: as long as it is not sated, emptying; sated from the second time |
| ה | כלי נתר: no remedy, ever, in any case |
| ו | Glaze: green = natron; white or black and smooth = metal; cracked = earthenware. Rama: all this only when cold |
| ז | Storage vessel: emptying, even for a non-Jew’s passing use, even pitched |
| ח | Which materials fall under storage: clay / + wood and leather / + stone and metal — and so one practises; glass never |
| ט | What counts as storage: the wineskin no, the trader’s flask yes, the cup no. Rama: three days |
| י | The leather vessel: an added rim, or inverting it in a full vessel |
| י״א | The rinsing: three times, with water and not with wine |
| י״ב | The emptying: to the brim, 24 h, three times; spread days allowed; water poured off too early lost. Rama: strong brine in 24 h |
| י״ג | Absorption does not exceed a peel: plane and gouge suffice. Rama: peeling the pitch is not enough for storage |
| י״ד | The kiln: heat from the outside until it glows; from the inside only if the heat passes through |
| ט״ו | Hag‘ala in a keli rishon, even pitched and even for storage. Rama: pouring and rolling, and the glowing stones |
| ט״ז | Twelve months of waiting permit everything — and water poured in meanwhile changes nothing |
Final flash card: material → use → coating → remedy. And before the four: was it hot? did the wine stay a day? If yes to either, this siman no longer answers.
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DAAT · הרב יוסף חיים סממה
תלמיד חכם · מעביר שיעורים בהלכה ובחסידות
סימן קל״ה · Level 3 — Synthesis / Review · באיזו כלים יש לחוש משום ניסוך
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