Purification at Sunset

m. Parah 3:7

70–220

The elders of Israel used to go first by foot to the Mount of Olives, where there was a place of immersion. The priest that was to burn the cow was [deliberately] made unclean on account of the Sadducees so that they should not be able to say, “It can be done only by those on whom the sun has set.”

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

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This mishnah refers to a disagreement regarding the process through which one becomes ritually pure. The “elders of Israel”—possibly representing the Pharisees—believed that an impure priest could ritually immerse and then immediately be able to perform priestly tasks that required him to be pure, including the ritual of the red heifer (Numbers 19:1–10). The Sadducees, in contrast, believed that immersion did not effect ritual purity until the sun had set on that day. This mishnah describes a practice aimed squarely at rejecting the Sadducee waiting period.

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