Tohorot (Purities)

The sixth and final order of the Mishnah, Tohorot (Purities), deals with ritually pure and impure objects and persons. Many of these laws fell into desuetude after the destruction of the Temple because ritual purity is required only for those entering the sacred precincts and because the inability to perform certain purificatory rites meant that ritual impurity (arising from normal and abnormal genital fluxes, carcasses and corpses, and scale disease as set forth in Leviticus 11–14) was irreversible and widespread. Nevertheless, the laws of menstrual impurity continued to be observed and studied because the prohibition of sexual intercourse with a menstruant remained in effect after the destruction. (See also “Menstrual Impurity.”) The passages excerpted here are from tractates Niddah and Makhshirin.