"Channeling" the Tannaim

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Crossing the Line: By avoiding authoritative rulings in favor of nuanced debate with the ideas of the past, the Oral Law refuses to simplify.

It’s not often that the subject of the weekly Daf Yomi reading makes headlines in the blogosphere. But last week, the web—especially its Jewish corners—was buzzing over a bizarre photograph of an Orthodox Jewish man on an airplane, completely wrapped in a plastic bag. Many commenters on the photo assumed this had something to do with sexual purity or avoiding women, but in fact, as knowledgeable readers pointed out, it actually involved another taboo entirely.

The man must have been a Kohen, a member of the priestly class, and Kohanim are prohibited from coming into contact with corpses. Passing over a cemetery—even, in this case, at 30,000 feet—qualifies as such a contact. By wrapping himself in plastic, the man in question must have been guarding himself against that kind of impurity or tumah. Since most Orthodox Jews, even Kohanim, do not regularly fly in plastic, it’s clear that the man in the photo was adopting a minority position about what’s required to avoid contamination. (I’d be glad to hear from knowledgeable commenters about the law on this issue.)

As it turned out, just this question—how a Kohen can travel through a cemetery—was addressed in the Talmud last week, in Eruvin 30b. ...

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here, here, and links.