[Avodah] How could Aharon and Miriam have been in the mishkan or chatzer when tamei?

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jun 03, 2018 at 11:54:52AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote:
: Based on this I was bothered by a similar question in last weeks parsha.At
: the end of Behaloscha we have the famous story of Miriam and Aharon talking
: against Moshe and then Hashem calls the 3 of them to go outside. Rashi
: comments that Aharon and Miriam were both temeim b'derech eretz (e.g. tumas
: keri) and tehrefore were screaming for water. If so we can ask the same
: question, how could they be in the chatzer of the mishkan while tamei? A
: Baal keri is prohibited from going there.

Or to put it less obliquely... The pasuq there (Bamidbar 12:4) refers to
their location as Ohel Mo'ed. But the idiom is not necessarily referring
to the Mishkan. Moshe went to the Ohel Mo'ed to get nevu'ah *outside*
the camp. (Shemos 33) It had a pillar of cloud at the door, not at a
mizbeiach. In Bamidbar 11:16 we learn that the 70 zeqeinim, after getting
ruach haqodesh at the Ohel Mo'eid, returned to the camp.

The Sifrei Zutra where (Bamidbar 11) writes:
    And he set them round about the tent the tent for speaking which
    was outside the camp. They made two tents, a tent for service and
    a tent for speaking. The outer tent had the same dimensions as the
    inner one, and the Levites served in both with the wagons.

Two ohel mo'eds, the mishkan, and the nevu'ah center.

The Ohel Mo'eid in this story also has a cloud at the door. So, I
would think it was Moshe's place of nevu'ah, not the Mishkan.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and
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