<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">- Nazir 51a<br><br>When one comes into contact with a human corpse he becomes ritually<br>impure, even if the contact is with only a portion of the corpse. The<br>exceptions to this rule are the teeth, hair and fingernails and<br>toenails that have become detached from the corpse.<br><br>The rule regarding teeth helps explain what Rabbi Yochanan did when he<br>went to comfort mourners. In order to express his empathy with their<br>grief he pulled out of his pocket a small object that he said was a<br>remnant of the tenth son he had buried in his lifetime.<br><br>Rashi (Berachot 5b) understood this object to be a bone, but of so tiny<br>a size that it did not cause one to become ritually impure. The Sefer<br>Aruch, however, defines the object as a tooth which, once detached from<br>the corpse, no longer causes such impurity.<div><br></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Does anyone know WHY the detached tooth doesn't cause impurity?</span></font></div><div><br></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">There's an old saying: "If you're not true to your teeth, they'll be false to you." But it doesn't say "They'll be tamei." </span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Kol tuv.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">ri</span></font></div></body></html>