Study Chagigah folio 20B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
But isn’t it taught in a baraita: With regard to one whose donkey drivers and workers, who were amei ha’aretz, were bearing pure food, without touching the pure food itself but only the earthenware vessels containing them, even if he distanced himself from them as they walked by more than a mil, hi
The Talmud asks: What is different in the first clause of the baraita, where the food remains pure, and what is different in the latter clause, where the food is impure? R' Yitzḥak Nappaḥa said: The first clause is referring to one who purifies his donkey drivers and workers for this purpose, meani
The Talmud questions this: If so, in the latter clause they should also be pure. The Talmud responds: An am ha’aretz is not particular about the contact of his colleague, and therefore there is concern that they might have encountered another am ha’aretz on the way, who touched the produce and the
The Talmud counters: If so, in the first clause of the baraita there should also be concern that they might have met an am ha’aretz, and despite the employer’s warning to his workers to stay ritually pure, they are not careful with regard to the impurity of another am ha’aretz. The Talmud answers:
The Talmud raises a difficulty: If so, in the latter clause, too, since he can arrive from around a corner at any given moment, they should certainly be cautious. The Talmud responds: Since he said to them: Go and I will follow behind you, they rely on this, and they do not consider themselves to