.ב Deliberate טומאה

מטמאין היו הכהן השורף את הפרה ומטבילין אותו להוציא מלבן של צדוקין שהיו אומרים במעורבי השמש היתה נעשית

תוס' ד"ה להוציא מלבן של צדוקין. לאו בטומאה דאורייתא מטמו ליה דלא הוי מזלזלי בה כולי האי

One question that arises from this explanation of תוספות is that in the end, how are we any better than the צדוקים if we too are careful not to make him טמא מדאורייתא?

However, what bothered me was that our practice doesn’t really make the intended point to the צדקים. We want to show them “Ha. You say the one who burns the cow can’t be a טבול יום but we’ll show you that he can be.” But if they have a complete disregard for any תורה שבעל פה, this טומאה דרבנן is absolutely meaningless to them and as far as they are concerned, he is completely טהור.

I went searching in the מתיבתא edition where I found a lot of attention devoted to the first question and finally, my question is addressed by מעיל שמואל. He writes the להוציא מלבן של צדוקין does not mean that we are addressing them directly. Rather, what is really meant is that we need to make the point to ourselves, to the masses, that they are incorrect. Therefore, the masses who recognize the reality of טומאה דרבנן will see that in fact a טבול יום may burn the cow and will know the צדוקים are wrong. We don’t concern ourselves with what the צדוקים will think.

The timing of this דף in תשפ"א is nearly perfect. The משנה יומית cycle is just about to finish נגעים and begin פרה next week.