For the source text click/tap here: Chullin 106
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While the Gemara on yesterday’s daf discusses ritual hand washing during and after the meal, on today’s daf the Gemara turns to the question of ritual hand washing that must be done before the meal begins.
In the Gemara, Ḥizkiyya is quoted as prohibiting the use of hot water for ritual hand washing before meals, as well as the use of water from the hot springs in Tiberias – although he can dip them in the water as in a mikveh.
Rabbi Yoḥanan disagrees with both of these statements.
With regard to hot water, Rabbi Yoḥanan testifies that he asked Rabbi’s son, Rabban Gamliel, who said that all of the Sages of the Galilee use it for ritual hand washing. Regarding the hot springs of Tiberias, Rabbi Yoḥanan rules that it can be used as a mikveh for the entire body, but not to wash one’s face, hands and feet.
According to Torah law, ritual impurity cannot take effect upon only one of a person’s limbs. Nevertheless, the Sages determined that there are circumstances in which a person’s hands become impure, and that, in order to touch sacred food or terumah, one must purify them through washing or immersion.
Because it is possible, by rabbinic law, for the hands alone to become impure, the Sages established that hands are always to be regarded as impure.