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 mornings, and sessions of court on Mondays and Thursdays, are fairly intelligible to us. The fourth taḳḳanah concerning the requirement that a must receive or undergo ṭebilah, seems thus to have been understood by the compilers of the Talmud, and so the Gemara asks in reference thereto: 'Is this not known from the Torah—that one who has experienced pollution should undergo ṭebilah?' But such is not the real purport of the taḳḳanah; there is involved in it a reform in the laws of purification. As we have noted above, originally it was incumbent on the to leave the camp, to undergo ṭebilah, and thereafter to wait until evening (after sunset he became clean). For historical evidence that such was at one time the Jewish law, note what King Saul said when David failed to appear at his father-in-law's table: ; the expressions he uses are quite consonant with the obligation of a man suddenly confronted with pollution to leave the city, and the observance of such a law might not be felt as a hardship or obstacle in such a small kingdom.

However, what was not felt to impede progress in the days of Saul was felt by the Pharisees to be a great hindrance in their desire to bring about agreement between religion and a larger life. By their method of exegesis they explained (camp) as  (camp wherein the Shechinah resided); therefore the law of temporary banishment could apply only to the Sanctuary proper, and to the Azarah, known also as  'camp of the Levite group', and not to the whole city.