daf bit: Nazir 47

[cellio]

Today the talmud talks about priorities and the honor due to the dead. The mishna says: a high priest and a nazir may not defile themselves (become ritually impure, tamei) through contact with their dead relatives, but they may do so to attend to a dead person who has no one to bury him. If they were walking together and encountered such a deceased person, which one of them should act? R' Eliezer says the high priest should, but the sages say the nazir should. R' Eliezer argues that because the high priest does not bring an offering if he becomes defiled but the nazir does, the high priest should do it. The sages argue that the nazir's restrictions are temporary while the high priest's are permanent, so the nazir should do it (his degree of holiness is lower because it is temporary). However, the g'mara clarifies, all this applies only if they are both present; if either is alone and comes across a corpse with no one to tend to it, the one who found the body must defile himself. (47a mishna, 47b g'mara)