The Torah says to do hazaah days 3 and 7 to become tahor. I assume this means three days after becoming tameh or finding out that one became tameh. But we don't do hazaah if day 7 is Shabbos. So does doing hazaah on day 8 work to become tahor? And if so, the person obviously knows going in that day 7 will be Shabbos, so why not make the first hazaah on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.
Zev Sack, United States
1) The Rambam writes (Hilchot Parah Adumah 11:2) that if someone became tamei, but a few days went by before he did hazaah, he must count 3 days in front of us before he may perform hazaah. However, this only applies to someone who we suspect might say that he became tamei 3 days ago; whilst in reality he only became tamei today; but a person who we can rely on to say that today is the 3rd today after he became tamei, may do hazaah immediately.
2) Rashi Kidushin 62a DH H"G writes that the crucial thing is that there should not be too many, or too few, days between the 2 sprinklings. In other words there must be 3 clear days between the 2 hazaot. Therefore, according to Rashi, if he knows that Day 7 will be Shabbos, he should indeed do the 1st hazaah on Wednesday.
KOL TUV
Dovid Bloom
Follow-up reply:
1) The Rambam that I cited above has a different approach to that of Rashi concerning the space of time that can elapse between the 2 sprinklings. The Rambam writes that if someone had a hazaah on the 3rd day but did not have hazaah on the 7th day and then waited a few days, he may immerse in the Mikveh whenever he likes after the 7th day....and then he does hazaah. We see that according to the Rambam the sprinkling is valid if there is a gap of more than 3 days between the 2 sprinklings, unlike the opinion of Rashi that there must not be a gap of more than 3 clear days or less than 3 clear days.
It seems that according to the Rambam, even if he knows that Day 7 will be on Shabbos, he can still do the 1st hazaah on Tuesday, since there is no problem involved in doing the 2nd hazaah on Day 8, which is Sunday.
2) I found, bs'd, that this is also the opinion of the Tosfos Yeshanim on Yoma 8a in the name of RIVA (2 lines from the bottom of the page in the standard older editions of the Gemara); that even if he made a big gap between the sprinkling of the "7th" and that of the 3rd, and did the second sprinkling on the 9th day, this is also acceptable.
According to this, if he can do the hazaah on the 9th day, he can certainly do it on the 8th day, so if Day 7 is on Shabbos, there is no reason not to do the first hazaah on Day 3, as stated in the Torah.
Behatzlachah Rabah
Dovid Bloom