The Ruling on Wiping Over Layered Leather Socks

Question:
If you wear socks while in a state of ritual purity, then you break that purity and wear another pair of socks over them, do you wipe over the lower pair or the upper pair?

Answer:
It is correct, as I told you, that the criterion is the beginning of the wiping. If you wear the upper pair before wiping over the lower pair, the ruling applies to the upper pair. If, by mistake, you wear the upper pair before wiping, after you have wiped over the lower pair, the ruling applies to the lower pair. This is the correct rule. The school of thought holds that the criterion is the state of impurity, but even within that school, they said that if one wears a sock over a sock after the state of impurity, the ruling applies to the upper one. So the important point is that the criterion is the wiping, the beginning of the wiping; whatever you begin the wiping with, the ruling is attached to it, whether it is the upper or the lower.