השידה. נמדדת מבפנים – as it is taught in the Mishnah above (Tractate Kelim, Chapter 15, Mishnah 1), all wooden utensils that hold forty Seah in something moist, which are iron tools for crowding olives into the vat when dry, is ritually pure, that is a cubit by a cubit by a height of three cubits. And here there is a matter of dispute – how does one measure it? According to the School of Shammai, they measure the hollow that is within, and not the thickness of the walls and rims. But according to the School of Hillel, they measure except from the thickness of the legs and the vertical rim/edge (by which a flat vessel is made into a vessel-like receptacle) which he pressed/molded on the rim. And according to Rabi Yossi, hey measure the thickness of the legs of the chest and the vertical rim. But according to Rabbi Shimon, if its legs are not a handbreadth high, they measure even the airspace that is between each leg. But the Halakha is according to the School of Hillel in accordance with the first Tanna/teacher.

המוכני (the machine for lifting weights, wheel-work) – it is a wheel, like a sort of wheels of a wagon, and since the chest is carried upon it, it is called a מוכני/wheel-work. It is the language of (Exodus 30:28): “and the laver and its stand.”

בזמן שהיא נשמטת(at the time when it may slipped off) – that a person may remove it from the wheel.

אינה חבור לה (and it is not connected to it) – and it is considered a vessel to itself. But if is a chest with a receptacle, it is a defilement that does not hold forty Seah, and the chest is defiled, but the wheel-work is not defiled, but if it is not a receptacle, it is defilement, and the defilement came in contact with the wheel-work, the wheel-work is ritually impure, because it is not considered from the chest, and it is carried full and empty and there is a receptacle.

ואינה נמדדת עמה – in the accounting of a cubit by a cubit at the height of three cubits, for it is considered like the thickness of the legs, and even according to Rabbi Yossi, it is not measured with it.

ואינה מצלת עמה באוהל המת (and does not offer protection with it in the tent of the corpse) – for if the chest is in the cemetery, it protects over the vessels that are within it, since it supports/strengthens forty Seah. But if vessels protrude from it corresponding [to the height] of the wheel-work from above, the wheel-work does not protect it, for a wheel-work is susceptible to receive defilement and does not interpose before the defilement.

בזמן שבתוכה מעות – it is a vessel of is own accord, and is the base for a prohibited thing, but it is permitted if it is not detached, for after that they were not within the chest which is the essence of the vessel.

קמרון (arched lid) – like a kind of arched compartment over the chest.

נמדד עמה – to complete the forty Seah.

מודדים אותו – when it is fixed.

ראש תור (how is an arched top-piece measured? By drawing an equilateral triangle circumscribing the curve) – a diagonal line. For this arched lid does not correspond to the entire chest, but rather it covers over part of the empty space, and he comes to measure the airspace, we view it as if a chord is placed in the diagonal line from the wall of the chest until the top of the arch, and the empty space that is below it is measured.

אם אינה יכולה לעמוד בפני עצמה – the chest without the arched lid that is fixed in it.

טהורה – even though it does not hold forty Seah. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Yehuda.

אע"פ שמקבלים (even though they contain/retain) – that is to say, even though they did not make an incision while taking the legs, and they have a receptacle as at the outset.

טהורין – that since he took one of their legs off, they were no longer regarded as a vessel, because they do not receive/retain in their manner, but rather lean to one side and are like they are broken.

ר' יוסי מטמא – since no incision had been made in them with the removal of one of their legs. But the Halakah is not according to Rabbi Yossi. But Maimonides had a different reading:"ושאינן מקבלים כדרכן ר' יוסי מטמא." (i.e., instead of saying: “even though that they do not contain something according to their usual fashion. Rabbi Yossi declares ritually impure/unclean,” Maimonides’ version of the text states, “they do not contain something according to their usual fashion.”). But it is something for itself, and this is how he understood it. A chest, a box and a turret which do not contain forty Seah when they sit in the prescribed manner, if one tilts them/causes them to lean, they contain forty Seah, Rabbi Yossi declares them unclean/impure since they don’t contain according to their usual fashion, but the Sages state for since that they do contain/retain, nevertheless, they are considered and containing forty Seah and are pure.

נקליטי המטה (poles of the bed) – two pillars, one from about the head of the bed and one at its foot and they place a staff from one to the other and cast a sheet over it and it becomes a tent.

וחמור (a stand on which the bedstead is placed) – under the frame of the bed, they place a hallow piece of wood that he frame is lying upon, and it is called a חמור/a stand.

וחפוי (a covering) – as for example, a covering that cover the bed and its poles.

טהורים – that is metal which serves the wood.

מלבן (frame) – hollow tablets made to be placed under the legs of the bed so that they do not rot from the moistness of the ground, and they are carried with the bed, therefore they are ritually impure, for they are similar to the bed.

ומלבני בני לוי טהורין – because they would regularly go to Jerusalem and would go from city to city and they don’t bring the beds with them but they do bring the frames, therefore, even though they are fixed in the bottoms of the bed, for since they will ultimately be taken up, they are not considered like the bed.

מלבן שנתנו על לשונות – wood made like a longue that the bed frame is lying upon.

ר' מאיר ור' יהודה מטמאין – that even this is carried with the bed like the frame.

ר' יוסי ור' שמעון מטהרין – that it is not carried with the bed all that much. And the Halakha is according to Rabbi Yossi and Rabbi Shimon.

שמלבני בני לוי טהורין – for even though that they are fixed in the legs of the bed, since that ultimately they are taken off, they are ritually pure, these tongues are also sometimes removed from the frames of the bed, and are not considered like the bed.

מטה שהיתה טמאה מדרס (a bed that was ritually impure through treading) – that a person with gonorrhea who lay on it or was suspending from it or leaning on it.

קצרה (the short board, the board at the head and at the foot of the bed) – those pieces of wood that are at the width of the bed to the side from its head or from its feet.

ארוכה – those pieces of wood that are at the length of the bed from the right or from the left, and they are called ארוכות המטה/long board, long side of the bedstead.

טהורה – for they further are not proper and they are like shards of vessels that are ritually pure.

ר' נחמיה מטמא – But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Nehemiah.

גדר – he severed and broke off (i.e., cut) like cut down a tree.

שתי לשונות לוכסן (two tongues diagonally – two pieces of wood that are made like a tongue, that the frames of the bed are placed upon them, he cuts them with crosswise/diagonally, one that is in the southeastern corner and one that is in the northwest corner, are ritually pure, for they are not appropriate. And similarly if he cut two legs a handbreadth by a handbreadth diagonally, from the leg that is in the southeast corner he cut a handbreadth, and from the leg in the northwest corner he cut a handbreadth, it is like it is broken.

או מיעטה מטפח (or he diminished it by a handbreadth) – that he cut its legs and there is no handbreadth from the bed to the ground, it is not considered [of value, and hence is pure].

ותיקנה טמאה מדרס – it still stands in its defilement/impurity, since the second side exists.

טהורה מן המדרס – even though the first was repaired prior to the second side being broken. Nevertheless, it is ritually pure/clean, for new faces had appeared here, for after it went down through the defilement of treading/Midras, these faces renewed themselves and this is not the first, for after it had been ruined enough in order that it be voided.

אבל טמאה מגע מדרס – because the long side of the bedstead was first when it was broken and fixed and he brought a new long side in place of the broken one and attached it below, it became defiled through contact via treading/Midras, for it (the person with gonorrhea) had touched the bed who was impure through treading, and when the second [board] was broken, that it sprouting from it the defilement of treading, there remained in it the defilement of contact, for the entire bed is connected to the first board when it was fixed.

עד שנשברה שניה טהורה ([if one did not have the time to repair the first] before the second was broken – it – the bed is pure) – for since the two long bedsteads were broken, they are no longer fit for use. And it is not similar to where it was taken apart and all of it exists, for there, it will be eventually be put back together with its fellow parts.

כרע – [leg] of a bed which was impure with defilement by treading. That the person with gonorrhea tread on the bed leg when he was on its own and it was not connected to the med.

כולה טמאה מדרס – for attachment was done to it, as if it is all one body.

היתה טמאה טומאת שבעה – such as, for example, that it came in contact with a corpse.

טומאת ערב – that it came in contact with someone who was defiled through contact with a corpse.

והמטה טהורה – that it (8.e. the bed) was not defiled through contact of the leg [of the bed]. For it was first [degree of ritual impurity], and a person nor vessels are susceptible to defilement other than from a primary source of defilement.

מעדר (mattock, share of the plough/pitchfork for the first stage of winnowing – passing the grain from one side to the other) – a wooden vessel/utensil that has teeth that turn over the straw, and its teeth are metal. And because the teeth are of joints inserted therein, its law is like that of a bed which is of links. And this and similar to it, it is referring to the defilement for seven days, for the share of the plough does not defile through treading.

תפלה – it is speaking of the Tefillin of the head that came in contact with a corpse, for it has four compartments, and every compartment is called a קציצה/capsule, compartment.

התיר קציצה (he untied/loosened the compartment) – he removed one compartment and brought another in its place.

טמאה טמא מת – that their connection/attachment makes them one body.

וכן שניה וכן שלישית – all the time that the fourth [compartment] exists. On account that it is attached to the fourth [compartment]. But when he removed also the fourth and exchanged it for another, the defilement from [contact with] the dead flies out from it, and there remains in the three compartments/capsules [of the Tefillin of the head] the defilement from contact with something which had been defiled through contact with a corpse, for it came in contact with the fourth [capsule/compartment] when they attached them and it still exists. But the Fourth [capsule/compartment], when it was switched out, there is no defilement in its body at all, for if it was because it come in contact with the three [other] compartments, contact [uncleanness] does not cause contact uncleanness, since the first three [compartments] are new, that came in contact with someone who had been in contact with a corpse, the new forth [compartment] does not receive defilement from them, and there is no defilement in the new fourth [compartment] other than on account that is attached to the three which are defiled through contact. Therefore, when he return and switched out the three [compartments] a second time, all of them are pure, and there is no contact [with defilement] in them.

טהורה – and even where there is a longboard/bedside and two legs, but it is not their intention to restore, and where they benefit, is specifically in a place that everything belongs to one person.

מקבלת טומאה מכאן ולהבא – but not retroactively, for when they (i.e., the brothers or joint owners) divided it half, the defilement flew off from it.

מיטמאה חבילה (becomes unclean only when combined) – if the leg [of the bed] was removed from the longboard/beside and stands with the short board/the board at the head and at the foot of the bed, it is combined/connected, but if the leg is defiled, the longboard is defiled. For just as when it is complete/whole, if one of its pieces is defiled, all of it is defiled, so also when they remove the leg from the longboard and it stands with the shortboard, and when the leg is defiled, the shortboard is defiled as well.

ומטהרת חבילה – and if he immersed the leg [of the bed] in a Mikveh/ritual bath with the shortboard of the bed, the shortboard does not interpose upon it, for just as it does not interpose upon it when we immerse it (i.e., the bed) when it is whole/complete.

וחכמים אומרים מטמא איברים – and not when combined, that if the leg [of the bed] had become defiled, it [alone] is defiled and not the shortboard [of the bed], for it is not combined like something whole/complete.

ומטהרת אברים – when he comes to immerse it [in a Mikveh/ritual bath], the leg is by itself, and not the combination with the short board [of the bed] for the short board interposes upon it. That which is not connected is like a whole [bed], for when one immerses a whole bed [in the Mikveh] it is ritually pure even though he did not break it apart, but now that it separated the leg from the long board, it is not combined with the shortboard, and it is necessary to immerse it [in a Mikveh] on its own. The Halakha is according to the Sages. So it appeared that the explanation of this Mishnah is from the Tosefta (Tractate Kelim Bava Metzia, Chapter 8, Halakha 8), such is how my teachers/Rabbis explained it.