בו ביום – This refers to the chapter above regarding the words of Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai, that speaks of the day when they appointed Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah in the Academy [as the Nasi/president]. And every place where it states, "בו ביום" /on that day, in the Mishnah, it is regarding that day which is spoken of.

נמנו (they were counted – i.e., the votes were taken [and they decided]) – they stood for the count, to whom the number of those defile and the number of those who purify, and they decided the law according to the majority.

עריבת הרגלים – tub made for washing the feet.

שנסדקה –[which was cracked] near its bottom, and it doesn’t hold water in order to wash his one foot.

טמאה מדרס – for a tub made for a foot-bath prior its becoming cracked also was customary to sit in it, and it served [as a place] to sit while working.

שר' עקיבא – he would dispute and saw that the tub for a foot-bath is like its name (i.e., for washing the feet only, and not for sitting), that is, that like its name, so it is, that there is no מדרס/Levitical uncleanness arising from someone with gonorrhea having immediate contact through treading or leaning upon it. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Akiva.

כל הזבחים שנזבחו שלא לשמן כשרים – this Mishnah is taught from the beginning of Tractate Zevakhim [Chapter 1, Mishnah 1] and there we have explained it.

עמון ומואב מה הן בשביעית – This is not Ammon and Moab that purified in Sihon which is in the inheritance of Reuben and Gad [in Transjordan], for this is the Land of Israel, even if you wish to state that those who came up from Babylonia [following seventy years of Exile in Babylonia following the Destruction of the First Temple] did not conquer it, perforce [the laws of] the Seventh Year are practiced in it, for it is taught in the Mishnah in the Tractate Sheviit, Chapter הפיגם/The Herb rue (i.e., Chapter 9) [Mishnah 2]: “There are three lands/regions [are delineated] with respect to [the laws] of removal: Judea, Transjordan and the Galilee.” And Transjordan is the land of Sihon. But we are speaking about the remainder of the land of Ammon and Moab where they didn’t purify in Sihon nor ever conquered it. Know, that when they include [a person] who made Aliyah [to the Land of Israel] from Babylonia and from Egypt.

ולא שניתי מסדר השנים (I have not changed the order of the years) – of the world. After the year of [bringing] the Poor Man’s Tithe (i.e., year six of the cycle), we bring the Second Tithe [which is consumed in Jerusalem]. Therefore, it is appropriate in the Seventh Year [to bring] Second Tithe

המעשר והתרומה – perforce, the Tithe that is mentioned here is Second Tithe, similar to Terumah/heave-offering which is holy, and not the Poor Man’s Tithe which is profane/non-consecrated, and one cannot make Second Tithe inoperative because of the poor.

כמשיב על דברי ר' טרפון – to assist him.

אבל לא לענין דבריו – meaning to say, but not from his reasoning.

מצרים מעשה חדש – that the elders that existed after Ezra establish to separate tithes in Egypt.

ובבבל מעשה ישן – it is the ordinance of the Prophets who existed prior to the Destruction of the Temple, but the matter was forgotten, for perhaps there wasn’t a need for the poor at that particular hour/time.

עשה נביאים – and by the word of Prophecy, they made a special emergency dispensation (not to be taken as a precedent), and we don’t learn from it.

הלכה למשה מסיני – Not exactly. For this is not from Torah, but rather, it is as if it is a usage dating from Moses as delivered from Sinai (i.e., a traditional interpretation of a written law). However, in the Tosefta [Tractate Yadayim, Chapter 2, Halakha 16 – in the Zuckermandel edition], it implies it is stating an actual usage dating from Moses as delivered from Sinai.

שנאמר ואסיר גבולות עמים (“I have erased the borders of peoples; I have plundered their treasures, And exiled their vast populations”) – that he (i.e., the Assyrians) would banish the people of this city and settle them in a different city, and he would banish the people of a different city and settle them in this city.

ושבתי את שבות עמי ישראל ועדיין לא שבו – just as they (i.e., the children of Israel) did not return, so also, they (i.e., the people of Ammon) did not return.

והתירו לבוא בקהל – for since that [members] from the seventy nations [of the known world] it is not forbidden for them to join/enter into the [Israelite] community other than the Ammonite and Moabite for all time, and an Egyptian and an Edomite for the first and second generations [it is forbidden for them to enter the Israelite community] (see Deuteronomy 23:8-9), here where these nations are not known for they (i.e., Ammonites and Moabites) have already been mixed up and combined among the rest of the other nations, we state: “he who separates [himself] - separates from a majority,” and all who convert are permitted to enter the [Israelite] community.

תרגום שכתבו עברית – The Aramaic interpretation/version that are in [the books of] Daniel and Ezra and [passages such as] (Jeremiah 10:11): “Thus you shall say to them: [Let the gods, who did not make heaven and earth, perish from the earth and from under these heavens],” if they wrote it in the Holy Tongue (i.e., Hebrew), and similarly, the words of the Prophet that are stated in the Holy Tongue that are written in Aramaic interpretation/version, do not defile the hands.

כתב עברי – the writing that comes from the other side of the river (i.e., Euphrates in Babylonia). But the Cutheans (i.e., Samaritans) write this way until today, but the Israelites would use the same script in their secular words. And on the coins that are found in our hands today that were from the time of the Kings of Israel, they are engraved with this same script. But the script that we write Scrolls with today, it is called the Assyrian script (i.e., the modern form of Hebrew type – which was brought along by the returning Babylonian captives, and made to supersede the older Syriac or Samaritan letters), and it is the script that was on the Tablets [of the Law – i.e., the Ten Commandments]. And it is called Ashuri/Assyrian, which is the most substantial of the scripts (see also Sanhedrin 22a), it is the language of (Genesis 30:13): “Women will deem me fortunate. [So she named him Asher].”

אומרין צדוקין – those who contradict the Oral Torah are called Sadducees, on account of Tzadok and Baitus, students of Antigonos the man of Sokho (see Tractate Avot, Chapter 1, Mishnah 3 and Avot D’Rabbi Nathan, Chapter 5) that they began this disgrace/corruption initially. Because they heard from Antigonos the man of Sokho their Rabbi/Teacher, “Do not be like servants who serve the master in order to receive a reward.” They said, is it possible for a worker who goes to the trouble and engages in work all day long and in the evening, he doesn’t receive a reward? And they interpreted from the words of the Sages, and many sects from Israel joined with them, and until this day, there remains remnants of them in Egypt, in Damascus and in Constantine, and they are like sore in our eyes and a thorn in our sides, and we call them Karaites, because they don’t have anything other than the Bible alone.

קובלין אנו עליכם – we are discontented/disturbed by your qualities.

פרושים – to the Sages of Israel, they would call Pharisees, because they consume their non-sacred [foods] in ritual purity and separate themselves from contact with the commoners [who are not punctilious in their observance of tithing and Levitical uncleanness], as is taught in the Mishnah (Tractate Hagigah, Chapter 2, Mishnah 7): “The clothing of commoners is in the status of treading/Levitical uncleanness arising from a man who has gonorrhea having immediate contact by treading/leaning against.”

תרוודות (spoon – pointed on top and curved at the end) – spoons that we eat with them. In the language of (see Tractate Nazir, Chapter 7, Mishnah 2 -49b): “a tarvad-full of dust.”

אף ספרי הקודש לפי חיבתן היא טומאתן (according to their preciousness is their uncleanness) – that a person should not use them as a mat/cover for beasts. But according to their words, he would respond to the, and not according to the truth. For the reason that the Holy Books defile the hands, is in order that they should not bring the books/scrolls to loss, for the mice that are found near those who eat would ruin the Scrolls, as we explain at the conclusion of [Tractate] Zavim (see the Bartenura commentary to Mishnah 12 of the fifth chapter of the tractate concerning Terumah/heave-offering).

מטהרים את הניצוק (you declare pure/clean an uninterrupted flow of liquid poured from vessel to vessel) – as it is taught in the Mishnah in Tractate Makhshirin [Chapter 5, Mishnah 9]: “Any unbroken stream [of water] is clean [except for the thick honey and porridge].” If you pour from a pure/clean vessel to an unclean/impure vessel, that which remains in the upper vessel is clean/pure, for an uninterrupted flow of liquid poured from vessel to vessel is not considered a connection.

אמת המים הבאה מן הקברות – the Sadducees admit regarding this that it is pure, as it is written (Leviticus 11:36): “[However, a spring or cistern] in which water is collected shall be pure.”

שהרי אין בהם דעת – that they will intend to cause financial loss to their owners.

ילך וידליק גדישו של אחר – and it is found that he causes his master [financial] loss of one-hundred Maneh on each day.

צדוקי גלילי – a Sadducee that was from the land of the Galilee.

המושל עם משה בגט – that they would count the years of the [heathen] kings and write: “such-and-such [a time period] according to [the rule] of king so-and-so, and at the end of the Jewish bill of divorce, they write, “according to the law of Moses and [the people] Israel, and the matter is a disgrace to Moses.

את המושל מלמעלה ואת השם מלמטן – that they would advance the name of Pharaoh to that of the name of the name of God, as it is written (Exodus 5:2): “But Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the LORD [that I should heed him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, nor will I let Israel go’].”

וכשלקה – [when] Pharaoh [was smitten].

מה הוא אומר ה' הצדיק – in order not to complete the Tractate with [the words], “Who is the LORD that I should heed him,” because you do not remain/endure with a negative matter, it (i.e., the Tractate] concludes with (Exodus 9:27): “The LORD is in the right [and I am my people are in the wrong].”