Keilim 18:1 - 18:2

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.