Keilim 14:2 - 14:3

חזינא (a cane with a metal knob) – it is the practice to make at the top of a staff [something] like a ball of iron and it is called a חזינא. And all the servants of the king of Egypt today carry in their hands these staffs. And we call them ALDBOM in Arabic. But sometimes when they stick in them nails, in order that they would strike with them a hard and mighty blow.

שלשה סדרים – [three rows] of nails, and then it is considered a vessel. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Shimon.

שעשאן לנוי (which one affixed for ornament) – as for example, that he made it with thin, sculpted nails in order to make the staff beautiful.

טהור – it is metal that serves the wood, as it is taught above [Tractate Kelim, Chapter 13, Mishnah 6: “metal that serves the wood] is pure.” But when he made them to beat and/or to strike, this is wood that serves the metal, and it is ritually impure.

מניקת (metal siphon) – like a kind of metal tube and inserted the staff in it.

וכן בדלת – under the door in order that it not eat into the ground.

היתה כלי – that this tube was a vessel on its own, and he attached it to the staff and after that it was attached, it is appropriate to use it as a vessel.

[טמאה – it is susceptible to receive ritual impurity, and it is impure as it was].

מאימתי היא טהרתה – the metal siphon that was defiled, from when does it become pure and leaves its [state of] defilement.

משיחבל (from the moment he batters – the tube, for fitting it into the top of the staff) – from when he ruins it and lessens its form/shape.

משיחבר – from when he attaches it to the door or to a staff and affixes it with nails, that it will no longer be used on the vessel, it has already cancelled the name of a vessel from it, and it has left its [state of] spiritual uncleanness.

הקנטר של בנאי (te builder’s pronged tool, bit or auger) – they explained it that it is a iron rod or staff that the builders cut the wall with.

הדקור (the chisel of carpenters) – peg. Like “he would dig with a pronged tool/mattock and covers it up [i.e., the blood] as it is taught in the Mishnah in the first chapter of [Tractate] Betzah [Mishnah 2 – expressed by the School of Shammai].

חרש – carpenter.

יתדות אוהלים – they wedge-in iron pegs in the ground and extend/stretch tents and tie cords with pegs. But this is not usage via the ground, for it is for movables that hey are using it.

ויתדות המשוחות (pegs of land measurers/surveyors) – measurers of the ground for the division for the brothers, they wedge-in pegs in the ground and tie a rope to them and measure.

שלשלת של משוחות טמאה (surveyors’ measuring chains) – since through the measuring of a cord there is perversion/fault. Sometimes that it stretches to this side more than to that, therefore, they regularly make a chain to measure it.

עשויה לעצים – to tie with it a bundle of wood, or to measure wood with it, for there are places where they sell wood with the measurement of as much as cord. But the special chain for this is ritually pure, for it is metal that serves the wood.

ארבעה טפחים – but more than this is not considered a handle.

חמור של נפחים (the smiths’ ass –on which the smith sits while using its head as an anvil) – the wood smithy rides upon is called a חמור. That is how my Rabbis explained it. But in another place I found that it is an iron vessel like the form of a donkey, and the artisan rides upon one end and beats/strikes the other end, and they do this when they want to strike all the large vessels whose rims are tall and very large.

מגרה (saw) – a tool with rough edges or teeth that they plane/saw boards with, that became defiled, and they put its teeth into the hole of the door, it did not leave its state of ritual impurity, for it is impure as it was, until they affix the door with a nail. And this is how it is explained in the Tosefta )Tractate Kelim Bava Metzia 4:10).

עשאה מלמטה למעלה – that he revised it and placed it upside-down in the hole of the door.

טהורה – even though he did not affix it with a nail.

כל הכיסויין טהורין – because the coverings do not have their own name.

חוץ משל מיחם – and all those similar to it, that have a name of their own, and we use them on their own, like the covering of the physician’s medicine box as is taught above in [Tractate Kelim] Chapter 12 [Mishnah 3] “The Ring of the Man” which is ritually impure according to everyone, because it leaves dyes/artist’s materials.