Parah 8:3 - 8:4

השורף פרה – the Red [Heifer].

ופרים – that are burned, such as a the bullock of Yom Kippur and the bull of the anointed priest [brought as a sin-offering by an anointed High Priest who unwittingly made an erroneous Halakhic decision] (see Tractate Horayot, Chapter 2, Mishnah 1) a bull for an unwitting communal sin [of an active transgression committed by the Jewish people, as a result of an erroneous halakhic decision handed down by the Great Sanhedrin] (see Tractate Horayot, Chapter 1, Mishnah 5), they defile clothing, for in all of them it is written [in regard to the Red Heifer] (Numbers 19:8): “[He who performed the burning] shall wash his garments [in water],” (see also Tractate Parah, Chapter 4, Mishnah 4 – that all who deal with the Red Heifer from the beginning to the end defile clothing and regarding the sacrifices of Yom Kippur, see Leviticus 16:28 and 16:26), but there is no difference regarding clothing that he touches, and the same law applies to all of the rest of the vessels. That we do not exclude anything other than a person and earthenware vessels alone, that do not defile if they come in contact with them.

ופרה ופרים עצמן ושעיר המשתלח – if they came in contact with clothing, they are ritually pure. And this is what the clothing said to the man: “Things that made you unclean could not have made me unclean, but you made me unclean.”

האוכל מנבלת העוף טהור – the carrion of a clean bird, has no defilement if it came in contact with a person or with clothing, but in the esophagus it defiles humans to defile clothing, as it is taught in the Mishnah of Tractate Taharot (Chapter 1, Mishnah 1), and that what the clothing says to a person: “The things which made you unclean could not have made me unclean, etc.”