Keilim 2:7 - 2:8

טבלא שיש לה לזבז ומחתה שלימה (a tray which has a rim and a complete firepan) – that it has sides/walls, they are impure, that they have a receptacle. But from the first clause [of the Mishnah] that the pure things are in an earthenware vessel, we would learn that these are impure, but it is the manner that they taught it as such, as is taught [in the Mishnah] in the Chapter “These are the Terefah [carcasses] among Cattle”/אלו טרפות (Chapter 3 in Tractate Hullin) [43a] and there are many in the Mishnah.

טבלא – of earthenware.

מלאה קערות (which is full of plates) – that is made of plate after plate, and the plates/dishes are from its body and are attached to (i.e., the tray).

ואם יש לה לזבז עודף (overhanging rim) – if the rim of the tray surrounding the overhang and rises up beyond the lip of the plates/dishes.

נטמאת אחת מהן נטמאו כולן – that when the unclean reptile/creeping thing enters into the lip of the dish, it has already entered the airspace of the overhanging rim all around, and all of the tray is defiled, for earthenware vessels are defiled from its airspace, and when the entire tray is defiled, all of the plates which are part of it are defiled.

בית התבלין (spice pot) – earthenware vessel made squarely, to give in each square one species of spaces so that they will not become combined with each other.

קלמרים המתואמות (the double inkstand) – a vessel that is made to place in it the ink and the reed/writing utensil and the utensils that the scribe needs. And it is also made as a double square, and in our lands, there are many of them, and we call them KALMARI in the foreign tongue.

בית תבלין של עץ – that is also made squarely, but it does not have an overhanging rim.

שנטמא אחד מהן במשקה – for the Rabbis decreed on liquids that come on account of a creeping thing/unclean reptile to defile vessels as a decree because of the liquid of the man and/or woman with a flux, who defile vessels according to the Torah. And especially when it was defiled with liquids, its fellow is not defiled, for when a vessel that its outsides/backsides were defiled by liquids, its inside is not defiled, therefore when one of them with liquids, there is a wall/side of impurity on its backside of its neighbor but its neighbor is not defiled. But with the regarding the defilement of a creeping thing/unclean reptile according to the Torah, wherever it came in contact with/touched the vessel whether from its backside or whether from its inside, all of it is defiled, if one of them is defiled, its neighbor/fellow is defiled, for the defilement touches it from its outside/backside. But an earthenware vessel is not susceptible to receive defilement from its outside, but only from its inside, even with the defilement of a creeping thing/unclean reptile, if one of them was defiled, its neighbor is not defiled, for the inside of this one becomes the backside/outside of its neighbor for earthenware vessels are not defiled from its outside but not regarding the defilement of liquids that all of it is defiled.

חולקין את עוביו (they divide its thickness) – a thick and wide wall that is between two squares, we cast half to this side and half to that side with the defilement of liquids according to the Rabbis, but the half of the thickness of the wall that is from the side that is pure is pure. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri.

הלפיד – it is similar to a dish of earthenware sharpened at the bottom and they insert pointed projections/prongs at the top of a pole and it enlightens from afar, but because it is sharpened/pointed and is not able to stand on its own, you might think I would say that it is not defiled. It comes to tell us that since it is a prepared and designated place for sitting to place at the top of the pole, this would be defiled.

ובית שקעו של נר (reservoir of the lamp) – an earthenware vessel made to be the torch is sitting and sunk within it.

מטמא באויר – that it is considered like the inside to defile by airspace, even though the entire torch is not sunk within it other than only a small amount of it.

מסרק של צרצור (comb of the water cooler – if an unclean object touches the comb of a cooler) – an earthenware vessel that they make at its mouth a net-work/mat like a kind of netting/lattice-work and one who empties from it pours the water from many places. But most of the vessels that they drink water from in the Islamic countries are made like this, and surrounding that net-work/mat protrudes teeth like the teeth of a comb, that they make them for beauty. And if an unclean creature/reptile was suspended in the airspace of those teeth, Rabbi Yossi and the Sages dispute if it is considered the inside of an earthenware vessel or not. But the Halakha is according to the Sages that they consider it as an inside [of the vessel] and that it defiles.