ידים ד׳:ה׳ - ד׳:ו׳

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).