Mishnayos Parah Perek 3 Mishnah 3

באו להר הבית – the young children that are upon the bulls with the cups filled with water.

בפתח העזרה – of the Women’s Court, that is near the Hel (a place within the fortification of the Temple; see Tractate Middot, Chapter 1, Mishnah 5).

היה מתוקן קלל של חטאת (and there set up a flask/pitcher containing the ashes of the red cow) – a vessel that was placed in it the ashes of the sin-offering from each cow that they would burn, as it is written (Numbers 19:9): “[A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the cow and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place,] to be kept for water of lustration for the Israelite community.”

קלל – a small pitcher. It is the [Aramaic] translation of (Genesis 24:15): “[He had scarcely finished speaking, when Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor], came out with her jar on her shoulder,” – and her jar/small pitcher on her shoulder.

וזורקו תוך הקלל – and through this, the male sheep is startled and moves backward and the stick/staff goes out from the small pitcher/jar and absorbs/retains from the ashes with it and it spills on top of the bulls and the child takes it and doesn’t need to remove his hand outward. But in the Tosefta (Tractate Parah, Chapter 3, Halakha 5) it implies that they didn’t need to do this, but rather, when they came up [back to the Land of Israel] from the Diaspora (i.e., Babylonia) when all of them were ritually impure, and they were not able to touch it, for if they would touch the ashes of the heifer, they would defile it. And that they would throw the stick/staff into the small pitcher and not through placing it in there, so that they would not defile the ashes through movement/היסט because of doubt of a woman with flux [with them] (i.e., a manner in which ritual impurity may be imparted – that whenever a person with gonorrhea or a menstruating woman or a woman with a lux or a woman after childbirth – causes the object to move from its place, even though he/she does not actually come into contact with it – e.g., by means of a lever – the object becomes ritually impure).

אל תתנו במקום לצדוקים לרדות – to rule over us with their wors of laughter and derision. For Rabbi Yossi holds that when the people from the Diaspora (i.e., Babylonia) came up [to the Land of Israel], there were among them that were ritual pure that they had purified with the ashes of the heifer/cow that they brought down with them to Babylonia and carried up with them, and they were not defiled because of the Land of the Nations (i.e., any place outside of the Land of Israel), they did not decree defilement on the Lands of he Nations until after they ascended from the Diaspora. Therefore, it was possible that a pure person would take the ashes of the heifer, and they would not have a need for a male sheep, and the Halakha is according to Rabbi Yossi.