Keilim 18:9 - 19:1

טהורה – and even where there is a longboard/bedside and two legs, but it is not their intention to restore, and where they benefit, is specifically in a place that everything belongs to one person.

מקבלת טומאה מכאן ולהבא – but not retroactively, for when they (i.e., the brothers or joint owners) divided it half, the defilement flew off from it.

מיטמאה חבילה (becomes unclean only when combined) – if the leg [of the bed] was removed from the longboard/beside and stands with the short board/the board at the head and at the foot of the bed, it is combined/connected, but if the leg is defiled, the longboard is defiled. For just as when it is complete/whole, if one of its pieces is defiled, all of it is defiled, so also when they remove the leg from the longboard and it stands with the shortboard, and when the leg is defiled, the shortboard is defiled as well.

ומטהרת חבילה – and if he immersed the leg [of the bed] in a Mikveh/ritual bath with the shortboard of the bed, the shortboard does not interpose upon it, for just as it does not interpose upon it when we immerse it (i.e., the bed) when it is whole/complete.

וחכמים אומרים מטמא איברים – and not when combined, that if the leg [of the bed] had become defiled, it [alone] is defiled and not the shortboard [of the bed], for it is not combined like something whole/complete.

ומטהרת אברים – when he comes to immerse it [in a Mikveh/ritual bath], the leg is by itself, and not the combination with the short board [of the bed] for the short board interposes upon it. That which is not connected is like a whole [bed], for when one immerses a whole bed [in the Mikveh] it is ritually pure even though he did not break it apart, but now that it separated the leg from the long board, it is not combined with the shortboard, and it is necessary to immerse it [in a Mikveh] on its own. The Halakha is according to the Sages. So it appeared that the explanation of this Mishnah is from the Tosefta (Tractate Kelim Bava Metzia, Chapter 8, Halakha 8), such is how my teachers/Rabbis explained it.

המפרק את המטה להטבילה – even though it had become defiled while it was whole/complete, sometimes, on occasion when it is large and is unable to enter the Mikveh [whole], and one needs to take it apart.

והנוגע בחבלים – this is our reading. Meaning to say, whether one takes it (i.e., the bed) apart or one touches the ropes, one is ritually pure. But we are speaking about a bed that was defiled through contact with a corpse or though a person with gonorrhea lying on it, and as for example, that is no on the bed a long board and two legs, even though, it is necessary to immerse it [in a Mikveh], in order that it not return to its defilement when it is connected. But the person who touches the ropes is ritually pure, for since he took it (i.e., the bed) apart, the ropes are no longer connected.

החבל מאימתי חיבור – at the outset when a person makes a partition by means of net-work/makes a zig-zag completely and girds it with three [rows of] meshes with it, and the rope still remains very long. If the bed became defiled, the rope is defiled. And a person who touches the rope, is impure. For it is all connected/attached, for ultimately, one is making a partition by means of net-work.

מן הקשר ולפנים – if he tied another rope to this rope that he is making a lattice-work with, the other rope is not attached from the knot and outward.

נימי הקשר (fringes of a knot) – when they tie in a knot two ropes with one another, they leave a bit from the heads of the ropes from this side and from that side they exit beyond the knot, and they are called the “fringes of a knot.”

הנוגע בצורכו – for since there is a need to tie them in a knot, that if the knot at the actual top of the of the rope was an extra knot, it is found that these fringes establish the knot an they are like the knot itself.

רבי יהודה אומר שלש אצבעות – is an attachment/connection, and he requires the knot, but not more.