Oholos 5:5 - 5:6

כלי גללים – of excrement of cattle.

כלי אבנים וכלי אדמה – al of these are vessels, even in the hand of illiterate people they are pure, and if they are placed upon the aperture in the roof looking to the ground fall, it protects over everything even on the vessels which require only rinsing to be restored to Levitical cleanness.

היה כלי טהור לקודש ולחטאת – for the Rabbis appointed them to the illiterate people on the Holy Things, in order that each person would not go and build an altar for himself, therefore, the vessel that is pure for Holy Things protects on everything, even according to the School of Shammai, and similarly, they are deemed faithful on the sin-offering of the ashes of the Red Heifer, as it is written (Numbers 19:9): “[A man who is pure shall gather up the ashes of the cow and deposit them outside the camp in a pure place,] to be kept [for water of lustration] for the Israelite community,” everyone is believed on its preservation.

מפני שהכלים טהורים – as for example, vessels of excrement and vessels of stones and vessels of earth which are pure from being susceptible to receive impurity. And similarly, earthenware vessels are pure when they are for Holy Things and for purification [water]. Even though they belong to an illiterate person, he is believed, for an illiterate person is believed for Holy Things and for purification [water] as we have stated.

כל אלו מצילין עם דפנות אוהלים – that is to say, they interpose in the face of defilement when they are placed in a place where there are walls of tents, and this aperture in the roof looking to the ground floor that is between the house and the upper chamber is considered like the walls of tents. But in a place where there are no walls, it does not protect, as will be explained further on (see the next Mishnah).

הבור והדות שבבית (a cistern and a subterranean masoned cellar that are in the house) – and the corpse is in the house and vessels are in the cistern and cellar, and there is someone who seizes the partitions that are around them. Both a בור/cistern and a דות/cellar are in the ground, but the cistern [is made] through digging and the cellar [is made] through building/masonry.

וכפישה (an inverted vessel divided into two compartments by the bottom between – put on it as a tight lid) – a large basket that they press/squeeze the olives to produce shrinking and maturing of fruits by underground storage/לכומרן and it holds forty Se’ah or more, and is not susceptible to receive ritual impurity and is placed on the cistern or on the cellar.

טהור – everything that is in them is [pure] since there are partitions there.

באר חלקה – that the mouth of the well is level to the ground of the house and there is no partition around it, for here there are no walls.

או כוורת פחותה (a broken beehive) – as for example large beehive that holds forty Se’ah, that is not susceptible to receive ritual impurity. But it is broken, and is not stuffed up with straw.

וכפישה נתונה עליו – on the mouth of the cistern or on the mouth of the beehive.

טמא – for it does not protect other than with the walls of tents, but a cistern lacks walls, and the walls of a beehive are not the walls of tents.

היה נסר חלק (if it was a smooth board) – that tis is not a vessel.

או סרידה שאין לה גפיים (or stuffed matting used for stoppers of stoves which lacks handles) -which have no partitions and it is not considered a vessel.

טהור – if they are placed on a smooth well or on a broken beehive, they protect and are ritually pure. For specifically, the inverted vessel divided into two compartments by the bottom between is a vessel but does not protect other than with the walls of tents, but a board and stuffed matting which lack handles, that are not vessels, protect without the walls of tents. A stuffed matting used for stoppers of stoves, is like a small wooden trough that the baker uses. גפניים/handles are anchors and handles.

חצי טפח מכאן וחצי טפח מכאן – for a vessel does not protect in a smooth well, that is in a vessel which lack walls one handbreadth [high], but if the vessel has walls that are a handbreadth, it protects over the cistern even though its walls do not protrude at all, and now it is stated that half of handbreadth of a vessel and half of a handbreadth of the walls of a cistern do not combine. And the כפישה/(basket) inverted vessel divided into two parts by the bottom between where they squeeze the fruits that we mentioned above, that if it is placed on a smooth well, it does not protect, we are speaking that it doesn’t have walls [at the height of] a handbreadth.