Keilim 8:2 - 8:3

היתה שלימה – the bee-hive.

התנור טהור – as it is written (Leviticus 11:33): “And if any of those (i.e., any article of wood, or a cloth or a skin, or a sack) falls into an earthen vessel, [everything inside it shall be impure and – the vessel – itself you shall break],” but not אל תוך תוכו/to what is inside of it [already], and we are speaking of when its mouth/topmost layer is above from the oven, for if all of it is sunk in the oven, it is like one thing within it.

אוכלים שתוכה טהורין – as it is written (Leviticus 11:33): “everything inside it shall be impure,” and not שבתוך תוכו/what is already inside it.

ניקבו – the perforation that purifies them from their impurities, furthermore they no longer have the status of a vessel and they don’t divide/separate whether it is an oven or whether what is inside of it, and how much is the perforation that purifies them from their defilements.

העשוי לאוכלים – its measurement is like bringing forth/removing olives.

העשוי לכך ולכך – for food and liquids.

מטילין אותו לחומרו (they subject it to its more stringent [measure]) – but if he made the incision according to the measurement of liquids which is less than the measurement that is made for foods, he further is not able to save it because of the defilement.

בכונס משקה (with the capacity to admit liquid) – when they place the vessel from the side of the perforation, the water enters through the perforation into the vessel, and it is larger than that which liquid leaves/is removed.

סרידא (stuffed matting used for stoppers of stones, bag) – a kind of small kneading trough that the baker uses to knead in it and it lacks a receptacle. But Maimonides states that it is a board of perforated earthenware thar is made like a kind of net-work/mat, a netting, which we translate in Aramaic as עובד סרדתא/a person who works in netting.

גפיים – rims and handles.

שאין מצילים מיד כלי חרס (do not save from the power of earthenware vessels/utensils – lacking an inner part) – from being susceptible to defilement from the airspace of an earthenware vessel.

אלא כלים – and this, for since it does not have handles, it is not considered a vessel.

נחושתו של תנור (from the copper rim of the stove) – its bottom and lowest point. And similar to it is found in Ezekiel (16:36): “Because of your brazen effrontery/יען השפך נחשתך, [offering your nakedness to your lovers for harlotry – just like the blood of your children, which you gave to all your abominable fetishes].”

החבית והמשקין טהורים – that they did not enter into its (i.e., the unclean reptile’s) airspace, for they stand below the copper rim of the stove, and even if the jar is open and enters from the airspace of the oven at its mouth, the wine is not defiled through this, for the airspace of an earthenware vessel does not defile neither above nor below other than within.

היתה כפויה – the jug [was turned upside down] on its lip and placed on the lip of the oven which has an unclean reptile in it, and on the rim of the jar the moisture of wine that is in it, moist enough in order to moisten other objects, this moisture is not defiled on account of the airspace of the oven that enters into the jar, because the moisture of the wine was not within the oven.