Keilim 9:3 - 9:4

למטה מנחושתו של תנור – the block pavement that they place the oven on, for the oven is made like a kind of large pot that lacks rims, and they prepare for it a block pavement on the ground and place it there, and that block pavement is the ground of the oven.

חי נפל – [it fell while alive] but the oven was not defiled, for if it had fallen when dead, the oven would have been defiled in its airspace when it fell through the mouth of the oven. For this we don’t leave in doubt lest it was there prior that they placed the oven there, because sometimes, the unclean reptile is found moist and it is recognized that it just died and the oven has many days that they placed it there, but now it is impossible to say that the unclean reptile preceded the oven there, for if so, from the heat of the fire, it (i.e., the unclean reptile) would have been burned up and would have come ashes, but we leave in doubt that perhaps it fell while living, for it is the manner of unclean reptiles to make pits in the ground to be hidden/preserved there therefore it is found below the copper bottom or rim of the stove.

שם היו עד שלא בא התנור – prior to their placing it (i.e., the oven) there and it did not see the airspace of the oven.

באפר מקלה (calcined ashes/wood ashes) – in the ashes that are made on account of the burning of the fire. But this is above in the cavity of the oven. For because we find dust that we call ashes, and here it is the ashes of burning that is referred to, because of this, it (i.e., the Mishnah) teaches the wood ashes/calcined ashes which is the language of קלוי באש/roasted in fire (see Leviticus 2:14: “[If you bring a grain offering of first fruits to the LORD, you shall bring new ears] parched with fire, [grits of the fresh grain, as your grain offering of first fruits].”

ונפל לאויר התנור טמא – for impure liquids defile a vessel. But even though the liquids are absorbed within the sponge, they are like they are discharged/escaped, because the sponge is made to bring in and to release/expunge [the water] through it.

וכן חתיכה של לפת ושל גמי – they are like a sponge. Because through the reed grass we examine through it the wine and it too is made to bring in and to release/expunge like a sponge. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Shimon [who permits the turnip and the reed grass].