Oholos 17:5 - 18:1

אין עושין אותה בית הפרס – they (i.e., the Rabbis did not decree defilement other than on a clod/clump of earth in its natural condition, but they did not decree on dirt that was swept away with the water.

עליה טהורה -whichever way you turn, if the grave is within the house, the house is impure and the upper chamber is ritually pure. If the grave is under the threshold of the entrance of the house, the defilement enters the house and the upper chamber is ritually pure. But when the opening of the upper chamber is not corresponding opposite the opening of the house, we are concerned that perhaps the grave exists underneath the wall that is corresponding to the opening of the upper chamber, and the defilement bursts forth until it reaches to the opening of the upper chamber, and enters into upper chamber through the opening.

ועפר חוצה לארץ – that is to say, or the dirt of outside of the Land of Israel. For the Land of the Nations and the Bet HaPras together defile through touching and through lifting.

שבא ברק – as for example a bunch of greens that have many stalks/stems that were uprooted in their clods of earth, for in each stalk/stem on its own, there isn’t dirt like the seal of the packing bags (especially adapted for ship-loads) which is the measure of clods of earth to defile.

חותם המרצופין – leather bags, like sacks, that those who travel place their vessels into them and seal them with a seal of plaster.

כסאה וכסאתים חותמות – of plaster. And this fact brings Rabbi Yehuda to the assistance of the Rabbis that they didn’t worry about a Se’ah or two Se’ah from the dirt that comes from outside the Land of Israel, for since there wasn’t the seal of one of them on its own like the seal of the leather bags. And the Halakha is according to the Sages.

כיצד בוצרים בית הפרס (how do they cut grapes in an area in which uncertainty exists concerning the location of a grave or a corpse or crushed bones carried over it from a ploughed grave)- so that the grapes that grew in it would be ritually pure.

מזין על האדם ועל הכלים – on the third day [they would sprinkle].

ושונין – on the seventh day [they repeat it].

ומוציאין חוץ לבית הפרס – and even though that one cuts grapes for the vat for wine-pressing are fit for receiving Levitical uncleanness and this is one of eighteen matters that they decreed on the day [that Rabban Gamaliel was deposed as head of the Sanhedrin (see Tractate Berakhot 28a)], these words [refer to] defilement according to the Torah, but concerning the defilement of the a field where uncertainty exists concerning the location of a grave or corpse or crushed bones carried over it from a ploughed grave is Rabbinic, and we don’t consider it a fitness to become unclean. And because of this, it (i.e., the Mishnah) took [the term] and taught: “they sprinkle on the man and on the vessels [and repeat the process],” in order that they would be pure from defilement according the Torah (see Numbers 19:19, and even though they go back and become defiled in the field declared unclean on account of crushed bones carried over from a ploughed grave at the time of the harvesting of grapes, further, the grapes are not defiled through their contract because of the defilement of the field declared unclean on account of crushed bones carried over from a ploughed grave all the while that they did not have a complete fitness to become unclean.

ואחרים – who did not enter into the field declared unclean on account of crushed bones carried over from a ploughed grave.

מקבלין – from those who cut/harvest the grapes.

ומוליכין לגת – in other vessels. But those who cut/harvest the grapes do not bring them to the vat for wine-pressing, because the vat is filled with liquids and they are pronounced fit [for Levitical uncleanness] for a complete fitness.

ואם נגעו אלו באלו – those who cut/harvest the grapes came in contact with/touched the others who receive [the grapes].

טמאים – those who receive [the grapes] and they all of the grapes. For a person that is defiled in a field declared unclean on account of crushed bones carried over from a ploughed grave become a primary source of ritual defilement/ אב הטומאהand it defiles people and vessels [according to the School of Hillel].

בית שמאי אומרים אוחז את המגל – that they (i.e., the School of Shammai) holds that the person who harvests [grapes] in the vat becomes fit for Levitical uncleanness even for the defilement of a field declared unclean on account of crushed bones carried over from a ploughed grave, and because of this, he must hold on to a sickle wrapped in a fibrous substance/bast of a palm tree when he harvests that does not receive defilement.

או בוצר בצור (or he harvests with a flint) – and it is a sharp stone that is not a vessel.

ונותן לתוך הכפישה (places it into an inverted vessel/a vessel divided into two compartments by the bottom between) – a large vessel that one harvests olives in, that it doesn’t receive ritual defilement.