Taharos 4:10 - 4:11

ספק משקין אוכלין טמא – for Rabbi Yossi holds that defilement of liquids to defile others according to the Torah, for he expounds on the Biblical verse (Leviticus 11:34): “as to any liquid that may be drunk, it shall become impure if it was inside any vessel,” to defile others, therefore, something that is a matter of doubt in respect to liquids, if it has to do with foods, it is impure.

ולכלים טהור – for the defilement of liquids to defile vessels is according to the Rabbis, from the eighteen matters that [the Sages] decreed on that day (when Rabban Gamaliel was removed as head of the Sanhedrin – see Tractate Berakhot 28a – see the Bartenura commentary on Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 1, Mishnah 4). For the first Tanna/teacher that disputes on that of Rabbi Yossi who expounds (Leviticus 11:34): “as to any liquid that may be drunk, it shall become impure if it was inside any vessel” but not to defile others, for the defilement of liquids to defile foods and liquids is according to the Rabbis, therefore a matter of doubt of the defilement of liquids to defile others is ritually pure. And the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Yossi.

ספק ידים ליטמא - a person whose hands were ritual pure and it was doubtful if they touched ritually impure foods or ritually impure liquids and his hands were defiled, and it is doubtful if he didn’t touch and his hands were not defiled.

ולטמא – his hands were ritually impure, it is a matter of doubt if he touched foods and liquids and defiled them, and it is doubtful that he did not touch them.

וליטהר- his hands were ritually impure and he purified them, it is doubtful if they were purified properly or not, in all of these matters of doubt, their doubt is deemed ritually pure.

ספק רשות הרבים – it is matter of doubt of defilement in the public domain, they are considered ritually pure, for such we found concerning a community that makes the Passover sacrifice in ritual defilement, if it is definitive defilement, it was permissible to the community, as an a fortiori inference it a manner of doubt of defilement.

ספק דברי סופרים - as for example, all of these that are considered, and all of them are from the eight things that they (i.e., the Sages) decreed on that day (i.e., the day when Rabban Gamaliel was deposed as head of the Sanhedrin -see Tractate Berakhot 28a, and they are explained in Tractate Shabbat in the first chapter [Mishnah 4 – see the Bartenura commentary).

אבל דבר שהוא אב הטומאה והוא מדברי סופרים – as for example, דם תבוסה/blood that flows from a person at the time of his death or afterwards (the legal status of this blood is that of a corpse itself and is therefore an ultimate primary source of ritual impurity) and heathens that made themselves like those with gonorrhea, and similar things to this, if there is a doubt if he touched them or did not touch them.

ספיקו טמא – but however a primary source of ritual impurity that is from the words of the Scribes (i.e., Rabbinic) that it itself is from doubt, as for example the בית הפרס/area in which uncertainty exists concerning the location of a grave or corpse (i.e., a field containing a grave that was unintentionally plowed and the bones may have been strewn throughout the field, and a grave containing a grave the location of which is unknown), if there is in it a bone the bulk of a barleycorn or not. In this, it is taught in the Mishnah above (see Mishnah 5) that when their contact is definite, we burn them, but on their doubtful contact we don’t burn them, for this is a ספק ספיקא/compound uncertainty [which is ruled with leniency].