Taharos 7:6 - 7:7

הגבאים שנכנסו לבית (of Israelites) -they are tax collectors of the king to collect from the hand of an Israel the money of their capitation tax and the taxes and taxes from crops and other farmer’s produces delivered in kind, and they are commoners/not careful in the observance of the laws of Levitical purity and tithing, and they entered into his house to seize his pledge.

הבית טמא – all the vessels of the house are ritually impure because they search throughout the house.

אם יש עמהן גוי נאמנים לומר לא נכנסנו – and all the more so if there isn’t a heathen with them, they are more and more believed to state, “we have not entered.” But because of the concluding phrase of the clause of the Mishnah, it (i.e., the Mishnah) took it (i.e., these words), as it is taught: “but they are not believed to state – we entered, but didn’t touch,” for specifically if there is a heathen with them they are not believed, for they are frightened/trembling from the heathen lest he punish them if they don’t search through the entire house, and by force they feel touch/handle everything that is in the house. But if there is no heathen with them, they are believed even in this to state, “we entered but we didn’t touch [anything].”

אם יש עמהן גוי או אשה – that they (i.e., the Rabbis) decreed on the heathens to be like people with gonorrhea/זבים for all of their matters. And the woman, perhaps she is a menstruating woman/נדה or a זבה/woman with a flux.

אודיארין (store-keeper) – a bathing attendant – who receives a small coin as a fee/keeper of the clothes at the baths, the owners of the bathhouses which have many windows/apertures and anyone who enters to the bathhouse places his clothes in a window and he (i.e., the bathing attendant) locks them up with a door that is in the aperture/window.

רבי אליעזר בן עזריה מטהר – from the time that he looks the door in front of the window/aperture. And we are not concerned that perhaps a ritually impure person will touch there, after he is seized as a thief.

עד שיתן לו המפתח – and even though he places the key in the hand of the bathing attendant who is a commoner/not stringent in the observance of the Levitical laws of purity and tithes, for it is taught in the Mishnah (a text which I could not find) above (note: we have a teaching in the Tosefta Tractate Taharot, Chapter 8, Halakha 1 that teaches the reverse: "המוסר מפתח לעם הארץ הבית טמא"/He who gives over the key to a commoner, the house is ritually impure – the exact reverse of what the Bartenura commentary is pointing out and which agrees with the view of the Sages): “He who gives over the key to a commoner, the house is ritually pure.

או עד שיעשה לו סימן – to recognize that no person touched there. And the Halakha is according to the Sages.

המניח את כליו – vessels that he cut grapes with in ritual purity in this year, he leaves them to cut grapes with them in ritual purity in the following year.

בנכרי כליו טהורין – we have this reading, meaning to say, if he left them with a heathen, there is no prohibition of wine poured as a libation/יין נסך associated with them, for we are not concerned that perhaps a Canaanite took them without the knowledge of the Israelite to make [wine] with them in the vat for wine-pressing.

ובישראל – for he worries/is concerned about them because of defilement through contact, they are ritually impure if his attention was diverted from them, until he says: It was my intention (literally, in my heart) to guard them. But there are books in which we do not have the reading [of the word]: "בנכרי"/with a heathen, but rather a person who leaves a vessel from this vintage to the next vintage, his vessels are ritually pure, and we are dealing with a Kohen who purchases wine of heave-offering/priest’s due from a commoner/who is not careful in his observance of the laws of Levitical purity or tithes and leaves his vessels with him in order that he can purchase from him during the next vintage, for since the vessels belong to a Kohen, the commoner trembles and doesn’t touch them. But if the vessels are of an Israelite who desires to make his wine in a state of ritual purity, a commoner is not all that careful with them, and we are concerned that perhaps a ritually impure person touched them, if his attention was diverted from them, until he states: “it was my intention to guard them.”