Shabbos 9:1 - 9:2

אמר ר"ע מנין לעבודת כוכבים שמטמאת במשא – since they are concerned above with an Asmakhta/a scriptural text used as a support for a rabbinic enactment and the Biblical verse of (Isaiah 30:22): “You will cast them away like a menstruous woman,” it is a support to the Biblical verse that was brought above (Isaiah 30:14 – see Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 8, Mishnah 7): “So that no shard is left in its breakage;” alternatively, because it was necessary to teach (Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 9, Mishnah 3), “from where do we learn that we wash the circumcised child on the third day if it falls on the Sabbath?,” they taught these which are compared to it.

מטמאה במשא – a person who carries it should wash his clothes and even if he didn’t touch it, such as it was in a box or something like that, and the Rabbis dispute on the statement of Rabbi Akiba and state that he does not become ritually defiled other than through contact like an unclean reptile, and the Halakha is according to the Sages.

תזרם כמו (אשה) דוה – that is to say, it should be in your eyes like foreigners like depressed like a menstruant woman, as it is written (Leviticus 15:33): “and concerning her who is in menstrual infirmity” and the Biblical verse is speaking about idolatry.

שהיא טהורה – that it is not susceptible to ritual defilement.

בלב ים – for it is obvious that a ship is in the heart of the sea, but rather, it comes to inform us that a ship is a receptacle/pouch; just as the see is ritually pure, so too the ship is pure, and even it if is of earthenware, and even if it is laden on the dry land and they lowered it into the sea.

שזורעים בה חמשה זרעונים – and there is within it in order to set aside between them the appropriate difference so there will not be any confusion/mixture.

ארבעה בארבע רוחות להערוגה – they fill each direction until near the corner and in the middle, they don’t sow other than one globule in order that the globule that is in the center will be distant three handbreadths from what is sown in each direction, for the measure of absorption of each sown area is one-and-one-half handbreadths , and even though that nearest the corners in the directions of the seeds that are closest to each other, and there isn’t between them a distance of three handbreadths, and they absorb from each other, and in this case there is no room for doubt, for the Biblical verse was strict only about Kilayim/mixed seeds, and there was no confusion, and we don’t concern ourselves about absorption as it is taught in the Mishnah (Tractate Bava Batra, Chapter 2, Mishnah 12): “If there was a fence between them, this one relies on the fence from this direction and the other relies on the fence from that direction” and even though they absorb from underneath , and here there is a large recognition that the the this direction is sown to the north and the south and that direction is sown to the east and the west, but between the intermediate seed to the seeds of the directions, there is no recognition, and if they were brought close, there would be confusion; therefore, there is a need for distance in order to absorb.

שנאמר כי כארץ תוציא צמחה – (through the analysis of words in the verse – Isaiah 61:11: “For just as the earth brings forth her growth, and a garden makes the seed shoot up, (So the LORD God will make victory and renown shoot up in the presence of the nations”]) – "תוציא" /bring forth – is one; "צמחה"/her growth – is one; "זרועיה"/the seed – is two; "תצמיח"/shoot up – is one – that makes five. But the six handbreadths cannot be derived from Biblical verse but rather it is established by the Rabbis that the five rows of plants in six handbreadths, the four corners will not absorb from the middle and the middle will not [absorb] from the corners, for the measurement of absorption of each seed is a handbreadth and a half; therefore, Scripture hints that five rows of plants in one bed that is six handbreadths, is as stated. And in Tractate Kilayim, I explained the laws of a a bed and its details and its specifications, but here I shortened it.