A place that was a private domain, and then became a public domain, and then was turned again into a private domain: while it is a private domain its uncertainty [i.e. any cases of uncertainty regarding the purity status of something found in it] is impure; while it is a public domain its uncertainty is pure. A man who was gravely ill in a private domain, and they took him out into a public domain, and then they returned him to a private domain: while he is in the private domain his uncertainty [i.e. the uncertainty of the purity status of any person or object that came in contact with him, if it was not clear whether he was alive or dead at the time] is impure; while he is in the public domain his uncertainty is pure. Rabbi Shimon says: the public domain interrupts [i.e. and once he is in the public domain and thereby determined to be alive, we can no longer maintain that earlier, while he was in the private domain, he was dead].
Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
מקום שהיה רשות היחיד ונעשה רשות הרבים – as, for example a valley, plane, that in the rainy season it is the private domain, and in the days of summer heat it is the public domain.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Tahorot
A place that was a private domain and then became a public domain and then was turned again into a private domain: while it is a private domain any condition of doubt arising in it is unclean but while it is a public domain any condition of doubt arising in it is deemed clean. The mishnah discusses a place that was essentially a private domain and then many people passed through it, causing it to become a public domain temporarily. Basically, if a situation of doubtful impurity arises, the place is judged as it is at the moment when the doubt arises. If the doubt arises when it is a private domain, the rule is strict, as it always is in a private domain. But there is room to be lenient if the doubt arises in a public domain.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
המסוכן – a person who fainted/swooned and it is not known from him if he is living or dead.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Tahorot
If a man who was dangerously ill in a private domain was taken out into a public domain and then brought back into a private domain, while he is in the private domain any condition of doubt arising through him is deemed unclean but while he is in the public domain any condition of doubt arising through him is deemed clean. Rabbi Shimon says: the public domain causes a break. This is a similar rule with regard to a person who is dangerously ill and about to die. He begins in a private domain, others then take him out, assumedly on a stretcher and he passes through a public domain and then he goes back into a private domain. If he is found dead in the public domain, then only the things that are with him in the public domain are impure. We don't assume that he died in the first private domain because when a doubt occurs in a public domain, the doubt remains pure. However, if he is found dead in the second private domain then anything that was with him in the first private domain is also considered impure. This is because we apply the normal rule any case of doubt that arises in the private domain is impure. The doubt here is whether he was dead when he went through the first private domain. Rabbi Shimon rules that the public domain interrupts because we can't say he was dead in the first private domain, alive in the public domain and then dead again in the second private domain. Since we treat the things that were with him in the public domain as pure, then we are in essence saying he must have died in the second private domain. Only the things found there are impure.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
והחזירוהו לרה"י – and there they saw him that he died.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
כשהוא ברה"י ספיקו טמא – and we declare him impure, from doubt every person and vessels that were with him in the private domain when he was there at first. But people and vessels that were with him in the public domain after they removed him from the private domain are ritually pure. For it is manner of doubtful defilement in the public domain and his manner of doubt is ritually pure.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
ר' שמעון אומר רשות הרבים מפסקת (the public domain intervenes) – since we consider him as living after they removed him from the private domain to the public domain, and we declare ritually pure vessels and people that were with him in the public domain for perhaps he is alive, how can we consider him dead retroactively before he left from the private domain, by force we are not able to defile from doubt a person or vessels that were with him in the private domain originally, since the public domain that they eventually took him out there intervenes and you must consider him as living and purify a person and vessels that were with him. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Shimon.
