Comentario sobre Makhshirin 5:9

כל הנצוק טהור (an uninterrupted flow of a liquid poured from vessel to vessel is pure) – if he empties from a ritually pure vessel to an impure vessel, what is in the uppermost is ritually pure, for an uninterrupted flow of a liquid is not a connection, except for those which are considered, because the jet of a viscous mass, when poured out and stopped, bounds backwards (and the connection with eh mass in the unclean vessel is not suddenly severed – see also Tractate Taharot, Chapter 8, Mishnah 9: an uninterrupted flow, a current on slanting ground and…, are not considered a connection of the two liquids, either for communicating uncleanness or for producing cleanness), when the continuous flow is stopped, the remainder returns upwards.

Introduction This mishnah deals with the case of liquid being poured from a top vessel to a lower vessel. The lower vessel has impure liquids, or liquids that cause susceptibility. The mishnah rules that with a few exceptions the impurity of the lower vessel's liquids does not flow upwards to the higher vessel. We should note that while this seems to be a boring, technical subject, this very subject was the source of a bitter debate between the Pharisees and the Dead Sea Sect. The latter group wrote a letter called "Miktzat Maase Torah" or "The Halakhic Scroll" in which they complain that the leaders in Jerusalem are not observing Jewish law correctly. Among their complaints is the claim that those Jews in Jerusalem purify the "pouring flow" they use the same Hebrew word as is found in the Mishnah. In other words, archaeologists have found and reconstructed the historical basis of this Mishnah and what looked like simply another detail in a sea of details, was actually a real topic in the Second Temple period, one that was hotly contested by two rival groups. People split apart their communities over issues like this. I don't know if you find this fascinating, but I do! [This topic was also covered in Toharot 8:9].

חוץ מדבש הזיפים (except for the thick honey) – there are those who explain good and important honey, and because of its importance, they make it thick/viscid and mix into it worthless matter. But there are those who say, it is on account of the name of its place that it comes from Zif. It is like (Psalms 54:2): “When the Ziphites came and told Saul: [“Know David is hiding among us].”

A flow pouring [from one vessel to another] is clean, except [the flow] of honey of ziphim bees and honey batter. The upper liquids remain clean except in the case of honey. Since honey is thick, the rabbis consider it to be attached to the lower liquid.

והצפחת (or a tenacious batter dripped on a hot griddle/a sort of waffle) – food made from flour and הhoney and it is so soft that they are able to pour it and similar to it (Exodus 16:31): “it tasted like wafers in honey.”

Bet Shammai say: also [the flow of] thick pottage of split beans, because it thickens up backwards. Bet Shammai rules slightly more strictly. A thick pottage of split beans will also convey impurity from below to above.

המקפה (pulp/stiff mass of grist) – a cooked dish that is not soft nor hard but rather a formation of a coagulated substance/froth that is called מקפה.

של גריסין (a dish of pounded grains) – grounded/milled beans or beans in a mill

ושל פולים – complete that are not grist in the mill.

מפני שהיא סולדת לאחוריה (because it shrinks backward) – when the continuous flow is stopped, that continuous flow/jet returns that flows gently that part of it was in impure liquids that were in the lower vessel and were conducted in a channel above to liquids that are in the pure upper vessel, and it defiles everything that is in the upper vessel.