En cuanto a un manantial que se hizo pasar por un canal [hecho por el hombre], [una mikve llena de sus aguas] no es válido. Si se hizo pasar una cantidad [incluso mínima] [de agua] sobre su borde, es válido [para inmersión] fuera de él [en cualquier lugar fuera del canal, e incluso en su borde], ya que un resorte purifica [incluso] con una cantidad mínima Si se hizo pasar por encima de una piscina y [entonces] se detuvo, [el agua de manantial en la piscina] es [considerada como] como una mikve [una recolección de agua recolectada por medios naturales y sumergida para su purificación ] Si uno regresó y lo dibujó [la primavera] para continuar [fluyendo hacia la piscina nuevamente], no es válido para [la purificación de] zavim [hombres que tenían ciertos tipos de descargas genitales atípicas que los hacen impuros y que requieren inmersión en agua que fluye naturalmente], y para los leprosos, y para santificar las aguas chatat de ellos [con las cenizas de una novilla roja, como parte de un ritual de purificación], hasta que las aguas originales se hayan ido.
Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
מעין שהעבירו על גבי השוקת – which is a utensil, and not the trough/grooved stone that is in the rock.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
[Water from] a spring which is made to pass over into a trough becomes invalid. The trough that is set into the rock in the ground is considered a vessel. Therefore, when they direct the water from the spring into and through the trough, it gains the status of "drawn water" and cannot be used for a mikveh. The trough in this case is not above the spring, as it was in the case in 4:5.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
פסול – to immerse in the water that is within the trough and in the water that leaves and passes from the trough outwards, since all of the waters of the spring spill into the trough. But if the waters of the spring pass on the rim of the trough a bit, even though that some of them pass into the trough, it is kosher/fit to immerse in the waters that are on the rim of the trough or outside of it, for the spring purifies with a miniscule amount.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
If it was made to pass over the edge in any quantity, [what is] outside [the trough] is valid, for [the water of] a spring purifies however little its quantity. In this case, most of the waters from the spring pass into the trough but some go over the edge, outside of the trough. Even if the part of the spring that goes outside of the trough is only the smallest amount, it still validates the remainder of the water, because the living waters of the spring purify the drawn water from the trough even in the smallest amount. The only thing one couldn't do in this case is immerse directly into the water in the trough.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
והפסיקו – for the waters of a pool are not attached to the spring.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
If it is made to pass over into a pool and then is stopped, the pool counts as a mikveh. If the spring is made to flow into a pool and then the spring is stopped up, the pool becomes a mikveh. When there are forty seahs in the mikveh, it will purify.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
הרי הוא כמקוה – but it doesn’t purify with a miniscule amount until there will be there forty Seah.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
If it is made to flow again, it is invalid for zavim and for those with skin disease and for the preparation of the hatat waters until it is known that the former [water] is gone. If he lets the spring flow again the water that immediately flows after the point at which it had been stopped cannot be used for those people who require "living waters" zavim, people with tzaraat (skin disease) and for preparing that hatat waters (red heifer waters). The spring cannot be used until the water that had been temporarily stopped is gone, because once the water was stopped, it is no longer living waters.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
חזר והמשיכו – that he attached the waters of the spring to the pool.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
פסול לזבים – that already stopped up their living [waters]. But regarding those with gonorrhea and lepers and waters of purification [mixed with the ashes of the red heifer for those made impure through contact with a corpse], it is written concerning them [that they require] potable, running spring water (see also Tractate Mikvaot, Chapter 1, Mishnah 8).
