Comentario sobre Yadayim 4:5

תרגום שכתבו עברית – The Aramaic interpretation/version that are in [the books of] Daniel and Ezra and [passages such as] (Jeremiah 10:11): “Thus you shall say to them: [Let the gods, who did not make heaven and earth, perish from the earth and from under these heavens],” if they wrote it in the Holy Tongue (i.e., Hebrew), and similarly, the words of the Prophet that are stated in the Holy Tongue that are written in Aramaic interpretation/version, do not defile the hands.

Introduction Today's mishnah returns to the subject of scrolls defiling the hands.

כתב עברי – the writing that comes from the other side of the river (i.e., Euphrates in Babylonia). But the Cutheans (i.e., Samaritans) write this way until today, but the Israelites would use the same script in their secular words. And on the coins that are found in our hands today that were from the time of the Kings of Israel, they are engraved with this same script. But the script that we write Scrolls with today, it is called the Assyrian script (i.e., the modern form of Hebrew type – which was brought along by the returning Babylonian captives, and made to supersede the older Syriac or Samaritan letters), and it is the script that was on the Tablets [of the Law – i.e., the Ten Commandments]. And it is called Ashuri/Assyrian, which is the most substantial of the scripts (see also Sanhedrin 22a), it is the language of (Genesis 30:13): “Women will deem me fortunate. [So she named him Asher].”

The Aramaic sections in Ezra and Daniel defile the hands. If an Aramaic section was written in Hebrew, or a Hebrew section was written in Aramaic, or [Hebrew which was written with] Hebrew script, it does not defile the hands. It never defiles the hands until it is written in the Assyrian script, on parchment, and in ink. There are some portions of the book of Ezra and the book of Daniel that are in Aramaic, not Hebrew. These sections defile the hands just as do other portions of the Bible. The fact that they are in Aramaic does not make them less holy.

This section seems to teach that Aramaic and Hebrew are not inherently holy languages such that they should defile the hands. If a portion of the Bible that is in Hebrew was translated into Aramaic (targum) it doesn't defile the hands. Neither do Hebrew translations of the Aramaic parts of the Bible. The Hebrew script we use is called Assyrian script. The older script is called by scholars "Phoenician script" and is called by the rabbis "Hebrew script." According to the Talmud, Ezra switched the script from the ancient Hebrew to the Assyrian. If a scroll of the Tanakh was written in this ancient script, it does not defile the hands.

Only Tanakh scrolls written with the proper script, Assyrian, on parchment (made from the hides of an animal) and with ink are valid as ritual objects. Therefore, only these scrolls defile the hands.