Commentaire sur Kéilim 28:5

כיפה – a wrap that is on the head of a woman. And it has defilement through treading, for sometimes she sits upon it.

Introduction This mishnah deals with various cases where one cloth item that is susceptible to impurity is turned into a different item that is also susceptible to impurity. The question is: does it lose its earlier impurity?

ונתנו על הספר – if he designated it for a Scroll and wrapped it upon it (i.e., the Scroll).

If a head-wrap that had contracted midras uncleanness was wrapped around a scroll, it is released from midras uncleanness but it remains susceptible to corpse uncleanness. Head-wraps are susceptible to midras impurity for occasionally a person will use it for sitting. However, undecorated scroll covers are susceptible only to corpse uncleanness (see yesterday's mishnah). So when he changes the head-wrap to a scroll cover it loses its midras uncleanness but it is now susceptible to corpse uncleanness.

טהור מן המדרס – but it is impure regarding other defilements.

A skin that was made into a rug or a rug that was made into a skin becomes clean. A skin for carrying liquids is not in the same category as a rug. Therefore, if one changes a skin into a rug or vice versa, the vessel is pure. Note that it is susceptible to impurity; it only loses its old impurity.

חמת (waterskin) – a bottle made of [leather] hide.

A skin that was made into a [shepherd's] wallet or a [shepherd's] wallet that was made into a skin; Or a cushion cover that was made into a sheet or a sheet that was made into a cushion cover; Or a sheet cover that was made into a plain sheet or a plain sheet that was made into a sheet cover, remains unclean. In all of these cases he changes something to something else that is in the same general category. Therefore, the object retains its impurity.

שעשאו שטיח – a hide stretched on the ground to sit upon it. And a waterskin and a rug are both impure through treading/Midras, and even so, since they are different one from the other, and even without the change of action, it is like a vessel that is broken and is pure, but it is susceptible to receive defilement from here onwards.

This is the general rule: any object that has been changed into one of the same class remains unclean, but if into one of another class it becomes clean. This is the general rule that explains the distinction between the case found in section two and that found in section three.

כסת שעשאו מטפחת ומטפחת שעשאו כסת טהור (a bolster/cushion that one made into a wrap and a wrap that one made into a bolster/cushion is pure) – And we don’t have the reading of טמא/impure [as does the Mishnah]. And this is the reading of my Rabbis/teachers. And similarly, I found in an accurate Mishnah. And this is proved from the Tosefta (see Tosefta Kelim Bava Batra, Chapter 6, Halakha 1), and the reason that in all of them, it is pure, as is taught in the Mishnah close by (our Mishnah): “This is the general principle: Anything which one changed for [something] in its own category is impure, and for [something in] another category is pure./"זה הכלל: כל ששנהו לשמו – טמא, לשם אחר – טהור"’, and it explains in the Tosefta: for something in its own category – from a flat vessel to a flat vessel, as for example, from a rug to a wrap or from a wrap to a rug, and in another category, from a simple vessel to a receptacle or from a receptacle to a simply vessel, and also from one receptacle to another receptacle, everything that is a change that is not in its own category is ritually pure. And if so, the waterskin that was made into a bag that he changed it from one [kind of] receptacle to another kind of receptacle is also ritually pure. But if you raise the question, why didn’t they combine them and teach them [together] a waterskin that was made into a rug and a rug that was made into a waterskin at the same time, since all of them are ritually pure. But it is not difficult, because he needed to go back and teach [waterskin] another time, as it taught the waterskin that was made into a bag, and he would have had to teach a waterskin that was made into a rug or a bag, and he didn’t want to change fro the order of the other things. But most of the books have the reading of "טמא"/impure, and I don’t know how to resolve this “reading” correspondingly.