En ce qui concerne un mur [divisant] entre deux mikvaot [qui ne contiennent que quarante se'ah si combinés], s'il [le mur] a été fendu le long de sa chaîne [c'est-à-dire en hauteur, de haut en bas], il est [considéré] joint ensemble [et les deux sont valides]; si le long de sa trame [c'est-à-dire dans le sens de la longueur, d'un côté à l'autre], il n'est pas [considéré] combiné, à moins qu'il n'y ait [au moins] un endroit [où il y a une ouverture] de la taille du tube d'un flacon. Le rabbin Yehuda dit: la question est inversée. S'ils [les eaux] se sont enfoncées les unes dans les autres [c'est-à-dire si le haut du mur a été percé et que les eaux s'y mélangent, une brèche] la hauteur d'une peau d'ail et la largeur du tube d'un flacon [leur suffisent à considérer comme combiné].
Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
לשתי – from above to below.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
If a wall between two mikvaot had a perpendicular crack, [their waters] may be reckoned together; [If it was cracked] horizontally, they cannot be reckoned together, unless there is at one place [a hole as big] as the tube of a water-skin. Rabbi Judah says: the rule is reversed. According to the first opinion, perpendicular cracks between the walls that runs add up together, such that if all of the cracks add up to the size of the tube of a water-skin, then the two mikvaot can be reckoned together to reach the requisite 40 seahs. However, if the crack runs horizontally, then there must be at least the size of the tube of a water-skin at one single point for the two mikvaot to be joined. Rabbi Judah says the reverse horizontal cracks do join together to add up the requisite size of a whole, but perpendicular cracks do not join together.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
לערב – from right to left.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
If there is a breach from one [mikveh] to the other, [they can be reckoned together] if the height is as [the thickness of] the skin of garlic and the breadth like the tube of a water-skin. For a breach to serve to connect two mikvaot that have a wall separating them, the breach must have a very minimum height, only as high as the skin of a piece of garlic. However, it must be as wide as the tube of a water-skin.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
חלוף הדברים – from above to below, it doesn’t combine, from right to left, it does combine. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Yehuda.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
נפרצו זה בתוך זה – that is from above at the top of the wall. And specifically when the wall is split/chipped off or perforated but above at its top it is whole, is where we require like the mouth-piece of the leather bottle, but when the wall is broken through at its top and the waters combine there, it is sufficient like the thickness of a garlic peel or like the width of the mouth-piece of a leather bottle.
