Si l'on y plonge un lit [dans un mikvé contenant précisément quarante se'ah ], même si ses jambes s'enfoncent dans une boue épaisse [au fond du mikvé , qui n'est pas compté comme faisant partie de ses eaux], il est pur, car les eaux le précèdent. Si les eaux d'un mikvé sont peu profondes [telles qu'on ne peut pas immerger son corps tout entier à la fois], on peut même alourdir des bottes de bois ou des bottes de roseaux [avec des poids, d'un côté du mikvé ,] de sorte que les eaux se lever, puis il peut descendre et s'immerger. En ce qui concerne une aiguille [impure] sur les marches d’une caverne [qui abrite un mikvé ], si l’on faisait des va-et-vient des eaux [en remuant les eaux avec ses mains ou ses pieds], une fois qu’une vague passe dessus [l’aiguille ], c'est pur.
Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
הטביל בו את המטה – whose legs are high, and it is impossible to ritually immerse all of it as one in a small Mikveh like this whose measurements are exact, unless its legs sink down in the [thick] mud.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
If he immersed a bed in it, even though its legs sink into the thick mud, it still becomes clean because the water touched them before [the mud]. Since the legs of the bed are immersed in the mikveh's waters before they sink into the mud at the bottom of the mikveh, they are clean. Note that this mikveh has at least forty seahs of water. Furthermore, immersing only in water thick with mud would not suffice to make something clean (see mishnah one of this chapter).
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
העבה – that is not miry (see Mishnah 1 of this chapter), and we don’t ritually immerse in it.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
The water of a mikveh which is shallow, one may press down even bundles of sticks, even bundles of reeds, so that the level of the water may rise, and then go down and immerse oneself. This mikveh is shallow but still has exactly forty seahs of water. The problem is that the water is too shallow to immerse his whole body. He may take bundles of wood or reeds and place them on the sides of the mikveh to create a narrower deeper space. He is allowed to do this even though water will creep into the sides of the mikveh in between the spaces within the bundles of the wood or reeds and thereby reduce the volume of the other water in the mikveh. The mishnah teaches that the water in these spaces counts in constituting the requisite forty seahs for a mikveh.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
שהמים מקדמין – to ritually immerse the legs prior to its sinking in the mud, and it was [ritually] immersed in water.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
If an [unclean] needle is placed on the step [leading down to a mikveh] in a cavern, and the water is put in motion, once a wave has passed over it, [the needle] becomes clean. The wave of water that reaches up from the mikveh and immerses the unclean needle is sufficient to purify the needle.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
שמימיו מרודדים – that the waters are not deep, on account that the Mikveh is wide and the waters spread out throughout all of it, and even though it has forty Seah one’s whole body is not covered with water all at once.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
כובש (presses down) – to one side of the Mikveh.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
אפילו חבילי עצים וקנים – and even though it appears like a Mikveh that they divided, nevertheless since the water enters between them, it is not a division. And the word וכובש"”/he presses that it (i.e., the Mishnah) uses, because the wood and the reeds float over the face of the water and heneeds to press upon them stones in order that they will enter underneath the water.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
היה מוליך ומביא במים – he shakes/stirs the water with his hand.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
כיון שעבר הגל – [the wave] of water over the top of the Mikveh that the needle is placed in it and the waters of the wave have floated over the needle, it is [ritually] pure. And because the needle is thin and small, and he fears lest it will fall into the water, this is the manner of [ritually] immersing it.
