Une maison qui sert un mur [est gouvernée selon] la peau d'ail. Comment? Un mur entre deux cryptes ou entre deux grottes, s'il y avait des impuretés dans les maisons et les récipients dans le mur et [la cloison] au-dessus d'eux était [aussi mince] qu'une peau d'ail, ils sont purs. Si l'impureté est dans le mur et que les récipients sont dans la maison et que [la cloison] au-dessus d'eux était aussi [mince qu'une] peau d'ail, ils sont purs. Si l'impureté était sous un pilier, l'impureté perce et monte, perce et descend.
Bartenura on Mishnah Oholot
בית המשמש את הכותל – the caves that are under the street when they dig a sepulchral chamber for a corpse from this side and a sepulchral chamber for a corpse from the other side, it is found that the wall is made of its own, and because of this, we call it a house which serves the wall that through the digging, the wall was made, but building that is upon the ground, the wall causes the house that it will be a house, and because of this, we call it [see above, Mishnah 3], “a wall that serves the house”
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English Explanation of Mishnah Oholot
A house serving a wall is subject to the principle of garlic-skin. Today's mishnah deals with a case where some sort of natural wall, such as a wall of rocks in the ground, existed before the building of the house adjacent to it. This is different from a case in which a wall was built in order to serve a house, a case discussed in mishnah three.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Oholot
טומאה בבתים – in the sepulchral chambers and in the cavities/caves.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Oholot
How so? [In the case of] a wall between two tomb-niches or two caverns, The wall described here exists between two structures hewn in the ground, either two tomb-niches, places in which people used to bury the dead, or two caverns.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Oholot
ועליהן כקליפת השום טהורין – because they form a partition to the defilement and their law is not like the law of a wall that is between two houses (see Mishnah 4).
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English Explanation of Mishnah Oholot
If there is uncleanness in them and vessels in the walls, and there is a covering thin as garlic-skin over them, they remain clean. If there is a source of uncleanness in one of these places, and there are vessels in the wall, even a covering as thin as the skin of garlic will protect them from becoming unclean. Note that if this was a wall built to be part of a house, the vessels would be impure. Since this wall was not built to be part of the house, as long as it is separate, the contents found inside the wall are not actually part of the house.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Oholot
טומאה בוקעת ועולה בוקעת ויורדת – and all that is juxtaposed to the defilement above and/or below is impure according to the law of all covered defilement, but from the sides it is pure, and the same law applies to the pillar that is in the house.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Oholot
If the uncleanness is in the wall and the vessels are in them, and there is a covering thin as garlic-skin over the uncleanness, they remain clean. The same is true in the opposite case, when the source of impurity is found in the wall and the vessels are in the tomb-niches or in the caverns.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Oholot
If there is uncleanness beneath a pillar, the uncleanness cleaves upwards and downwards. If there is a source of uncleanness beneath a pillar it spreads up and down so that anything inside the pillar or on top of it or buried further beneath it is impure. However, it does not defile things found on the side because the pillar is not like a wall serving to close in another structure.
