פירוש על כלים 18:3

אע"פ שמקבלים (even though they contain/retain) – that is to say, even though they did not make an incision while taking the legs, and they have a receptacle as at the outset.

If one of the legs was missing from a chest, a box or a cupboard, even though it is still capable of holding [things], it is clean, since it cannot hold [things] in the usual manner. But Rabbi Yose says: it is susceptible to impurity. According to the first opinion, if a leg is missing the box, chest or cupboard is no longer susceptible to impurity, even if it can still hold things in it. The reason it is clean is that it can no longer be used in its usual fashion. Rabbi Yose says that as long as the box, chest or cupboard is usable, it is still susceptible.

טהורין – that since he took one of their legs off, they were no longer regarded as a vessel, because they do not receive/retain in their manner, but rather lean to one side and are like they are broken.

The poles of a bed, its base, and [its] covering are clean. The mishnah now begins to discuss the various parts of beds. The poles, the base and the bed covering are all clean, because they are no truly necessary for the bed's functioning. The poles stand one at each end of the bed and they hold up the canopy.

ר' יוסי מטמא – since no incision had been made in them with the removal of one of their legs. But the Halakah is not according to Rabbi Yossi. But Maimonides had a different reading:"ושאינן מקבלים כדרכן ר' יוסי מטמא." (i.e., instead of saying: “even though that they do not contain something according to their usual fashion. Rabbi Yossi declares ritually impure/unclean,” Maimonides’ version of the text states, “they do not contain something according to their usual fashion.”). But it is something for itself, and this is how he understood it. A chest, a box and a turret which do not contain forty Seah when they sit in the prescribed manner, if one tilts them/causes them to lean, they contain forty Seah, Rabbi Yossi declares them unclean/impure since they don’t contain according to their usual fashion, but the Sages state for since that they do contain/retain, nevertheless, they are considered and containing forty Seah and are pure.

Only the bed itself and its rectangle [frame] are susceptible to uncleanness. The rectangular frame is put into the empty area of the bed and the bedding is placed on it. Since the frame and the bed are actually slept upon, they are susceptible to impurity.

נקליטי המטה (poles of the bed) – two pillars, one from about the head of the bed and one at its foot and they place a staff from one to the other and cast a sheet over it and it becomes a tent.

The rectangle frames of the Levites are clean. The Levites would take their rectangular frames with them when they went to Jerusalem and sleep on them without putting them into a real bed. Since they were not used with a bed, they are not susceptible to impurity.

וחמור (a stand on which the bedstead is placed) – under the frame of the bed, they place a hallow piece of wood that he frame is lying upon, and it is called a חמור/a stand.

וחפוי (a covering) – as for example, a covering that cover the bed and its poles.

טהורים – that is metal which serves the wood.

מלבן (frame) – hollow tablets made to be placed under the legs of the bed so that they do not rot from the moistness of the ground, and they are carried with the bed, therefore they are ritually impure, for they are similar to the bed.

ומלבני בני לוי טהורין – because they would regularly go to Jerusalem and would go from city to city and they don’t bring the beds with them but they do bring the frames, therefore, even though they are fixed in the bottoms of the bed, for since they will ultimately be taken up, they are not considered like the bed.