[Se] si spruzza la sua casa [con acqua] e [poi] ci mette del grano che diventa umido, se era a causa dell'acqua che raggiunge BeKhi Yutan ; e se fosse a causa della roccia [pavimento] non avrebbe raggiunto BeKhi Yutan . [Se] uno lava i suoi vestiti in un trogolo e [poi] ci mette del grano che si è inumidito, se era a causa dell'acqua che raggiunge BeKhi Yutan ; e se fosse per se stesso [il trogolo] non raggiungerebbe BeKhi Yutan . [Se] uno mette [frutta] nella sabbia per farlo umido, raggiunge BeKhi Yutan . Una volta accadde che il popolo di Machoz avrebbe smorzato [il suo grano] nella sabbia, [e] i Saggi dissero loro: se è così che agite, non avete mai fatto [cibo] puro nelle vostre vite.
Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
המרבץ את ביתו (he sprinkles his house) – he sprinkles water in it in order that the dust should not rise up.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Makhshirin
If one sprinkled [the floor of] his house [with water] and put wheat therein and it became moist: If [the moisture came] from the water, it comes under the law of ‘if water be put’; But if [the moisture came] from the stones [on the floor], it does not come under the law of ‘if water be put’. In mishnaic times people would sprinkle their floors with water in order to keep down the dust. A person did this and then put wheat on the floor (or it just got there somehow) and the wheat got moist. If the moisture came from the water he sprinkled on the floor then the wheat is susceptible to impurity because a person put the water there. If the moisture came from moisture that naturally accumulated on the floor then it is not susceptible to impurity because no one put that water there.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
וטננו (and the wheat grew prepared for grinding) – it became moistened. It is the language of moist and fat soil, that its explanation is a moist field in the first chapter of [Tractate] Moed Katan [6b].
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English Explanation of Mishnah Makhshirin
If one washed his garment in a tub and put wheat therein and it became moist: If [the moisture came] from the water, it comes under the law of ‘if water be put’; But if [the moisture came] of itself, it does not come under the law of ‘if water be put’. The same rule basically applies to someone who puts wheat in a laundry trough (after he has completed the laundry). If the wheat became moist due to the water that he put there, the wheat is susceptible.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
אם מחמת הסלע – a rock from the Six Days of Creation, and it is the floor of the house and through this, the wheat became moistened.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Makhshirin
If one put [produce] in sand for it to become moist, this comes under the law of ‘if water be put’. It happened with the men of Mahoz that they used to moisten [their produce] with sand, and the sages said to them: if you have always acted in this manner, you have never prepared your food in purity. In this case, although no one put the water into the sand, since he intended the produce to become wet, it is susceptible. In other words, from this mishnah we can see two possibilities for when liquid causes susceptibility to impurity. 1) If a person put the liquid where it currently is. 2) If he wanted the produce to come into contact with the liquid. As long as one of these is true, the produce is susceptible. Evidently, the people of Mahoz, a sandy region (see Mishnah Arakhin 3:2), were doing this their whole lives without knowing that this would cause their food to be susceptible. Poor guys!
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Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
המטנן בחול (one who prepares [fruit] by mixing with sand) – he who prepares fruit in sand in order that he can moisten it, that is to say, that they will be moistened, that they will receive from the moisture of the sand.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Makhshirin
הרי זה בכי יותן – for there is no sand without water.
