Per quanto riguarda le piscine purificanti in uno stabilimento balneare [utilizzate per il risciacquo in acqua fredda dopo un bagno caldo], dove una inferiore è riempita con acque estratte e una superiore è riempita con [acque] valide, se ci sono tre tronchi di fronte all'apertura [collegando i due pool], [il pool superiore] non è valido [a causa dei tre log , se contiene meno di quaranta se'ah ]. Quanto deve superare la buca affinché contenga tre tronchi ? Un trecentoventesimo della piscina [vale a dire, poiché tre è un trecentoventesimo di 960, che è il numero di log in quaranta se'ah ], secondo Rabbi Yose. Il rabbino Elazar dice: anche se quello inferiore è pieno di acqua [valida] e quello superiore è pieno di acqua estratta, e ci sono tre tronchi di fronte all'apertura, è valido, poiché [i Saggi] hanno detto solo "tre tronchi che cadde "[in un mikveh incompleto lo invalida; e un caso del genere non è considerato rientrante].
Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
המטהרת שבמרחץ (the water pipe/filter of a bath/gutter) – the troughs/gutters (i.e., grooved stones to receive and carry off the overflow of a well/sink) that are made in a bath that channel to them cold water to rinse them off in order to purify themselves after they washed in hot water, and sometimes they are two troughs one on the side of the other, that the one is higher than its neighbor. And there is a hole in the wall that is between both of them that water goes out from this one to that one.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
Introduction
Today's mishnah deals with a pool of cool water that people were accustomed to immerse in after bathing in the hot waters of the bathhouse. The waters in the bathhouse were definitely drawn water, so one would need to purify after emerging from the hot bath.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
אם יש כנגד הנקב שלשה לוגין – that the hole/perforation is wide and long like the measurement that three LOGS will enter into it, the upper [Mikveh] is invalidated on account of the drawn water that is in the lower one, for it is considered as if the water that corresponds the cavity of the hole are drawn in the middle of the upper [Mikveh], not from the side, and three LOG of drawn water invalidate when they are in the middle, even though they do not invalidate from the side. And the remarkable thing is what it (i.e., the Tanna/teacher of our Mishnah) took that the bottom one is drawn water, and the upper one is fit/kosher water, for it is the manner of water to descend and it is not the manner of water to ascend, but nevertheless, the upper [Mikveh] is invalidated. And all the more so, that it (i.e., the Mikveh) is invalidated when the kosher/fit is to side of the lower one.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
The ‘purifier' in the bathhouse: the bottom was full of drawn [water] and the top full of valid [water], if [the space] in front of the hole can contain three logs it is invalid [as a mikveh]. How large must the hole be to contain three logs? 1/320th of the pool, the words of Rabbi Yose. There are two pools next to each other, one elevated above the other. The bottom one contains drawn water and the top is full of valid water. The two pools are connected by a hole. If the hole can contain three logs (the amount of drawn water that invalidates a mikveh) then we look at it as if the water from the lower pool has gone into the upper pool and its waters are invalid to use as a mikveh. If a normal pool has forty seahs, which is equivalent to 960 logs of water (1 seah=24 logs) then three logs are 1/320th of the size of a normal mikveh.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
כמה יהא בנקב – now it comes to teach us what is the measurement of the hole/incision that three LOG [of water[ came out from it at one time.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Mikvaot
But Rabbi Elazar says: even if the bottom [pipe] was full of valid [water] and the top [pipe] full of drawn [water] and by the hole's side were three logs, [the bath is] valid, for they have only said: "if three logs fell in." Rabbi Elazar says that three logs invalidate a mikveh only if they fall in. They do not invalidate a mikveh in a case such as we have here, because in this case there was invalid water standing next to valid water and connected by a hole. This same literal reading of the older tradition was found above in mishnah four.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
אחד משלש מאות ועשרים בבריכה – that three LOG are 1/320th [it needs to say from forty Seah]. How so? The Seah is six KAB, and the KAB is four LOG, it is found that forty SEAH are nine hundred and sixty LOG. Thus three LOG are 1/320th part of a pool, meaning to say, that in a kosher Mikveh of forty Seah, and the Sages estimated the measurement of a Mikveh that holds forty Seah, a cubit by a cubit at the height of three cubits, for the measurement of the hole/incision that holds three LOG is 1/320th from a cubit by a cubit at the height of three cubits that hold forty Seah. And Maimonides wrote, that if the pool was less or more than forty Sea, we calculate the hole/incision at less or more according to this calculation, as for example, if the pool had twenty Seah [of water], the hole must be 1/160th in size.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
אפילו התחתון מלאה כשרים והעליונה מלאה שאובין – that it is the manner of water to descend, nevertheless, three LOGS of drawn water that are in the hole do not invalidate the lower [Mikveh].
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Bartenura on Mishnah Mikvaot
שלא אמרו אלא שלשה לוגין שנפלו – for the drawn water does not invalidate the Mikveh until it falls itno it. And the Halakha is according to Rabbi Yossi.
