Loro [i bambini] sarebbero venuti sul monte del tempio e sarebbero scesi [dai buoi]. Il monte del tempio e i cortili del tempio sottostanti erano vuoti a causa delle tombe di profondità [in modo che il loro servizio di tempio dovrebbe essere fatto in purezza]. All'ingresso del cortile del tempio c'era una brocca di pietra contenente [le ceneri] di un chatat [giovenca rossa], che portavano una pecora maschio e legavano una corda tra le sue corna, e legavano un bastone con rami nella parte superiore di la corda e lancia [il bastone] nella caraffa, e colpisce il maschio [pecora] in modo che salti all'indietro [estraendo il bastone dal barattolo e spargendo alcune ceneri], e lui [il bambino] prenderà il [ sparse] ceneri e santificarle [mescolandole con l'acqua nella tazza], una quantità tale che le ceneri possano essere viste sulla superficie dell'acqua. Rabbi Yose dice: Non dare ai Saducei [una setta dell'era del secondo tempio che credeva solo nella validità della Torah scritta e non nella Torah orale] per ribellarsi [cioè per prenderci in giro]; piuttosto [il bambino] rimuoveva [le ceneri dalla brocca stessa] e le santificava [mescolandole con l'acqua].
Bartenura on Mishnah Parah
באו להר הבית – the young children that are upon the bulls with the cups filled with water.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Parah
They arrived at the Temple Mount and got down. The children now proceed back up to the Temple Mount and then get off their oxen.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Parah
בפתח העזרה – of the Women’s Court, that is near the Hel (a place within the fortification of the Temple; see Tractate Middot, Chapter 1, Mishnah 5).
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English Explanation of Mishnah Parah
Beneath the Temple Mount and the courts was a hollow which served as a protection against a grave in the depths. As was the case with the courtyards in which these children were raised, there was a space below the Temple Mount and the courtyards that would protect them from the impurity of a potential grave.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Parah
היה מתוקן קלל של חטאת (and there set up a flask/pitcher containing the ashes of the red cow) – a vessel that was placed in it the ashes of the sin-offering from each cow that they would burn, as it is written (Numbers 19:9): “[A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the cow and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place,] to be kept for water of lustration for the Israelite community.”
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English Explanation of Mishnah Parah
And at the entrance of the courtyard there was the jar of the ashes of the sin-offerings. At the eastern entrance of the women's courtyard there was a stone jar in which the ashes of the burned red cow could be found.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Parah
קלל – a small pitcher. It is the [Aramaic] translation of (Genesis 24:15): “[He had scarcely finished speaking, when Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor], came out with her jar on her shoulder,” – and her jar/small pitcher on her shoulder.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Parah
They would bring a male from among the sheep and tie a rope between its horns, and a stick or a bushy twig was tied at the other end of the rope, and this was thrown into the jar. They then struck the male [sheep] was so that it started backwards. They didn't simply have one of the kids take the ashes out of the jar and put them in the water drawn from the Shiloah for fear that somehow the child had become impure and he would defile the ashes. Rather, they would tie some sort of stick or twig to a sheep and put the stick or twig into the ashes and then hit the sheep so that he would get moving. Thus they could remove the ashes without ever touching the jar or even directly causing the jar to move. Again, this is another stringency done in the red cow ceremony.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Parah
וזורקו תוך הקלל – and through this, the male sheep is startled and moves backward and the stick/staff goes out from the small pitcher/jar and absorbs/retains from the ashes with it and it spills on top of the bulls and the child takes it and doesn’t need to remove his hand outward. But in the Tosefta (Tractate Parah, Chapter 3, Halakha 5) it implies that they didn’t need to do this, but rather, when they came up [back to the Land of Israel] from the Diaspora (i.e., Babylonia) when all of them were ritually impure, and they were not able to touch it, for if they would touch the ashes of the heifer, they would defile it. And that they would throw the stick/staff into the small pitcher and not through placing it in there, so that they would not defile the ashes through movement/היסט because of doubt of a woman with flux [with them] (i.e., a manner in which ritual impurity may be imparted – that whenever a person with gonorrhea or a menstruating woman or a woman with a lux or a woman after childbirth – causes the object to move from its place, even though he/she does not actually come into contact with it – e.g., by means of a lever – the object becomes ritually impure).
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English Explanation of Mishnah Parah
And [a child] took the ashes and put it [enough] so that it could be seen upon the water. Once the ashes had been removed, a child could come and take them and put them into the stone jar of water that he had collected. He would put enough ashes in so that they would be noticeable in the water.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Parah
אל תתנו במקום לצדוקים לרדות – to rule over us with their wors of laughter and derision. For Rabbi Yossi holds that when the people from the Diaspora (i.e., Babylonia) came up [to the Land of Israel], there were among them that were ritual pure that they had purified with the ashes of the heifer/cow that they brought down with them to Babylonia and carried up with them, and they were not defiled because of the Land of the Nations (i.e., any place outside of the Land of Israel), they did not decree defilement on the Lands of he Nations until after they ascended from the Diaspora. Therefore, it was possible that a pure person would take the ashes of the heifer, and they would not have a need for a male sheep, and the Halakha is according to Rabbi Yossi.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Parah
Rabbi Yose said: do not give the Sadducees an opportunity to rule! Rather, [a child] himself took it and mixed it. Rabbi Yose seems to fear that the Sadducees would ridicule a priest who would perform the ritual in this manner, that is by removing the ashes by using a sheep. Such ridicule could help the Sadducees to gain an upper hand over the Pharisees. To prevent such ridicule, he says that a child should just remove it himself. It is interesting to me that Rabbi Yose perceives Pharisaic rule in the Temple to be contingent upon their image in the eyes of others. Someone would see the strange ceremony and then somehow cause the Pharisees to lose control. After having put the ashes into the water, the children would sprinkle it onto the priest who was going to burn the next red cow, as we learned in mishnah one.
