L'incertezza delle mani sul fatto che essi stessi siano diventati impuri o abbiano reso [qualcosa] impuro o siano diventati puri [in tutti e tre i casi] sono puri. L'incertezza di dominio pubblico [vale a dire qualsiasi incertezza sullo stato di purezza che è stata generata quando qualcosa era di dominio pubblico] è pura. Per quanto riguarda l'incertezza riguardante [lo stato di purezza di qualcosa che è entrato in contatto con qualcosa di impuro solo secondo] le parole degli studiosi: Se [c'è un'incertezza sul fatto che] si mangiava cibi impuri o si beveva liquidi impuri, o se si la testa e la maggior parte del corpo sono entrati nell'acqua disegnata, o se tre accessi di acqua estratta sono caduti sulla testa e la maggior parte del corpo, [tutti che sono casi di qualcuno che i saggi hanno decretato diventano impuri a livello rabbinico,] in caso di incertezza, è puro. Ma per qualcosa che è un'origine dell'impurità secondo le parole degli studiosi [vale a dire qualcosa che i saggi hanno decretato dovrebbero essere trattati come un'origine dell'impurità], in caso di incertezza [se qualcuno potrebbe essere entrato in contatto con essa], è impuro.
Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
ספק ידים ליטמא - a person whose hands were ritual pure and it was doubtful if they touched ritually impure foods or ritually impure liquids and his hands were defiled, and it is doubtful if he didn’t touch and his hands were not defiled.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Tahorot
"If there is doubt concerning the hands as to whether they have contracted uncleanness, have conveyed uncleanness or have attained cleanness, they are deemed clean." This section is just a quote of mishnah seven without any expansion. It is explained in Yadayim 2:4 (a whole tractate about the impurity of hands!). For now it is enough to note that any case of doubt involving the impurity of hands is ruled leniently.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
ולטמא – his hands were ritually impure, it is a matter of doubt if he touched foods and liquids and defiled them, and it is doubtful that he did not touch them.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Tahorot
"Any doubt that arose in a public domain is deemed clean. This clause will be explicated in chapters five and six.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
וליטהר- his hands were ritually impure and he purified them, it is doubtful if they were purified properly or not, in all of these matters of doubt, their doubt is deemed ritually pure.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Tahorot
"A condition of doubt concerning an ordinance of the scribes": [For instance, he is uncertain whether] he ate unclean food or drank unclean liquids, whether he immersed his head and the greater part of his body in drawn water, or whether there fell on his head and the greater part of his body three log of drawn water, such a condition of doubt is deemed clean. But if a condition of doubt arose concerning a father of uncleanness even though it was only rabbinical, it is deemed unclean. If there is a doubt and the impurity is only of rabbinic ordinance (derabanan) then the doubt is ruled clean. The mishnah gives a couple of examples of this. The first is when a person ate or drank something and is not sure if it is unclean. A person is only impure "derabanan" if he eats or drinks something impure. The second is concerning drawn water. The rabbis decreed that drawn water defiles if a person immerses his head and most of his body in them or if three log of drawn water falls on him (we shall learn more about this in Tractate Mikvaot). In both of these cases, the doubt is deemed pure. But if the doubt involved a "father of uncleanness" whose provenance is derabanan, then the doubt is unclean. For example, "mixed blood" which is blood that came out of a person, some when he was alive (doesn't defile) and some after his death (does defile). Such blood is a "derabanan father of uncleanness." In this case, although the doubt is only derabanan, it defiles.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
ספק רשות הרבים – it is matter of doubt of defilement in the public domain, they are considered ritually pure, for such we found concerning a community that makes the Passover sacrifice in ritual defilement, if it is definitive defilement, it was permissible to the community, as an a fortiori inference it a manner of doubt of defilement.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
ספק דברי סופרים - as for example, all of these that are considered, and all of them are from the eight things that they (i.e., the Sages) decreed on that day (i.e., the day when Rabban Gamaliel was deposed as head of the Sanhedrin -see Tractate Berakhot 28a, and they are explained in Tractate Shabbat in the first chapter [Mishnah 4 – see the Bartenura commentary).
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
אבל דבר שהוא אב הטומאה והוא מדברי סופרים – as for example, דם תבוסה/blood that flows from a person at the time of his death or afterwards (the legal status of this blood is that of a corpse itself and is therefore an ultimate primary source of ritual impurity) and heathens that made themselves like those with gonorrhea, and similar things to this, if there is a doubt if he touched them or did not touch them.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Tahorot
ספיקו טמא – but however a primary source of ritual impurity that is from the words of the Scribes (i.e., Rabbinic) that it itself is from doubt, as for example the בית הפרס/area in which uncertainty exists concerning the location of a grave or corpse (i.e., a field containing a grave that was unintentionally plowed and the bones may have been strewn throughout the field, and a grave containing a grave the location of which is unknown), if there is in it a bone the bulk of a barleycorn or not. In this, it is taught in the Mishnah above (see Mishnah 5) that when their contact is definite, we burn them, but on their doubtful contact we don’t burn them, for this is a ספק ספיקא/compound uncertainty [which is ruled with leniency].
