Komentarz do Chullin 9:6

ביצת השרץ – there are eight moving creatures–creeping things that attach eggs, such as the toad, the sand lizard and the lizard (see Leviticus 11:29-30: “The following shall be impure for you among the things that swarm on the earth: the mole, the mouse, and great lizards of every variety; the gecko, the land crocodile, the lizard, the sand lizard, and the chameleon.”).

The egg of a sheretz in which there has formed an embryo is clean. If it was pierced, however small the hole was, it is unclean. If the egg of the sheretz is not pierced, then one who touches it is pure, because there is no way of touching the sheretz that is inside. If it is pierced, then the one who touches it is unclean, no matter how small the hole is.

המרוקמת (the egg of a creeping thing in a developed state) – where a chick–young bird is formed within.

A mouse which is half flesh and half earth, if a man touched the flesh he becomes unclean, but if he touched the earth he remains clean. Rabbi Judah says: even if he touched the earth that is over against the flesh he becomes unclean. The rabbis know of, or at least discuss, a mouse that was not formed by normal ways of procreating, but rather rose out of the dust. When it had not been fully formed, it would be half dust and half earth. If one touches the earth part, he has not become impure by touching a mouse, which is a sheretz. If one touches the flesh, he is impure. Rabbi Judah holds that the earth counts as part of the mouse/sheretz, and one who touches it is impure. Saul Lieberman discusses this mishnah in his book, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine. On pages 183-184 he writes, “The existence of such a mouse was taken for granted by many ancient authors. Plinius cites it as a ‘fact’ which could confirm the credibility of other wonderful creatures…. ‘In one part of their body they are already alive, while the most recently formed part of their structure is still of earth.’ It is exactly the mouse described by the rabbis…The information about that kind of mouse the Rabbis probably got from Egyptian sources. When the alleged existence of the miraculous creature was brought to their attention they commented on its would-be Halakhic status.”

טהורה – because it is impossible to touch the chick–young bird that is inside.

ניקבה כל שהוא טמאה (if it is pierced in any measure, it is impure) – and even though he didn’t touch it, for the guard brings it and removes the defilement in something that is possible to touch.

עכבר שחציו בשר – there is a species of mouse which is not “fruitful and multiply” but rather, from itself, it is formed from the ground, like garbage that breeds worms, and if it still has not completed the creation of the mouse, other than from one side – the right or the left, he who touches the flesh is ritually impure. The earth over against the flesh is pure.

רבי יהודה אומר כו' – but the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Yehuda.