Eduyos 8:3 - 8:4

אלמנת עיסה – one family that was mixed up with someone who was doubtful for the priesthood on account of his father’s illegitimate connection. All the children of that family are doubtful if he was that doubtfulness that was mixed up with them or not. And a woman who married one of the children of that family, and her husband died, is called the widow of one belonging to a family suspected of containing an alien admixture, that is like the examined and mixed family [suspected of containing an alien admixture], so too this particular woman is mixed from doubts – doubt if her husband was that doubtful one for the priesthood on account of his father’s illegitimate connection, according to the truth. Rabbi Yehoshua validates her for the priesthood, because there is here a compound uncertainty and is judged leniently. But Rabban Gamaliel holds that even though generally, a compound uncertainly which is judged leniently, here is different, for they made a preference for pedigrees.

העיסה כשרה לטמא ולטהר – that is to say, that a family that became mixed through someone doubtful for the priesthood on account of his father’s illegitimate connection, behold, she is presumption of being fit like the rest of the families of legitimate descent, and like that the rest of the families say: “this one is ritually impure” and distance themselves from her, and “this one is pure” and they draw her close, so is this family that had become mixed up beyond recognition as a result of someone doubtful for the priesthood on account of his father’s illegitimate connection, and we cannot say for since that it become so mixed up beyond recognition, we don’t any longer to check when women marry -which one was defiled and which one is pure, in order to distance the impure one and to draw close the pure one.

קבלנו עדותכם – you are believed in our eyes and we believe that such is what you heard.

שלא להושיב ב"ד על כך – to permit the widow of one belonging to a family suspected of containing an alien admixture ab initio.

הכהנים שומעים לכם לרחק – if you would say that she is forbidden.

אבל לא לקרב – if you would say that she is permitted. And the Legal decision is that a woman who married one of that family, and her husband died, is called the widow of one belong to a family suspected of containing an alien mixture, and she is forbidden to marry into the priesthood ab initio, and if she married, she cannot be divorced.

איל קמצא – a form of locust. The Aramaic translation of “like locusts” is “like a species of locusts.”

דכן – it is clean and permitted to eat.

ועל משקה בית מטבחייא – the blood in the slaughterhouse of the Temple courtyard.

דאינון דכיין – there is one who says that they are completely pure, for the defilement of liquids is not from the Torah but rather the Rabbis are those who decreed upon them defilement, and on these they did not decree. And there is another opinion that these are pure from making others impure, but they are impure of themselves and there is, from the Torah, defilement for liquids, to become defiled and the Rabbis were not able to make pure what the Torah had defiled.

ועל דיקרב למיתא מסאב – this is how it should be understood (Talmud Avodah Zarah 37b), that whomever definitely touches a corpse is unclean. But there is a doubt, even a grave defilement of the dead is pure, and all the more so, defilement [via a contact with] a reptile is light. And a doubtful impurity in the public domain comes to permit. And even though a doubtful impurity in the public domain is pure according to the Torah, for prohibition of doubtful defilement we derive from the Sotah/suspected adulterous woman, for the Bible derives it with the language of defilement (Numbers 5:13): “and she keeps secret the fact that she has defiled herself, the Biblical verse informs us that on that which is doubtful, she is prohibited, and just as the case of the Sotah/suspected adulterous woman is in the private domain, and there is no hiding in the public domain, so doubtful defilement is not other than in the private domain, nevertheless before Yosi ben Yoezer came, they would say, it is the Halakha but we don’t teach thus. And he came and testified that we do teach as such ab initio, to make pure all doubtful defilement in the public domain.

וקרי ליה יוסי שריא – because he permitted three things that they (i.e., the Rabbis) would practice a prohibition on them. For any Jewish court that permits three things where their permit is not simple, they would call it, a permitting/absolving Jewish court.