Commentary for Middot 4:8

פתחו של היכל. שתים בפנים – in the thickness of the wall that is towards the inside.

The doorway of the Hekhal was twenty cubits high and ten broad.
It had four doors, two on the inner side, and two on the outer, as it says, “And the Hekhal and the Sanctuary had two doors” (Ezekiel 41:23).
The outer ones opened into the interior of the doorway so as to cover the thickness of the wall, while the inner ones opened into the Temple so as to cover the space behind the doors, because the whole of the Temple was overlaid with gold except the space behind the doors.
Rabbi Judah says: they stood within the doorway, and they resembled folding doors. These were two cubits and a half [of the wall] and these were two cubits and a half, leaving half a cubit as a doorpost at the one end and half a cubit as a doorpost at the other end, as it says, “And the doors had two leaves apiece, two turning leaves, two leaves for the one door and two leaves for the other” (Ezekiel 41:2.
Chapter four deals with the Sanctuary or Hekhal in Hebrew. I will call it the Hekhal henceforth in order to encourage the use of Hebrew. The Hekhal was the main structure of the Temple and it stood between the Porch and the Holy of Holies.
Section two: The Hekhal had four doors. Two doors were in the thickness of the wall of the Hekhal, which ran the length of the opening, facing the Hekhal, one on the left and one on the right. Two others were on the other side, facing the Porch.
Section three: The wall of the Hekhal was six cubits in breadth. The doors were each five cubits long, so that when they opened they would cover five of the six cubits of the thickness of the wall. The extra cubit was taken up by the door post. The inner ones opened into the Hekhal, and when opened they would cover the part of the inside of the Hekhal that was not overlaid with gold. The doors were also covered with gold, so that when they were open only gold would be seen.
Section four: Rabbi Judah envisions a different set-up for the doors. Each door was like a folding door and they stood within the doorway and all of them were used to cover the thickness of the wall, each covering 2 ½ cubits of the wall. In other words, the doors did not open into the Hekhal. Rabbi Judah seems to interpret “two turning leaves” as proof that each door was a type of folding door. It is interesting to note that there may be a bit of tension here between the first opinion and Rabbi Judah as to how we know what occurred in the Temple. The first opinion may be based more on tradition or even recollections whereas Rabbi Judah’s opinion is based on more on the text found in Ezekiel.

ושתים בחוץ – in the thickness towards the outside, for the thickness of the wall of the hall leading to the golden altar (Hekhal) was six cubts, and at the end of the outer cubit of the thickness of the wall, there were the outer doors, one to the right of the opening and one to the left, each of these doors was five cubits wide, and when they were locked, the would touch each other and close the width of the cavity of the opening whose width was ten cubits, and when they were opened towards the inside, they cover five cubits of the thickness of the walls. But two other doors were like these measurements which were fixed at the end of the thickness of the walls towards the inner side, and when they were opened, they cover five cubits from here and five cubits from there from the width of the wall of the sanctuary/Heikhal inside, and there was no wall plastered with gold like in the rest of the Temple, because it was not visible.

אצטברמיטה (pivots, pins at top and bottom of a door turning in sockets) – boards of joints attached on the handles of the links and they are opened, and when he desires, they are bent and folded one on top of the other. Such were all of these doors, whether towards the inside or towards the outside, which were attached through these links, and at the end, one-half a cubit of the thickness of the wall they were fixed, between the doors that are inside and those that are outside, and five cubits of the thickness of the wall interrupt between the outer doors to the inner doors. But each door was five cubits attached from the two boards; each board was two-and one-half cubits, and when the outer door opened towards the inside, its half was bent and folded one on top of the other, and covers from the thickness of the wall two-and half cubits, and similarly, the door that is fixed on the inside, when it is opened to the outer side, it also was bent and folded and covers the two-and -one-half cubits that remained from the thickness of the wall.

שנאמר ושתים דלתות לדלתות שתים – so we see that each and every door was divided into two.

ושתי פשפשין – two small openings, one from the right of the large gate of the Hekhal and one from its left, slightly distant from the gate. The one that is from the south, it is written (Ezekiel 44:2 – regarding the outer gate of the Sanctuary that faced eastward that was shut): “[And the LORD said to me:] This gate is to be kept shut and not to be opened! [No one shall enter by it because the LORD, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut],” of the future, for undefined, such it was in the Jerusalem Temple.

The great gate had two small doors, one to the north and one to the south. By the one to the south no one ever went in, and concerning it was stated explicitly be Ezekiel, as it says, “And the Lord said to me: this gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, neither shall any man enter in by it, for the Lord God of Israel has entered in by it; therefore it shall be shut” (Ezekiel 44:2). The great gate of the Hekhal had two small doors, one to the north (to the right when facing the Hekhal) and one to the south. However, the southern door was never used, due to a direct order by God.

ופתח את הפשפש ונכנס משם לתא – and this is one small chamber that is open to the Hekhal, and from the compartment back of the Holy of Holies, he enters into the Hekhal, and walks in the open space of the Hekhal until the large gate that is at the end of the thickness of the wall from the inside, and he opens it and comes to the second gate that is at the end of the thickness of the wall from the outside, and stands inside and opens it.

He [the priest] took the key and opened the [northern] door and went in to the cell, and from the cell he went into the Hekhal. When the priest wanted to open the great gate, he would take the keys to the gates, go into the cell, which was a chamber next to the gate, and then go into the Hekhal and open from the inside.

רבי יהודה אומר בתוך עוביו של כותל היה מהלך – he holds that from the compartment back of the Holy of Holies he would not enter into the Hekhal, but from the compartment, he would walk along the thickness of the wall until he finds himself standing between the two gates, and he opens the doors of the outer gate from the inside and the doors or the inner gate from the outside.

Rabbi Judah says: he used to walk along in the thickness of the wall until he came to the space between the two gates. He would open the outer doors from within and the inner doors from without. Rabbi Judah says that the priest would not enter the cell but would rather walk along inside the wall which was six cubits thick. He would then open the outer doors from within, turn around and open the inner doors from without.

תאים – chambers/compartments.

There were thirty-eight cells there, fifteen on the north, fifteen on the south, and eight on the west. Around the walls of the Hekhal and the Holy of Holies there were 38 cells or small chambers.

חמשה עשר בצפון – further on in our chapter (see Mishnah 7), when it considers that from the north to the south is seventy cubits, it teaches that the wall of the winding staircase leading ‘to a well] under the Temple (see also the fifth Mishnah of this chapter as well as Tractate Tamid, Chapter 1, Mishnah 1), that the winding staircase was five [cubits] and the winding staircase was three [cubits], the wall of the compartment was five [cubits] and the compartment/chamber was six [cubits]. And corresponding to them we consider the south. And this is not to say that the thickness of the wall of the winding staircase and the thickness of the wall of the compartment/chamber and the thickness of the wall of the of the Hekhal that is to the north side was that, but rather, the thickness of the wall with the empty cavity that is between it and the second wall he is counting, but the five [cubits] of the wall of the winding staircase and the three [cubits] of the winding staircase, and the five [cubits] of the wall of the chamber /compartment and the six [cubits] of the chamber/compartment and the six [cubits] of the wall of the Hekhal, in each one of them, the five [cubits] was the one chamber which is a compartment, hence there are five chambers in the north. And opposite them [a similar number] in the south. And on these five, they would build five others, and another five on top of the, hence, fifteen compartments to the north and fifteen compartments to the south. And similarly, in the west which we consider further on in our chapter (see Mishnah 7 once again) that the wall of the Heikhal was six [cubits] and the compartment was six [cubits] and the wall of the compartment was five [cubits], in each one of them there was a there was a chamber, for the wall was not six [cubits] thick other than the wall with the chamber/compartment that was in it that was six [cubits], for the one compartment that was outside of it was six [cubits] and the wall of the the other compartment that is outside of them with the compartment within it was five [cubits], hence three chambers. And three other chambers were built on top of these three, and two [chambers] on top of them, that makes the eight compartments for the west [side].

On the north and on the south there were five over five and five again over these; On the west there were three over three and two over these. These chambers were built in three stories. On the northern and southern sides there were five on each story, and on the west there were three on the first two stories and two on the top story.

ואחד לפשפש – for the compartment that has in it the northern wickets that are in that compartment that one enters into the Hekhal. But the anonymous Mishnah is according to the Rabbis who stated above (Mishnah 2) that one enters the compartment and from the compartment to the Heikhal, and not like Rabbi Yehuda who stated (in Mishnah 2 of this chapter) that he would walk along the thickness of the wall.

Each had three openings, one to the cell on the right and one to the cell on the left and one to the cell above. Each cell had three openings, one which would open to the cell on the right, one which would open to the cell on the left, and one which would open to the cell above. However, the top row of cells had only two openings.

In the [one at the] northeastern corner there were five openings, one to the cell on the right, one to the cell above, one to the mesibbah, one to the door, and one to the Hekhal. The cell at the northeastern corner had five openings. One to the cell on the right and one above (there was no cell to its left, because there were no cells on the east). One to the mesibbah, which was a ramp that would go up from the west to the east to the roofs of the cells and the upper level of the Sanctuary. We will learn more about the mesibbah in mishnah five. The fourth opening led to the door on the northern side of the great gate at the entrance to the Hekhal. The fifth door led straight to the Hekhal. This accords with what we learned in yesterday's mishnah, according to the opinion of the sages (and not Rabbi Judah).

התחתוה חמש – from outside the wall of the winding staircase which is the outer wall of the Holy [of Holies], there were extensions/wings of the building, which are balconies surrounding the Temple from three directions – west, north and south, and these extensions/wings of the building were at the bottom, second story and third decks (see Genesis 6:16 – and the construction of Noah’s ark) . The lowest (i.e., bottom) wing/extension was five cubits wide, and the paved level space/terrace that was on it, which is the ceiling that was over the lowest, which is the floor of the lowest/bottom deck , six [cubits] by a cubit wide, because the wall of the winding staircase would go and become narrower towards the top, for when it reached to the paved level space between steps in the Temple/the landing/terrace, that is on top of the lowest deck, it would enter inwards by one cubit, and on that cubit that protrudes, they would place the beams of the extension/wing of the building, it was found that the lowest extension/wing was wider one cubit more from the bottom, that is, that one cubit that enters the wall inside. And similarly, when he reaches the landing/terrace that is upon the middle [wing], which is the floor of the third [level], the wall would become narrow and enter inwards one cubit, in order that the head of the beam would be placed on that cubit, that the middle wall protrudes and goes outside more than the upper wall, and it is found that the upper extension/wing is one cubit wider from the middle one and two cubits wider than the lowest one. And that is what is stated (I Kings 6:6): “for he (i.e., Solomon) had provided recesses around the outside of the House so as not to penetrate the walls of the House,” meaning to say that he would lessen and deduct in the thickness of the walls by one cubit from outside in the terrace/landing of the middle floor, and another cubit in the terrace/landing of the highest, in order that there would be room for him to place the heads of the beams of the landing/terrace, in order that he would not have to hold on to the walls of the house to make holes in the wall and to insert there the heads of the beams.

The [chamber] of the lowest [story] was five cubits wide and at the ceiling six cubits. The mishnah's explanation of the size of the cells is based on I Kings 6:6. The bottom story's cells were each five cubits in breadth. In the walls of the Hekhal they would reduce the thickness of the wall by a cubit at this point so that the ceiling of the cell could rest on the point where the wall was brought in. This is also referred to in the continuation of the above verse from I Kings. This would mean that at the point of the ceiling the cell was one cubit broader.

The [chamber] of the middle [story] was six cubits wide and at the ceiling of seven. The second story was one cubit broader, matching the breadth of the ceiling of the first story. Again, the wall was brought in to accommodate the planks for the ceiling of the cell. This would make it seven cubits at the point of the ceiling.

The [chamber] of the top [story] was seven cubits wide, as it says, "The lowest story was five cubits wide, the middle one 6 cubits wide and the third 7 cubits wide" (I Kings 6:6). Similarly, the third story was the breadth of the ceiling of the second story. As stated above, this matches the verse in I Kings that describes Solomon's Temple. We should emphasize that this is another example where either the Second Temple was patterned after the First Temple, or the rabbis at least imagined that it was.

ומסבה (winding staircase) - like a cavity and a cave.

The mesibbah (a winding went up from the north-east corner to the north-west corner by which they used to go up to the roofs of the cells.
One would ascend the messibah facing the west, traversing the whole of the northern side till he reached the west.
When he reached the west he turned to face south and then traversed whole of the west side till he reached the south.
When he reached the south he turned to face eastwards and then traversed the south side till he reached the door of the upper chamber, since the door of the upper chamber opened to the south.
In the doorway of the upper chamber were two columns of cedar by which they used to climb up to the roof of the upper chamber, and at the top of them was a row of stones showing the division in the upper chamber between the holy part and the Holy of Holies.
There were trap doors in the upper chamber opening into the Holy of Holies by which the workmen were let down in baskets so that they should not feast their eyes on the Holy of Holies.
Sections 1-4: The mesibbah was the walkway that they would use to get to the top of the Hekhal. The mishnah explains how the priest would walk on the mesibbah which began on the northeastern side (as we learned in mishnah three) and went to the northwestern side. He would then turn south (left) and walk to the end, then he would walk all the way to the southeastern cornet to get to the upper chamber that was built on top of the Hekhal and the Holy of Holies. The door of this chamber was open on the southern wall.
Section five: There were poles in the upper chamber which they could use to climb up to the roof. On the roof there was a division made by a wall of stones to distinguish between the Hekhal (the holy) and the Holy of Holies.
Section six: There were trap doors in the roof of the Holy of Holies through which they would let workmen down in baskets to fix the walls of the Hekhal and Holy of Holies when necessary. The workmen were let down in baskets that were covered on three sides so that all they could see was the wall that they were repairing. This would prevent them from unabashedly gazing at the Holy of Holies which would be considered an inappropriate means of deriving benefit from the holiest point of the Temple.

שבה היו עולים לגגות התאים – and because the one who ascends upon it goes up through the path of a circumference and descends through the path of a circumference, which is called a מסבה/winding staircase.

ולולין (small passageways in the loft which mechanics were lowered in boxes/closed elevators) – where apertures in the roof looking to the ground floor that they make in the upper stories.

משלשלים את האומנים – they lower them by rope in chests/boxes, in order that they will not benefit from seeing the House of the Holy of Holies, but rather only repair what is needed and re-ascend.

מאה על מאה – [the hall containing the golden altar/Hekhal] - one-hundred [cubits] long and one-hundred [cubit] wide [and at a height of one-hundred cubits].

The Hekhal was a hundred cubits by a hundred with a height of a hundred. The Hekhal as referred to in this mishnah includes the dimensions of the Porch, the Hekhal and the Holy of Holies put together. It was a 100 cubit cube.

אוטם (substructure/filled with earth, foundation) – a filled up/obstructed and closed building to be the foundation of the Temple, upon which we place the walls.

The foundation was six cubits, then it rose forty, then a cubit for the ornamentation, two cubits for the guttering, a cubit for the ceiling and a cubit for the plastering. The mishnah now explains the elements that lead to a height of 100 cubits (note: this is a very tall structure). The closed foundation of the entire structure was 6 cubits high. We can also see this by the need for 12 stairs to lead up from the courtyard to the floor of the Porch. Each stair was 1/2 cubit high, making a total of 6 cubits. The empty space inside the Hekhal was 40 cubits high. Before the ceiling there was a cubit of ornamentation on the walls. Then there were two cubits of guttering to catch water that might leak in from the roof. The ceiling (the boards) and the plastering were each a cubit. This would bring us to a total of 51 cubits.

אמה כיור (one cubit for the paneling work – tablature of the ceiling in the Stemple) – the lowest beam of the ceiling had the thickness of a cubit, and because it was coated with gold and embroidered with nice embroidery, it is called a כיור/panel (abacus).

The height of the upper chamber was forty cubits, there was a cubit for its ornamentation, two cubits for the guttering, a cubit for the ceiling, a cubit for the plastering, three cubits for the parapet and a cubit for the spikes. The upper chamber was also forty cubits high, then another cubit for ornamentation, two for guttering, and one each for the ceiling and its plastering. This brings us to 96 total cubits. There was a parapet (a railing) on top of the upper chamber and there were one cubit spikes coming out of the parapet. This would chase away birds which would have nested on the tops of the walls. [Funny, but we too put spikes on top of our walls to keep away the bird].

ואמתיים בית דלפה (two cubits – the receptacle of drippings – name of the second roof of the Stemple made for protection against an eventual leak in the upper roof) -the upper beams that lean upon the lower beam, their thickness is two cubits, and they are called: “The House/Receptacle of Dilfa/Drippings, because the boards of the ceiling are attached by them. The [Aramaic] translation of במחברת / joining or fastening - is the place of coupling/borders. But one cannot wonder/be amazed how the the lower beam was that everything leaned upon them was only one cubit thick, for the upper beams that do not handle a burden on this was two cubits thick, because the lower beam , since it was wider in thickness by a cubit was strong and healthy and could receive the building that was upon it, but the upper beams that were not wider than a handbreadth or less, need to be of greater thickness. Alternatively the upper beams were two cubits thick in order to distance the ceiling from the lower beam, because it was embroidered with nice embroidery, and if the ceiling was near it, the embroidery would not be seen and recognized so much.

Rabbi Judah says the spikes were not included in the measurement, but the parapet was four cubits. Rabbi Judah disagrees with two minor details of the above description. He claims that the spikes were not counted in the total, and that the number 100 was reached by the parapet being four not three cubits high.

תקרה – planed boards that they put on the beams were one cubit thick.

מעזיבה (a concrete of stone chippings/clay – used for paving floors- pavement covering the ceiling of the lower story and serving as flooring to the upper story) – he plaster and stones and plaster that they place on the boards.

כלה עורב (“keeping off the raven” – an arrangement of iron points on the roof the Temple/scarecrow)- a foil/plate of sharp iron similar to a sword and it was a cubit in height and was placed on top of the railing, in order that the birds would not rest upon it, therefore, it was called a “scarecrow,” that keeps back the ravens from there.

כותל האולם – thickness of the wall of the hall leading to the interior of the Temple to the eastern side was five cubits, and similarly, the wall of the Hekhal (the hall containing the golden altar, its thickness was six [cubits] to the eastern side.

From east to west was a hundred cubits: The wall of the porch five cubits, the porch itself eleven, the wall of the Hekhal six cubits and its interior forty, a cubit for the space between, and twenty cubits for the Holy of Holies, the wall of the Hekhal six cubits, the cell six cubits and the wall of the cell five. The mishnah now proceeds to delineate the structures, walls, etc. that took up the length and breadth of the Hekhal. The Hekhal was one hundred cubits from its eastern side to its western side. The thickness of the front wall of the Porch was five cubits. The area of the Porch was eleven cubits, and the wall separating the Porch from the Hekhal was six more. This brings us to 22. The interior of the Hekhal was 40 (total = 62). There was a one cubit space between the Hekhal and the Holy of Holies. In the First Temple there was an actual wall in this space, but in the Second Temple there were two curtains a cubit apart from one another. The interior of the Holy of Holies was 20 cubits (total = 83). The western wall of the Hekhal was six more cubits. The width of the middle cells on the western side was six cubits, and the western wall of the cell was another five, bringing us to the grand total of 100 cubits.

ותוכו (its substructure) – the cavity of the Hekhal was forty cubits.

From north to south was seventy cubits: The wall of the mesibbah five cubits, the mesibbah itself three, the wall of the cell five and the cell itself six, the wall of the Hekhal six cubits and its interior twenty, then the wall of the Hekhal again six and the cell six and its wall five, then the place of the water descent three cubits and its wall five cubits. From north to south the entire expanse was seventy cubits. The thickness of the walls of the mesibbah was 5 cubits (concerning the mesibbah see mishnah five). The width of the mesibbah itself was three cubits. Inside the mesibbah was the cell, whose wall was five. The middle level cell itself was six cubits wide (total = 19). The wall separating the cell from the Hekhal was another six, and the width of the Hekhal was twenty (total=45). The opposite wall was also six and the cell on the south side was another six, and its wall was another five (total = 62). There was a space of three cubits between the wall of the cell and the outer wall in order to let water flow down from the roof. This was another three cubits and then another five cubits of wall, bringing us to a total of 70 cubits. It might be interesting to note that of the seventy cubits, 32 of them were taken up by wall. The walls were plentiful and very thick.

ואמה טרקסין (the two cedar-covered partitions – with a vacant space between – separating the Holy of Holies from the Holy and occupied the space of one cubit) – the wall that separates between the Heikhal/the hall with the golden altar and the Holy of Holies is called טרקסין, in that it closes over the Ark and the th Tablets that were given at Sinai. טרק in the Aramaic language is closing in/enclosure like [Tractate Berakhot 28a] טרוקי גלי/close the [college] doors. The [suffix] סין is Sinai. And the thickness of this wall was a cubit. But the Sages did not cast the deciding vote if its holiness is like the inner holinesss or like the outer holiness, therefore, during the Second Temple, they made two curtains, one outer and the inner, and between them the space of a cubit, to protect between them the airspace of the place of the wall that was one cubit thick [during the time of the First Temple].

The Porch extended beyond this fifteen cubits on the north and fifteen cubits on the south, and this space was called the House of the slaughter-knives where they used to store the knives. The Porch, the structure that lay in front of the Hekhal, was fifteen cubits longer from north to south then the Hekhal on each side. This would mean that the back wall to the Porch, which serves as the front wall of the Hekhal, would have been 100 cubits, whereas the rest of the Hekhal was seventy cubits from north to south. This extra space was where the slaughterer's knives were stored. Perhaps we could surmise that they stored the knives here in order to keep them from being parallel to the altar or Holy of Holies, such that an instrument of violence, while necessary for the daily operation of the Temple, was at least not stored in a space parallel to the life-giving altar.

כותל ההיכל שש – we have already explained above that there was no wall of the Hekhal on the western side of a thickness of six cubits, but rather, the thickness of the wall of the Hekhal with the free space that is between it and the second wall that is outside of it was six cubits. And the thickness of the second wall that is called a תא/compartment with the the free space that is between it and the fourth outer wall was five cubits. But the three free places that were between four walls were תאים/compartments. And upon them were other compartments , as we taught above (see Mishnah 3 of this chapter) that were in the west three on top of three, and two on top of them. And similarly, from the from the north to the south, the wall of the winding staircase was five cubits, etc., all of them with the cavity that is between one wall and another, it is all as I have explained above.

The Hekhal was narrow behind and broad in front, resembling a lion, as it says, "Ah, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped" (Isaiah 29:1): Just as a lion is narrow behind and broad in front, so the Hekhal was narrow behind and broad in front. The final section of the mishnah and our chapter likens the entire structure of the Porch, Hekhal and Holy of Holies to a lion. It was broad in front (100 cubits) and a bit narrower in the back (70 cubits). The imagery is based on the verse which refers to Jerusalem as "Ariel" which means "lion of God."

חמש עשרה אמה מן הצפון – the wall of the hall leading to the interior of the Temple its thickness is five cubits, and the hall is ten cubits to the north and similarly to the south.

בית החליפות – on account of the knives that they hide there, it is called בית החליפות for in the Roman language, they call the large knives חלפים/HALAFIM.

צר מאחוריו – to the western side, and wide from before him to the eastern sine. But it was not explained to me how, for there was one-hundred [cubits] by one-hundred [cubits] for what it was worth. \