Les pierres de la rampe et les pierres de l'autel [venaient] de la vallée de Beit Kerem. Ils creusaient sous [les pierres] un sol vierge et apportaient des pierres complètes qui n'ont jamais été touchées par le fer, parce que le fer les rend [les pierres] impropres au simple toucher. [Ils sont également inaptes] s'ils sont ébréchés par quelque moyen que ce soit. Si l'un d'eux était ébréché, il est rendu impropre, mais le reste [des sones] ne le sont pas. Les [murs et le haut de l'autel] étaient blanchis à la chaux deux fois par an, une fois à Pessa'h et une fois à Souccot. Le vestibule [était blanchi à la chaux] une fois par an, à Pessa'h. Rebbi dit, chaque vendredi, ils étaient blanchis à la chaux avec un chiffon à cause des taches de sang. Le badigeon n'a pas été appliqué avec une truelle de fer, par crainte que la truelle de fer toucherait les pierres et les rendrait impropres, car le fer a été créé pour raccourcir les jours de l'homme, et l'autel a été créé pour prolonger les jours de l'homme, et il est impropre que le shortner soit placé sur ce quel prolongateur.
Sefer HaChinukh
The laws of the commandment - for example, from where they would bring these stones with which they would build the altar, that they, may their memory be blessed, said (Mishnah Middot 3:4) that they would bring them from virgin ground or from the Great Sea; the law of if metal touched a stone after the altar was built, whether all of it is disqualified or only it alone is disqualified; that which they, may their memory be blessed, said (Mishnah Middot 3:4), [that] when they whitewashed the altar twice a year, that they did not whitewash it with a tool that had iron in it, so that the iron not touch a stone; and the rest of its details - are [all] elucidated in Tractate Middot (See Mishneh Torah, Laws of The Chosen Temple 1).
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Sefer HaChinukh
And the matter of tsaraat is that one or more places on the skin of the flesh of a man become white - and these places be very white until their white resembles the white of the membrane of an egg and more than it in its whiteness. But the whole time that it is less dark in its appearance than the membrane of an egg, it is not tsaraat but rather a shiny spot (bohak) - meaning to say, a different illness that is not a type of tsaraat at all, but rather like types of rash and other types of [skin] ailments that occur with a person. There are four appearances to the tsaraat on the skin of a man's flesh: Two are primary sources (avot) - and they are the se'et and the baheret - and two are their derivatives. And that is [the meaning] of their, may their memory be blessed, saying (Mishnah Negaim 1:1), "The appearances of ailments are two which are four: Baheret [...] and its adjunct; se'et [...] and its adjunct." And the understanding of its adjunct is meaning to say, its derivative; as the expression, adjunct (sapachat) is only an expression of [being] secondary. And the Sages likened these four appearances: one to clean white wool, and that is the se'et; one to snow, and that is the baheret; one to the lime of the sanctuary, and that is the derivative of the baheret; and one to the membrane of an egg, and that is the derivative of the se'et (Mishnah Negaim 1:1). These are the impure ones and they combine, one with the other, to render impure (Mishnah Negaim 1:3). And anyone who does not recognize them through their differences and their names should only determine them by the mouth of someone who recognizes [them] (Shevuot 6a) - and as it is stated below in the laws of the commandment.
