Middos, Chapter 2, Mishnah 5. The mishnah has already brought us in from the edges of the Har Habayit, past the soreg and the cheil, and now it halts at the first large open expanse within the Beit Hamikdash, the Ezrat Nashim. This plaza was situated east of the Inner Courtyard. Men frequented it all year long, and it bears the name of the women only because they assembled there for the celebration of the Simchat Beit HaShoeva during Sukkot.
The mishnah opens with measurements. "Ezrat nashim haytah orech," the Women's Courtyard had a length of "me'ah u'shloshim ve'chamesh," one hundred and thirty five amot, "al rochav," by a width of "me'ah u'shloshim ve'chamesh," the same one hundred and thirty five amot. It was thus a square of 135 by 135, and those figures are taken from the inner faces of its walls.
"V'arba lishkot hayu b'arba miktzo'oteha": four chambers stood in its four corners, "shel arba'im arba'im amah," each of them forty amot by forty amot, the length running from east to west and the width from north to south.
"V'lo hayu mekorot": no roof covered these four chambers. "V'chach hem atidim liheyot": such will be their form in the third Beit Hamikdash as well, again with nothing above them. The source, "shene'emar," is Yechezkel's vision: "Vayotzi'eni el hechatzer hachitzonah vaya'avireni el arba'at miktzo'ei hechatzer, vehineh chatzer b'miktzo'a hechatzer, chatzer b'miktzo'a hechatzer, b'arba'at miktzo'ot hechatzer chatzerot keturot." The angel led the navi out into the Outer Courtyard and walked him around all four of its corners, and at every corner he saw a courtyard, and all four of these corner courtyards were "keturot." That Outer Courtyard which Yechezkel was shown in the future Mikdash parallels the Ezrat Nashim of Bayit Sheni.
Getting the picture
Throughout Masechet Middot it is worth keeping a diagram at hand. Imagine standing with your face turned westward. The azara sits far off at the western end, and nothing in this mishnah has arrived there yet; the fifteen steps that climb toward the azara still lie ahead. Entering through the gateway of the Har Habayit you first cross the soreg, that wooden partition described earlier, next comes the cheil, and only afterward do you reach the Ezrat Nashim. Continue westward and you arrive at the outer mizbeach and at the azara, where the avoda was performed.
"V'ein keturot ela she'einan mekorot": Chazal derive from the term "keturot" that these corner chambers stood open to the heavens. Its root describes smoke rising in a column, which indicates that smoke was produced in these places, and smoke can only climb upward if nothing covers it.
Bayit Rishon and Bayit Sheni were built along nearly identical lines. On this detail, however, the builders of the second Mikdash patterned themselves after the third rather than after the first. In Shlomo's Mikdash the corner chambers of this plaza were indeed covered over. The second Mikdash reproduced instead what the third will one day look like, may it be rebuilt speedily in our days, and so its four corner chambers were left uncovered.
What each chamber was used for
"U'meh hayu meshamshot?" To what use was each of the four corners put? "Dromit mizrachit hi haytah lishkat hanezirim, shesham hanezirim mevashlin et shelameihen u'megalchin et se'aran u'meshalchim tachat hadud." In the southeastern corner stood the Chamber of the Nezirim. There a nazir would boil his shelamim, shave off his hair, and cast the hair into the fire beneath the cooking pot. A nazir undertakes a vow: he abstains from wine and from anything that comes from grapes, he leaves his hair uncut, and he keeps away from tumat met. When his term ends he arrives at the Beit Hamikdash with his korbanot, his hair is shaved, and while the shelamim cooks the shorn hair is thrown under the pot into the flames.
"Mizrachit tzefonit hi haytah lishkat ha'etzim": the northeastern corner housed the Chamber of the Wood, "shesham hakohanim ba'alei mumin," where kohanim who bore a physical blemish, disqualified from the avoda itself, were assigned the work of "matli'in ha'etzim," inspecting the firewood and removing whatever was worm eaten. "V'chol etz shenimtza bo tola'at," any log in which a worm turned up, is "pasul me'al gabei hamizbeach," unfit to be brought up on the mizbeach. Precisely as a blemished animal cannot be offered, wood damaged by worms has no place on the mizbeach.
"Tzefonit ma'aravit hi haytah lishkat metzora'im": the northwestern corner served the metzora'im. On the eighth day of his taharah process the metzora would immerse in the mikveh that this room contained, and then position himself in the doorway of the courtyard, where the blood of his asham was applied to the middle of his right ear, to the thumb of his right hand and to the big toe of his right foot.
"Ma'aravit dromit": as for the southwestern chamber, Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov admitted, "shachachti meh haytah meshameshet," its use had slipped from his memory. The identifications given throughout this mishnah appear to be his own, and this single one he could no longer recall. "Abba Shaul omer": Abba Shaul preserved a tradition that "sham hayu notnin," there they would deposit, "yayin va'shemen," wine and oil, "hi haytah nikret lishkat beit shemanya." It functioned as a storeroom, and the title Chamber of the House of Oils attached to it because it held oil in greater quantity than wine.
The balcony
In the era of Bayit Sheni the Chachamim noticed that men and women were mixing in an unseemly way at the rejoicing of the Simchat Beit HaShoeva each Sukkot, and they concluded that the layout of this plaza required adjustment. "V'chalakah haytah barishonah": originally its walls were sheer, with no projection of any kind. "V'hekifuha gezuztra": they then ringed the interior with a balcony resting on brackets that jutted out from the wall itself, "shehanashim ro'ot milma'alan veha'anashim milmatah." The women would watch the Simchat Beit HaShoeva from the balcony overhead while the men watched from the ground beneath, "kedei shelo yeheyu me'oravin," keeping the two groups from crowding in together.
The Inner Courtyard lay at a higher elevation, and steps along the western edge of the Ezrat Nashim joined the two levels, so that a person went up out of the plaza into the Inner Courtyard. "V'chamesh esreh ma'alot": fifteen steps, "olot mitochah l'ezrat Yisrael," ascended from inside it to that portion of the Inner Courtyard called the Ezrat Yisrael, for the Inner Courtyard was itself divided into separate areas.
"K'neged chamesh esreh ma'alot": matching the fifteen ma'alot "shebaTehillim," the fifteen chapters of Shir HaMa'alot in Tehillim, "she'aleihen haleviim omrim bashir." The leviim would chant those fifteen mizmorim on these very steps at the Simchat Beit HaShoeva, fifteen rows of leviim standing along the fifteen steps, each row with its own mizmor. Throughout the remainder of the year, when the singing of the leviim accompanied the daily avoda, their place was the platform in the Inner Courtyard.
"Lo hayu terurot": the fifteen steps were not built in a straight line, "ela mukafot k'chatzi goren agulah," but curved in the form of half a circular threshing floor, since a rounded step accommodates more singers than a straight one.