Middos, Chapter 1, Mishnah 6. The remainder of the perek turns its attention to the Beit HaMoked, the structure introduced at the close of the previous mishnah. It was the large hall in which fires burned continuously, so that the kohanim, who served barefoot throughout the Beit HaMikdash, would have a place to warm themselves. Our mishnah describes four smaller chambers that stood inside that great hall, and tells us what each one was used for.
"Ve'arba leshakot hayu beVeit HaMoked": four chambers were set inside this hall, one at each of its four angles. The mishnah offers a familiar image: "kechitonot petuchot lateraklin", resembling the private bedrooms of a mansion whose doorways open straight into its great salon. The point is that these rooms were not annexes attached to the outside of the building with entrances facing inward. Each was enclosed within the large hall itself, just as the sleeping quarters of a nobleman's house open onto its central chamber.
Half sanctified, half not
"Shetayim baKodesh ushtayim baChol." The Beit HaMoked straddled a boundary: part of it stood within the Azarah, the courtyard, and part of it stood on the Temple Mount outside the courtyard. Accordingly, two of the four chambers fell in the sanctified area, and two fell in the unsanctified area.
"Verashei pispasin", the protruding tips of wooden beams, "mavdilin bein Kodesh leChol": they marked out where one domain ended and the other began. This was no ornamental detail. Kohanim would eat their portions of korbanot inside the Beit HaMoked, and sacrificial meat that is taken beyond the place where it may be eaten becomes disqualified. Those beam tips showed a kohen exactly how far his portion could travel.
What each chamber served
"Umah hayu meshamshot": what were these chambers used for?
The southwest corner, "maaravit deromit", held what the mishnah calls "lishkat telei korban", the room of the sacrificial lambs. Lambs that had been inspected and found free of blemish, set aside for the korban tamid, were housed there so that one would always be available.
The southeast corner, "deromit mizrachit", was given over to the bakers of the lechem hapanim: "lishkat oseh lechem hapanim". Those loaves, which lay upon the Shulchan inside the Heichal, were prepared and baked in this room week after week.
Regarding the northeast corner, "mizrachit tzfonit", the mishnah reports: "bah ganzu benei Chashmonai", here the Chashmonaim hid away the "avnei hamizbe'ach", the stones of the altar, "sheshiketzu malchei Yavan", which the Greek monarchs had rendered abominable. With this we arrive at the setting of the Chanukah narrative. Throughout the years that the Greeks held the Beit HaMikdash, they brought offerings to their idols upon the outer mizbe'ach. Once the Yehudim rallied behind Matityahu, Yehuda HaMakabi and the Chashmonaim, rose up, and took the Beit HaMikdash back into Jewish hands, they concluded that it would be unfitting to bring korbanot upon stones that had served avodah zarah. So they took that mizbe'ach apart and put its stones away for safekeeping in this room of the Beit HaMoked. The chamber bears a second name as well, the Chamber of Receipts, since a person could settle payment there for the flour and the wine that accompanied his korbanot.
The remaining corner, "tzfonit maaravit": "bah yordim leBeit HaTevilah". From this room an opening led to a passage descending to the immersion house, where a mikveh lay below the floor level of the Beit HaMikdash. A kohen who had contracted impurity would go down and immerse there, and a fire was maintained close at hand so that he could warm up on emerging from the water. Thus a kohen spending the night on duty in this hall who became tamei as a baal keri needed only to descend through this corner room, immerse in the mikveh beneath, and come back up. The arrangement suited the purpose of the building: wherever a kohen had to enter the cold water of a mikveh, he did so at the very spot where heat was already waiting for him.