Tamid, Chapter 6, Mishnah 1. Our chapter picks up the morning service at the point where the kohanim are about to enter the Heichal for the offering of the ketoret. To follow it, we need to remember what was left unfinished back in the third chapter.
Chapter three left two jobs deliberately unfinished. One kohen had drawn the lot for removing the ashes of the golden mizbeach that stood within the Heichal. He gathered what remained into a golden vessel called the tene, and instead of taking it out with him he deposited it on the floor alongside that mizbeach. Another kohen had drawn the lot for the Menorah. From five of its lamps he took out the spent wicks and the oil left over, collected them all in a golden vessel called the kuz, and rested that vessel on the stair standing before the Menorah. Each of them, then, exited with his job partly done and his vessel still inside. Our mishnah records the moment they came back to retrieve them.
Going up the steps of the Ulam
Going up the steps of the Ulam
"Mi shezachu bedishun mizbeach hapenimi vehaMenorah hayu makdimin lifneihem." Two of the group moved ahead of the rest and crossed the threshold first: the pair who had merited in the lottery the ash removal of the golden mizbeach and the tending of the Menorah. Each of them went in early because a vessel of his was waiting within.
The kohen of the inner mizbeach
The kohen of the inner mizbeach
The kohen of the Menorah and the two eastern lamps
"Mi shezacha bedishun haMenorah nichnas umatza shetei nerot mizrachiyim dolkin." Next the kohen assigned to the Menorah entered, and what he ordinarily found was that the two easternmost lamps of the Menorah were still burning. This was expected: when he had come in earlier and cleaned out the other five lamps, he had relit those two and left them alight.
"Medashen et hamizrachi umani'ach et hama'aravi dolek." Of those two, he now cleaned out only the one standing furthest to the east, removing its wick, its leftover oil and its ashes. The other of the pair, the one immediately to the west of it, he left burning untouched. Note the terminology carefully: the lamp called here the western lamp is not the lamp at the far western end of the Menorah, but the second one in from the east, the one lying to the west of the outermost eastern lamp.
"Shemimenu haya madlik et haMenorah bein ha'arbayim." Why leave that flame alive? Because toward evening, at the hour for kindling the lamps for the coming night, it was that flame which served to set the rest of the Menorah alight.
The miracle of the ner hama'aravi
There is more behind this lamp than convenience. In the second Beit Hamikdash, in the days of Shimon Hatzaddik, this western lamp used to remain burning the entire day miraculously. To make that miracle publicly evident, the kohanim would not touch it at all during the day. Only at nightfall would they use its flame to kindle the other six lamps, and only then would the lamp itself be emptied, cleaned, refilled with fresh oil, fitted with a new wick, and relit.
"Metza'o shekava, medasheno umadliko mimizbeach ha'olah." Should the kohen come in and discover that this lamp had gone dark, he did not leave matters as they stood. He emptied and cleaned it right away, left it unlit for the rest of the day, and when the evening kindling came around he would draw a flame from the mizbeach ha'olah, the outer mizbeach in the courtyard. This clause speaks of the generations after Shimon Hatzaddik died, once the miracle had ceased and the lamp really did burn out. From that point on, this lamp too was made ready in the morning for the evening lighting. At kindling time the kohanim would go out to the outer mizbeach, bring fire in from there, light this western lamp with it, and from it kindle the other six.