Yoma

that he lays them in order on the altar, and if the latter cannot hold them, that he lays them on the ramp, or on the gallery,1 until the great pile is made? To teach us that, Scripture says: Whereto the fire hath consumed the burnt-offering on the altar.2 And R. Meir?3 — [This is to teach] you may place back [there] unconsumed parts of the ‘burnt-offering’, but you may not place there unconsumed parts of the incense, for R. Hanania b. Minumai, of the school of R. Eliezer b. Jacob, said [with reference to]: ‘whereto the fire hath consumed the burnt-offering on the altar’ — you place back unconsumed parts of the burnt-offering, but you do not place back unconsumed parts of the incense. At any rate all agree that one adds [an additional pile] on that day; whence do they infer that? — They infer that from: ‘And the fire’, for even he who does not expound a ‘waw’, expounds ‘waw he’ [and the].4 What does ‘Fire shall be kept burning upon the altar continually’5 mean? — It is required as it was taught: ‘Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually’; it shall not go out — that teaches concerning the second pile for the incense that it shall be laid in order only on the outer altar.6 Whence do we know that about fire, for the coal-pan, [on the Day of Atonement] and for the candlestick?7 That can be inferred as follows: The word esh [fire] is mentioned in connection with the incense,8 and the same word is mentioned in connection with coal-pan and candlestick; hence just as the former comes upon the outer altar, so do the latter come upon the outer altar. Or turn this way9 [perhaps]: the word esh [fire] is mentioned in connection with incense and is also mentioned in connection with coal-pan and candlestick; just as for the former it comes [for the altar] ‘near to it’,10 so for the latter it comes [from the altar] near to it.11 To teach us [the right law] Scripture says: ‘Fire shall be kept burning on the altar,’ it shall not go out i.e., the continual fire whereof I spoke12 to you must be nowhere else but on the top of the outer altar. We thus learned it for the fire of the candlestick, whence do we know it for the fire of the coal-pan? This can be inferred: [The word] ‘esh’ [fire] is stated in connection with the coal-pan, and ‘esh’ is used in connection with the candlestick, hence just as the former comes from the outer altar, so does the latter come from the outer altar. But, perhaps turn this way: [the word] ‘esh’ is mentioned in reference to the incense, and ‘esh’ is used in connection with the coal-pan; hence just as the former comes from [the altar] near to it, so the latter too comes from [the altar] near to it. Therefore it says: And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord13 Now which altar is [only] partly before the Lord, but not wholly before the Lord? You must say it is the outer altar. 14 Now it was necessary [for Scripture] to mention both ‘from off the altar’ and from ‘before the Lord’. For if the Divine Law had written only ‘from off the altar’ I might have said: That ‘altar’ means the inner altar, hence the Divine Law said: ‘from before the Lord.’15 And if the Divine Law had written: ‘From before the Lord’ [alone], I might have said it must be exactly before the Lord,16 derivation. must have it. without fire’; but Tosaf. cites Num. XVI, 18, where the word fire is actually explicit in connection with incense.