Middos 4:2 - 4:3

ושתי פשפשין – two small openings, one from the right of the large gate of the Hekhal and one from its left, slightly distant from the gate. The one that is from the south, it is written (Ezekiel 44:2 – regarding the outer gate of the Sanctuary that faced eastward that was shut): “[And the LORD said to me:] This gate is to be kept shut and not to be opened! [No one shall enter by it because the LORD, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut],” of the future, for undefined, such it was in the Jerusalem Temple.

ופתח את הפשפש ונכנס משם לתא – and this is one small chamber that is open to the Hekhal, and from the compartment back of the Holy of Holies, he enters into the Hekhal, and walks in the open space of the Hekhal until the large gate that is at the end of the thickness of the wall from the inside, and he opens it and comes to the second gate that is at the end of the thickness of the wall from the outside, and stands inside and opens it.

רבי יהודה אומר בתוך עוביו של כותל היה מהלך – he holds that from the compartment back of the Holy of Holies he would not enter into the Hekhal, but from the compartment, he would walk along the thickness of the wall until he finds himself standing between the two gates, and he opens the doors of the outer gate from the inside and the doors or the inner gate from the outside.

תאים – chambers/compartments.

חמשה עשר בצפון – further on in our chapter (see Mishnah 7), when it considers that from the north to the south is seventy cubits, it teaches that the wall of the winding staircase leading ‘to a well] under the Temple (see also the fifth Mishnah of this chapter as well as Tractate Tamid, Chapter 1, Mishnah 1), that the winding staircase was five [cubits] and the winding staircase was three [cubits], the wall of the compartment was five [cubits] and the compartment/chamber was six [cubits]. And corresponding to them we consider the south. And this is not to say that the thickness of the wall of the winding staircase and the thickness of the wall of the compartment/chamber and the thickness of the wall of the of the Hekhal that is to the north side was that, but rather, the thickness of the wall with the empty cavity that is between it and the second wall he is counting, but the five [cubits] of the wall of the winding staircase and the three [cubits] of the winding staircase, and the five [cubits] of the wall of the chamber /compartment and the six [cubits] of the chamber/compartment and the six [cubits] of the wall of the Hekhal, in each one of them, the five [cubits] was the one chamber which is a compartment, hence there are five chambers in the north. And opposite them [a similar number] in the south. And on these five, they would build five others, and another five on top of the, hence, fifteen compartments to the north and fifteen compartments to the south. And similarly, in the west which we consider further on in our chapter (see Mishnah 7 once again) that the wall of the Heikhal was six [cubits] and the compartment was six [cubits] and the wall of the compartment was five [cubits], in each one of them there was a there was a chamber, for the wall was not six [cubits] thick other than the wall with the chamber/compartment that was in it that was six [cubits], for the one compartment that was outside of it was six [cubits] and the wall of the the other compartment that is outside of them with the compartment within it was five [cubits], hence three chambers. And three other chambers were built on top of these three, and two [chambers] on top of them, that makes the eight compartments for the west [side].

ואחד לפשפש – for the compartment that has in it the northern wickets that are in that compartment that one enters into the Hekhal. But the anonymous Mishnah is according to the Rabbis who stated above (Mishnah 2) that one enters the compartment and from the compartment to the Heikhal, and not like Rabbi Yehuda who stated (in Mishnah 2 of this chapter) that he would walk along the thickness of the wall.