Taanis 4:5 - 4:6

זמן עצי הכהנים והעם – when the [Jews] from the Diaspora made Aliyah [to the land of Israel] (i.e. after Cyrus the Great In 516 BCE permitted the Jews to return to their land) and the did not find wood in the :compartment [of the Temple for the storage of wood] and they stood and donated from their own [supply and funds] and on the day that they bring wood, they bring with them a sacrifice of donation and make that day a holiday, and such is written in the book of Ezra (Nehemiah 10:35): “We have cast lots [among] the priests, [the Levites, and the people] to bring the wood offering to the House of our God [by clans] annually at set times [in order to provide fuel for the altar of the LORD our God as is written in our Teaching].”

וכל מי שטעה שבטו – and they did not know with whom he should go, he should go with the Children of Zatu.

ובני גונבי עלי – The Gemara explains that once the enemies decreed religious persecution on Israel that they should not bring their First Fruits to the Temple and placed guards along the roads for this. But honest men of that generation brought baskets of First Fruits and covered them with packed figs, which are dried figs and carried them on the shoulders pestle, which is a large tree made like a club that would crush the grit (i.e., a dish of pounded grain) with which they would regularly crush the packed figs to make of them cakes of pressed figs , and when they would approach the guard, would say to them: We are going to make two cakes of pressed figs in the mortar before us with this pestle that is on our shoulders, and this is how they would bring First Fruits to Jerusalem. And because of this, they were called, “those who steal pestles,” that is to say, they steal the hearts of the guards, with the pestle that is on their shoulders, and “those who pack figs” by dint of the fact that they cut fig cakes with tools (i.e. a knife or saw), and these honest men stood another time when they (the government) decreed religious persecution against them that they should not bring wood to the pile of wood on the altar in the Temple, and established ladders and would say to the guards – to take two pigeons from this dovecote that is before us on this ladder that is on our shoulders which we are walking with, and as a result of this, they are called, “the ladder carriers that are torn down” (?) for they would bring from them wood for the pile of wood on the altar in the Temple , and all of these bring wood with the children of Zatu.

שבו בני פרעוש שניה – For after they finished this, they would take lots as to who would be in the end, as it says (Nehemiah 10:35), “We have cast lots [among] the priests, [the Levites, and the people] to bring [the wood offering to the House of our God (by clans) annually at set times]…”

שהיה בו הלל – Because on the first of Tevet, Hanukkah always occurs, and on Hanukkah, we recite the complete Hallel, but regarding the Hallel of Rosh Hodesh, where the recitation of Hallel is only a custom, it does supersede the post. And for this reason, Rosh Hodesh Nisan is not considered, which also has Hallel and the Musaf sacrifice and the wood sacrirfice.

בי"ז בתמוז נשתברו הלוחות – For behold on the sixth of Sivan, the Ten Commandmentrs were given and on the seventh in the early morning, he [i.e., Moses] went up to receive the rest of the Torah and tarried there for forty days. Hence, it was that there were found the utensils (of the Golden Calf) on the seventeenth of Tammuz and when he [I.e., Moses] came down, he smashed the Tablets.

ובטל התמיד – for there were no longer there lambs to sacrifice, since the city had come under a siege.

העמיד צלם בהיכל – The Amoraim in Jerusalem argued: one said, an idol of Manasseh, and we are speaking [here] about the First Temple [period], and the other said: an idol of Apostomos who was of the Grecian rulers and [this occurred] in the Second Temple [period].