Chagigah 3:7-8

Chagigah 3:7

If a person opens a barrel of wine, or starts selling dough during a festival, Rabbi Yehuda says he may finish selling them after the festival under a presumption of ritual purity; the Sages say he may not finish selling them under this presumption because the presumption of ritual purity only lasts for the duration of the holiday. As soon as the festival was over, they would remove the Temple vessels in order to purify the Temple courtyard. If the holiday ended on a Friday, they would not remove the vessels out of respect for Shabbos. Rabbi Yehuda says that the same applies when a holiday ended on a Thursday because the kohanim would be busy all day (and would need the next day to prepare for Shabbos).

Chagigah 3:8

Here’s how they removed the vessels to purify the Temple courtyard: they immersed the vessels that were in the Temple and would tell the kohanim to be careful not to touch the table [and the menorah], rendering it impure. Every utensil in the Temple had two or three sets so that if one was rendered ritually impure, they would bring a replacement in its place. All the Temple utensils required immersion in a mikvah except for the golden altar and the bronze altar because they are like the ground (and therefore incapable of being rendered ritually impure); this is Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion. The Sages, however, say that these were not susceptible to ritual impurity because they were stationary wood utensils plated with metal (rather than metal utensils).