Commentaire de citation sur L’Exode 25:35

Upon which the kohein stood. You might ask: Surely a man is four amos high, corresponding to twenty-four tefachim, while the height of the menorah was only eighteen tefachim, as Rashi explains in Parshas Terumah (Shemos 25:35). If so, why does he need a platform? The answer is that the tefachim of the Temple were ‘extended,’ such that the eighteen tefachim of the menorah were equal to twenty-four regular tefachim, i.e. equal to the height of a man. If one comes to clean the lamps he needs to see inside the lamps in order to clean them, therefore he needed a platform. (Divrei Dovid) Were all the kohanim of equal height? Surely it is possible that a kohein has a slightly shorter stature. Thus there needs to be a platform there so that every kohein can comfortably perform the service of the menorah.

כפתריה ITS KNOBS — These were like apples, globular, projecting all round the middle branch (shaft), such as are made for candlesticks of princely houses (lit., which stand before the princes), and which are called pommeaux in old French, apple-shaped ornaments. Their number is stated in this section — how many knobs projected from it (the middle branch) and how much was left plain between one knob and the other.