Yoma 27 a, b

The rabbis want to understand who carries sanctified items to the Altar and who actually performs the sacred actions commanded regarding those items on or at the Altar.

The Gemara asks whether priests or non-priests are intended to perform these services.  The rabbis wonder, "is this service done for its own sake?", in which case a priest would be required to complete that action.  For every mitzvah, the rabbis determine which part of the mitzvah was intended for the priests.  For example, if placing two logs to light at the Altar is the mitzvah, then the priests must complete that action.  However, non-priests may carry the logs, one non-priest for each log. This logic extends throughout the mitzvot around Yom Kippur rituals at the Altar.

At the end of amud (a), the rabbis wonder about 'rogue' directions -- what about those mitzvot that do not match this pattern?  They speak specifically about lambs and bulls; many people would be required to carry and place - and offer - each part of these animals.

Amud (b) begins by focuses more specifically on arranging the wood.  Wouldn't a non-priest be liable to the death penalty for performing this service if it is meant to be done only by priests?  And what to do after the fact - disassemble the wood and reassemble it? Or just disassemble the wood? But if it is done at night, is it truly a Temple service?  Rabbis counter this argument put forward by Rabbi Zeira by noting the other services that are done at night.

What of nighttime services - are they bonafied Temple services?  If not, why not have non-priests help at that point?  Rabbi Yochanan had suggested that hands need not be washed again in the morning if they were washed before the service regarding incense and ashes the evening before.  Does this prove that priests only perform daytime services and thus non-priests can perform services at night?  Does it tell us that incense offerings were to be made in the day - at the end of the day, rather that in the evening?  And how does the lottery system play into these determinations?  Do bona-fied Temple services required lotteries and thus services at night required no lotteries -- or, perhaps, that the evening lottery was only introduced to the incense service due to the fighting of the priests?

So many considerations.  Toward the end of the daf, the rabbis look at the slaughtering, which is done in the morning.  They seem to agree that this is a more significant service than others, first because it is done in the morning, and also because there are a number of texts that refer to the mitzvah of slaughtering (but not to the carrying of wood, for example, as its own mitzvah).

The looming consequence of the death penalty shook me.  I take in much of this text with some degree of levity. But truly these determinations were about living and dying for our Sages.  They had to get this right; generations of lives were at stake.  I wonder if perhaps even one of the rabbis was skeptical - if one of them saw their beliefs as just one possible set of beliefs -- the Sadducees had their interpretations of Torah; who was to say that both options weren't 'right'?  But perhaps I am simply too far removed to understand the embeddedness of our Sages' ideology.