Beitza 33 a, b

We learn more Festival-specific halachot.  It is emphasized over and over that we must distinguish Festivals from other days.  Whether it is how we lead an animal with a stick or what piece of wood/bamboo we choose to turn over the fire, our actions must be different from those on a weekday.  As an aside, we learn about food for animals.  An item that is muktze cannot be used on a Festival.  If we roast a duck, we cannot give its innards to our house cat unless we had thought of this in advance of the chag.  The aside: people kept house pets!  And cats were kept in the house!

A new Mishna offers two new ideas.  First, Rabbi Eliezer teaches that we can find a sliver from our own pile of straw to clean between our teeth.  We also can use our own straw to kindle a fire, for anything in our courtyard is considered to be prepared.  The rabbis counter: only those things directly in front of a person can be used on a Festival. Other things, like those in a courtyard, are too numerous to have been thought of in advance and thus they are muktze.    Second: we learn that we cannot produce fire.  Not from wood, nor stones, nor tiles, nor water and glass.   Also we cannot heat tiles until they are white and then use the tiles as roasting tools.

We learn that the wood of a spice tree might be cut down and then crushed in order to offer the fragrance to an ill person.  The rabbis debate whether it is permitted to cut the branch, to crush the wood, to use the fragrance.  They argue over the punishment for transgressions in these categories and when the punishments might apply.  

The rabbis discuss breaking a barrel.  It seems that we must be vigilant about the creation of vessels, which could happen in the process of breaking (or reattaching) a barrel.  Here we learn again about the importance of intention: as long as we do not intend to create a vessel, we are permitted to break things.  So much of Jewish thought revolves around action rather than intention; here we learn that the intention (or lack thereof) is key.  Masechet Beitza seems to be filled with references to intention.

The Gemara wonders how we are expected to roast if we cannot whiten tiles with heat.  They will continue this questioning into tomorrow's daf.  What we learn from this, already, is that our ancestors would use heated tiles to roast things like duck.  I am trying to picture how this might work, but I'm not clear on where the tiles would be placed in relation to the meat.  Perhaps I will learn more about this tomorrow.