Hi. How did they manage to refine the menora to the point that the extra dinar of gold was also fixed into the miksha achat? Wouldnt the menorah have melted down completely?
Do you have any ideas of how this was done?
Ivan Weinstein, Petach Tikva, ISRAEL
First, see the commentaries of Tiklin Chadatin and Korban Eidah that make it clear that we are speaking about one of the ten Menorahs of Shlomo ha'Melech and not the Menorah of Moshe (i.e. one of the ten Menorahs turned out to weigh one dinar more than the Menorah of Moshe).
According to the Gemara, they took this Menorah and melted it down in an attempt to bring its weight down to exactly one kikar, but they were unsuccessful because, as the Gemora explains, the gold was already pure. Presumably, after eighty attempts to refine out the extra dinar, they manually removed the extra dinar. According to the Gemara (Menachos 29a) they were able to refine out the extra dinar. In either case, once they finished refining the metal, they refashioned the Menorah, adhering to the condition of Mikshah Achas.
Y. Sigler