The elders of Israel used to precede them on foot to the Mount of Olives, where there was a place of immersion. The priest who was to burn the cow was deliberately made unclean in contravention of the teaching of the Sadducees, who taught that the cow needed to be slaughtered by one on whom the sun had set after cleansing from his impurity. They laid their hands upon the priest and said, My lord High Priest, immerse once. He then immersed himself, came up, and dried himself. They laid out different kinds of wood there — cedar wood, pine, spruce, and the wood of smooth fig trees. They built up the pile of wood in the shape of a tower furnished with air holes, and they turned its foreside towards the west.