Daf Ditty Yoma 25: Kiyor

The Torah Shrine at Deura Europas

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MISHNA: The second lottery conducted daily among the priests determines the following: Who slaughters the daily morning offering, who sprinkles its blood, who removes the ashes from the inner altar, and who removes the ashes and burnt wicks from the candelabrum, and who takes the limbs of the daily offering up to the ramp to be burned later.

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This is how the limbs were divided before taking them up to the altar: The head and the right leg were carried by one priest, and the two forelegs were carried by a second priest. The tail, including the lower vertebrae of the spinal column and the fat tail, and the left leg were carried by a third priest. And the breast and the throat and some of the inner organs attached to it were carried by a fourth priest. And the two flanks were taken by a fifth priest, and the intestines by a sixth priest. And the fine flour of the meal-offering accompanying the daily offering was carried by a seventh priest. And the High Priest’s daily griddle-cake offering was carried by an eighth priest, and the wine for libation was carried by a ninth priest. Altogether thirteen priests prevailed in this lottery: Nine priests who carried the daily offering and its accompanying elements, and four who performed the slaughter, sprinkling, and removal of ashes from the inner altar and the candelabrum.

Ben Azzai said before Rabbi Akiva in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua: That was not the sequence of taking the limbs up to the ramp; rather, the order in which it was sacrificed was according to the way it walks when alive, as will be explained in the Gemara.

Come and hear a proof from a baraita: Rabbi Yehuda says: When the third lottery was held to determine who would perform the burning of the incense, there was no separate lottery held for carrying the coal pan, although a second priest was required to rake up coals from the outer altar, carry them in a coal pan, and put them on the inner altar, where the priest assigned the task of burning the incense would then place the incense onto the coals. Rather, the priest who won the privilege of the incense said to the one who was next to him: Be privileged along with me with the task of carrying the coal pan. This shows that each individual service did not have its own lottery; rather, the other priests adjacent to the winner of the lottery were automatically chosen for the ancillary tasks.

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The Gemara rejects this proof: The tasks of carrying the coal pan and burning the incense are different, because together they are considered as a single service, so that a single lottery determined the participants for the two tasks.

This argument is rejected: That is not a proof that other services require their own lotteries. The reason Rabbi Yehuda mentioned this specific example is that it was necessary for him to teach explicitly that the coal pan and the burning of the incense do not have separate lotteries but a single, combined lottery. It might have entered your mind to say that since the burning of incense is infrequent, being performed only twice a day, unlike other offerings, which may be donated by private individuals and brought many times a day, and also since it brings about wealth for whoever performs it, as the Gemara teaches later, we should institute a separate lottery for bringing in the coal pan itself, as many priests wished to perform this task. Therefore, Rabbi Yehuda teaches us that despite this, the bringing in of the coal pan does not have its own lottery. Consequently, there is no proof either way from this baraita.

Come and hear a proof from what Rabbi Ḥiyya taught explicitly in a baraita: A lottery is not held for each individual service; rather, beginning with the priest who won the lottery of the daily offering, twelve of his fellow priests, those standing next to him, are drawn in along with him to perform the other acts of the daily offering. The Gemara concludes: Learn from this that it is so.

§ It was taught in the mishna: The second lottery determines who slaughters, who sprinkles the blood, etc. The task of collecting the blood in a vessel, which is between slaughtering and

4 sprinkling, is not mentioned. Therefore, it must be assumed that either the priest who slaughtered or the priest who sprinkled the blood was assigned this task as well.

A dilemma was raised before the Sages: Who collects the blood? Is it the one who slaughters the offering who also collects the blood? The reason to support this conclusion is that if you say that the one who sprinkles the blood is the one who collects it, a situation might arise in which, due to his enthusiasm and his love for the mitzva of sprinkling, a service that is considered more important than collecting because it directly involves the altar, the priest might not collect all the blood as the halakha requires but would hurry to go on and sprinkle it after he has collected only some of the blood.

Or perhaps one should draw the opposite conclusion, that it is the one who sprinkles that collects the blood, as, if you say that the one who slaughters is the one who collects, this principle could not be universally applied, as sometimes a non-priest slaughters the offering. Slaughtering offerings is not a sacred service and may be performed by anyone, unlike the collection of the blood, which is performed by a priest. In those cases when a non-priest slaughtered the daily offering, he would not be able to collect the blood.

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The Gemara cites a source as evidence for one side of the argument: Come and hear from that which was taught in a mishna: Ben Katin made twelve spigots for the large laver to replace the original two spouts that were there, so that his twelve fellow priests who were engaged in the sacrifice of the daily offering could all sanctify their hands and feet at one time. Although there are thirteen participants listed in the mishna, the slaughterer of the offering was not required to sanctify his hands and feet because, as mentioned above, slaughtering is not a sacred service. Therefore, only twelve spigots were needed.

Steinzaltz

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Summary

Rav Avrohom Adler writes:1

The second casting of the lots determines the following: who will slaughter the animal (the tamid offering), and who will throw the blood, and who will clear the ashes from the Inner Altar, and who will clear the ash from the Menorah, and who will bring the limbs (of the tamid) onto the ramp. The Mishna now elaborates on the limbs: [One Kohen would bring up] the head and the right hind leg; [another Kohen would bring] the two forelegs; the tail and the left hind leg; the chest and the neck; the two flanks; the intestines; the fine flour (for the minchah); the chavitin (the minchah offering brought daily by the Kohen Gadol); and the wine (for the libation).

There were, in total, thirteen services involved in the second lottery. Ben Azzai said before Rabbi Akiva in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua: It (the tamid) was offered up in the way it walked (when it was alive). The Gemora inquired: When they cast lots, do they do so for one service (and the

1 http://dafnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Yoma_25.pdf

7 twelve Kohanim to his right performed the next twelve services) or do they do it for each individual task?

The Gemora attempts to resolve this from the previous Mishna: Four lots were cast there (each day). Now, if it should enter your mind that there was a separate casting of lots for each task, there would be many more than four lots!? Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak said: This is what the Mishna means: Four times they went in for the casting of the lots, and on each occasion, there were many lots. The Gemora attempts to resolve this from the following braisa: Rabbi Yehudah said: There was no lots for the shovel (to carry the coals to the Inner Altar for the burning of the incense), but the Kohen who had obtained the task of [burning] the incense said to the one next to him: Obtain with me the privilege of carrying the shovel. [It would seem that the casting of lots was effective for more than one service.] The Gemora rejects the proof: It is different with the shovel and the incense because they form together one service.

The Gemora cites an alternative version of the above discussion: This is the case only with the shovel and incense, because they form one service, but all other tasks require individual lots! The Gemora rejects this argument: With regard to the shovel it is necessary to inform us (that no separate lot is required), for one might have thought that because it takes place infrequent (for the ketores is offered twice a day, but there is never any voluntary ketores offerings; this is in contrast to the tamid, where there are many voluntary offerings brought every day) and enriches (as those who are involved with the offering of the ketores are blessed with wealth); therefore a special lot should be arranged for it. Therefore, we are taught that it is not so.

The Gemora attempts to resolve this from the following braisa which Rabbi Chiya taught: There was no lots for each individual task; rather, the Kohen who secured the task of the slaughtering of the tamid, twelve other Kohanim were drawn along with him. This proves it.

The Gemora inquires: Who receives the blood? Do we say that he who slaughtered it receives it, for if you were to say that the one who throws the blood receives it, perhaps in his enthusiasm (to throw the blood), he may not receive the whole blood; or does the thrower receive it, for if you were to say that he who slaughters the animal receives the blood, occasionally a non-Kohen slaughters the animal?

The Gemora resolves this from the following braisa:

B Ben Katin made twelve spouts for the Kiyor, so that his twelve brethren, the Kohanim, who are involved with the tamid offering, may simultaneously wash their hands and feet. Now, if you were to think that he who slaughters the animal also receives its blood, there would be thirteen. Must we not therefore infer from there that he who throws the blood receives the blood? This indeed proves it.

Rav Acha, the son of Rava said to Rav Ashi: We have also learned this in a Mishna: He whose lot it was to slaughter it, slaughtered it; he whose lot it was to receive the blood, received it, and then he came to throw it. This indeed proves it.

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THE "MACHTAH" MAKES A PERSON WEALTHY

Rav Mordechai Kornfeld writes:2

The Gemara cites a Beraisa in which Rebbi Yehudah states that no Payis was done for the Avodah of the Machtah (bringing the coals in a coal-scoop from the outer Mizbe'ach to the inner Mizbe'ach). Rather, that Avodah was included in the Payis that was done for the Ketores. RASHI explains that when a Kohen was selected by the Payis to perform the Avodah of the Ketores, the Kohen next to him on his right side was appointed to perform the Avodah of the Machtah.

The Gemara says that if not for Rebbi Yehudah's statement, one might have thought that the Avodah of the Machtah should have its own Payis, because whoever performed the Avodah of the Machtah would become wealthy. In order to give every Kohen, the opportunity to perform this infrequent Avodah and become wealthy, perhaps it should have its own Payis. From where does the Gemara know that the Kohen who performs the Avodah of the Machtah becomes wealthy? RASHI refers to the Gemara later (26a), but the Gemara there says that the Ketores makes a person wealthy. It makes no mention of the Machtah.

The Tana of this Beraisa maintains that the Machtah, like the Ketores, also makes a Kohen wealthy, as the Yerushalmi says (quoted by the TOSFOS YESHANIM, end of 26b). ;Bless, LORD, his substance, and accept the work of his hands 11 אי ֵרָבּ הָוהְי ,וֹליֵח לַﬠֹפוּ ויָדָי ;הֶצְרִתּ ;הֶצְרִתּ ויָדָי לַﬠֹפוּ ,וֹליֵח הָוהְי ֵרָבּ smite through the loins of them that rise up against him, and of ץַחְמ םִיַנְתָמ ויָמָק ,ויָאְנַשְׂמוּ ןִמ - .them that hate him, that they rise not again ְי וּמוּק ן . }ס{ Deut 33:11

The verse that teaches that the Ketores makes one wealthy, "Barech Hashem Cheilo" concludes with the words, "u'Fo'al Yadav Tirtzeh," which teach that the Machtah makes one wealthy.

This is why the Kohen who would perform the Machtah was selected only by the third Payis. Only Kohanim who had never been selected to perform the Avodah of the Ketores or Machtah were permitted to participate in that Payis.

2 https://www.dafyomi.co.il/yoma/insites/yo-dt-025.htm

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The daily offering

Steinzaltz (OBM) writes:3

The second Mishna in this perek appears on our daf, and it discusses the second daily lottery, which determined which of the kohanim would slaughter the morning tamid sacrifice, who would sprinkle the blood, who would clean out the interior altar, who would clean out the menorah and who would place the various pieces of the butchered animal on the altar. In all 13 different kohanim received their assignments for the day as a result of this lottery.

The korban tamid was a korban olah, which was completely burned on the altar. As with all korbanot olah, after its slaughtering, the animal was divided up into large pieces, which were brought to the altar to be sacrificed. The details of how the animal was divided, which pieces were paired together, how they were carried to the mizbe'ah, etc. are not explained here, as that is the focus of Massekhet Tamid.

Priests bringing limbs to the altar[/caption] The Mishna does teach that the first parts of the animal that were brought to the altar were ha-rosh ve-ha-regel – the head and the legs. Rashi explains that the head is mainly bones, while the legs are mainly meat, so they complement each other while being sacrificed. The Meiri, on the other hand, suggests that they are both mainly bones, and as such they are put together because of their similar nature.

3 https://www.steinsaltz-center.org/home/doc.aspx?mCatID=68446

10 The Jerusalem Talmud explains that these two parts of the korban were brought to the altar together as the first parts to be sacrificed because as the animal walks it stretches its neck forward and lifts its legs to move. Thus, it is sacrificed in the same manner in which it walked. The description here in Massekhet Yoma of the active participation of the kohanim in the daily procedure in the Temple acts as a contrast to the avodah of the kohen gadol on Yom Kippur, where he is the sole individual carrying out all of the avodah of that special day.

Rabbi Johnny Solomon writes:4

Other than the fact that he was a Kohen Gadol during the Second Temple period, I know little about Ben Katin who is mentioned in a Beraita in today’s daf (Yoma 25b) as well as later on in Mishna Yoma (3:10, 37a). However, as the Mishna notes, Ben Katin made two significant changes to the kiyor (laver) which was used by the Kohanim in order to wash their hands and feet before performing their Temple service.

Firstly, until his day the kiyor only had two spigots - which meant that only two Kohanim could wash their hands and feet at any one time. However, Ben Katin added ten further spigots so that, as the Beraita explains, “his twelve fellow Kohanim who were involved in the Tamid offering could sanctify their hands and feet at the same time”. And secondly, given the halachic problem of having water sitting still in the kiyor overnight – which would have meant that it would have needed to be emptied and refilled each morning - Ben Katin created a contraption that enabled the kiyor to have running water pass through it at nighttime.

It is worthwhile considering how these two problems which Ben Katin came to solve were likely to have been known to previous Kohanim Gedolim. However, while this may have been so, none of his predecessors had the insight, energy, passion and determination to initiate and to carry out these two significant improvements. Furthermore, I suspect that Ben Katin may well have received criticism for his desire to make these improvements, and having explained what he wanted to do, it is likely that he was told that it is ‘tradition’ to have only two spigots on the kiyor, and that the problem about the sitting water was among the ‘unsolvable’ halachic problems in the Beit HaMikdash.

Yet while this may have been so, Ben Katin was driven to improve the systems of the Beit HaMikdash to help them operate more smoothly and with greater adherence to specific halachic issues that – until then – had been overlooked. Yes, he would have said, tradition is important; but so is inclusion. And yes, there are occasionally problems that cannot be solved; but there are also many whose solutions are simply waiting to be discovered - or created.

Interestingly, when the Mishna recalls these two improvements of Ben Katin, he is listed alongside King Munbaz and his mother Hilni who made various costly donations to the Beit HaMikdash. By doing so, I believe that the Mishna is teaching us that while there are those who make significant financial donations, there are others who make significant donations with their time, insight, energy, passion and determination – and that both should be valued and celebrated.

4 www.rabbijohnnysolomon.com

11 Over the years I have lived in various different communities, and in every community where I have lived there has always been at least one man or woman like Ben Katin who doesn’t see problems but solutions, and who makes various suggestions to the powers that be to improve the systems or to solve particular halachic problems arising in their community. In fact, especially over the past year during COVID, those individuals have likely been working overtime to identify various practice solutions to help their communities meet the needs of their members and the demands of halacha.

Like Ben Katin, some of those people may have been told that their out-of-the-box solutions conflicted with ‘tradition’, or that the problem they wanted to address was ‘unsolvable’. But like Ben Katin, these individuals are not driven by their ego, but rather, by the needs of others and by their loyalty to halacha. As a result, a number of these solutions have been realised in the past year and have been invaluable as communities have had to adapt to these challenging times.

So to all those ‘Ben Katin’s’ in every Jewish community, I applaud you, and I – along with the members of your community – thank you for all that you do, and for all the time, insight, energy, passion and determination that you give.

Mark Kerzner writes:5

In total, there were four lotteries every day, to dole out the Temple services. Why were lots used for that? - What kind of question is this, for we already said it was to avoid discord!? - Actually, the meaning of the question is why to assemble four times, when one lot for all services could be sufficient? - It is good to stir up the Courtyard, for the greater the number of people serving God - the better.

Did they use their regular garments or holy garments for the lots? Some say that they used the regular garments, because otherwise the ruffians among the priests could seize services by force, had they been already attired for it. Others say however that if they drew lots in regular garments, they might rush and do the services in them, which would be wrong.

And what was awarded in the second drawing? - Slaughtering the daily offering, throwing its blood on the Altar, cleaning the Inner Altar, cleaning the Menorah, and bringing the limbs of the daily offering onto the ramp of the Altar. Then we have the argument about the order in which the limbs were carried.

5 http://talmudilluminated.com/yoma/yoma25.html

12 A Fuller Picture of the Kiyor

Yoav Elan writes:6

The Antechamber

Looking west towards the face of the Antechamber. Altar is in the foreground

To the west of the Altar stood the massive entrance hall of the Sanctuary Building called the Antechamber. It measured 100 cubits (150 feet) wide and towered 100 cubits above the floor of the Courtyard. Leading up to the large central doorway was a set of twelve steps which ran the entire width of the building. Like all the steps in the Temple these steps were half a cubit (9 inches) high while the lengths of the steps varied. The first two steps were 1 cubit (1½ feet) long and the third step was 3 cubits (4½ feet) long. This pattern repeated itself four times, save for the very top step which was 4 cubits (6 feet) long. Being that there were 22 cubits (33 feet) between the Antechamber and the Altar, and these steps took up 21 of those cubits, only 1 cubit (1½ feet) of walking space was left between the first step and the Yesod of the Altar.

On these steps towards the south stood the Laver where the Kohanim sanctified their hands and feet for the sacrificial service. The Laver was a sanctified vessel, and the law dictates that anything

6 http://www.beishamikdashtopics.com/2012/03/fuller-picture-of-kiyor.html#more

13 suitable for a sanctified vessel which was left inside that vessel overnight becomes unfit for use in the Temple. This would have required the Kohanim to empty the water in the Laver each night and refill it the next day which is both degrading to the sanctified water of the Laver and a time- consuming task. To avoid this, they took advantage of the fact that if the water in the Laver were to be connected to the water table its sanctity would be nullified and thus would not become unfit for use if left out overnight. To this end they dug a pit in the floor of the Courtyard and directed a stream of water through it. The Laver was lowered into this pit where it remained submerged in, hence connected to, the stream overnight and the water inside was thus prevented from becoming unfit and could be used the next day.

The Laver and Muchni

A rope and pulley system called the Muchni was used to raise and lower the Laver. It was a permanent structure, made of wood, and had a ratchet or gear purposely designed to generate a lot of noise as it operated. The Laver could be raised by just one person, quite a feat of engineering considering that the Laver, when full of water, weighed over 2½ tons!

At the top of the steps leading up to the Antechamber was its large gateway. This gateway was the largest in the Temple, measuring 20 cubits wide and 40 cubits high (30 feet by 60 feet). Queen Heleni [the queen of Adiabene, a province in the Middle East, who converted to Judaism in the Second Temple era] donated a golden candelabra which was mounted on the roof of the Antechamber and centered in the eastern wall. Each morning the rays of the rising sun would strike

14 this candelabra, causing it to shine and sparkle, which was the signal for the people of Jerusalem that the time of reciting the morning Shema had arrived. [The Shema prayer must be recited once each morning — at a certain time — and again in the evening.]

Interior of the Antechamber, looking north

Inside the entrance to the Antechamber was its main hall, 11 cubits (16½ feet) long and 60 cubits (90 feet) wide. Every inch of the walls and floor was plated with brilliant gold and decorated with carvings of flowers, palm trees, and cherubs, all connected by a network of chain designs and set with precious stones.

In the north and south of the Antechamber were two chambers called Chambers of the Knives where they kept the knives used for slaughtering sacrifices. Each of the twenty-four watches of Kohanim had private cabinets for their knives (twelve in the north chamber and the other twelve in the south) and these were set into the walls of the chambers. The southern chamber was also used as permanent storage of knives which became unfit for use. They would not be fixed since one operating principle of the Temple was, “there are no displays of poverty in a place of affluence.”

Above the doorway of the Sanctuary, inside the Antechamber, was a large grapevine of solid gold weighing over 25 tons. Donations of gold and other precious materials such as carbuncles, sapphires, and diamonds, were presented in the shape of leaves, individual grapes, or whole clusters (some of which were as tall as a man). These additions were hung upon the vine until they were needed for repairs to the structure or to support poor Kohanim. The vine itself was suspended from strong cedar poles, similar to a real grapevine.

15 The Kiyor [Laver] was a copper vessel which held the water used by the Kohanim to sanctify their hands and feet in preparation for the sacrificial service. It was used in the Tabernacle as well as in the First and Second Temples, although this Kiyor is not described in any great detail in the Scriptural or Talmudic sources.

In the First Temple Solomon constructed ten additional lavers which are described as containing 40 bas (a volume equivalent to 9 cubic amos — Ralbag) of water and standing 4 amos tall (I Kings 7:38). Malbim provides further details of these lavers: the top section of the laver was cylindrical, 1¾ amos in diameter and 2½ amos tall; the bottom section was square, 1¾ amos wide and 1½ amos tall (all the numbers given here are the outer dimensions). Now, Rashi (to II Chronicles 4:6) writes that that these ten lavers were built "in addition to that of Moses," which to me implies that they were exact replicas of the Kiyor that Moses made for the Tabernacle, just as Solomon's ten copies of the Menorah and Shulchan [Table] were exact copies of the originals. I therefore model the Kiyor of the Second Temple after Malbim's description of Solomon's lavers. Here is an image of what the Kiyor would have looked like:

Knowing a) the total volume of water held by the Kiyor, and b) the outer dimensions, allows us to calculate the thickness of its walls. From this we can then figure out the weight of the Kiyor when empty and how much it would have weighed when filled with water.

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Thickness of the Walls

The thickness of the Kiyor's walls can be calculated by solving the Volume equation using the known outer dimensions and the known inner volume:

Voutside = Vcylinder + Vcube

2 2 Voutside = πr h + base h

To obtain the inside capacity of the Kiyor we write:

2 2 Vinside = π(r-x) h + (base-2x) (h-2x) where x is the thickness of the wall (a uniform wall thickness is assumed).

Now solve using the known dimensions of the Kiyor:

9 = π(0.875 – x)2(2.5) + (1.75 – 2x)2(1.5-2x)

0 = -8x3 + 27.85x2 – 30.363x + 1.604 x = 0.05562 amos, or approximately 1 inch

Weight of the Kiyor

To find the weight of the empty Kiyor first calculate the volume of the walls using the known dimensions.

Vwalls = Voutside – Vinside

Vwalls = (Vcylinder + Vcube) – Vinside

2 2 Vwalls= πr h + base h - Vinside

2 2 Vwalls = π(0.875 ) (2.5) + (1.75) (1.5) - 9

17 3 3 Vwalls = 1.604 amos (or 10,825 in )

To find the weight, multiply this volume by the density of the copper walls using a value of 0.31 lbs/in3:

10,825 in3 × 0.31 lbs/in3 = 3,356 lbs

Add to this the 9 cubic amos of water (which weighs 2192 lbs) and the total weight of the Kiyor that was raised each morning via the Muchni was 5,548 lbs.

Tosefta

RAMBAM commentary on Mishna Yoma 3:10

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19 Sara Ronis writes:7

A classic piece of employment advice is to “dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” The idea is that, for a low-level employee, dressing like a manager will make managers think of you as a potential colleague, and help improve your chances of a promotion. While the jury is out on whether this actually helps employees advance, today’s daf offers an ancient example of this aphorism at work.

Yesterday’s daf described what various priests were wearing when they showed up at the Temple to participate in the lottery that assigned various parts of the Temple service every day. Rav Nahman says that the priests showed up for the lottery in their ordinary, everyday clothes but Rav Sheshet says they dressed in their priestly garb so they could immediately enter into the Temple service, without having to stop and change.

Today’s daf goes into more depth about Rav Sheshet’s position:

Rav Sheshet said: From where do I say (that the priests wore sacred garments when the lottery was held)? As it was taught: “The Chamber of Hewn Stone was built in the style of a large basilica (a rectangular room); the lottery is held in the east of the chamber, and an elder of the court sits in its west. The priests stand in a circle in the shape of a bracelet, and the appointed priest comes and removes the mitre from the head of one of them, and everyone thereby knows that the count began from him.” And if it were to enter your mind to say that the priests wore non-sacred garments during the lottery, is there such a thing as a mitre among one’s non-sacred garments?

According to Rav Sheshet, all the priests would stand in a circle, dressed in their Temple finery, in preparation for getting to serve in the Temple on Yom Kippur. The first priest to be counted would have his mitre (another possible translation is “turban”) removed so that everyone would remember where in the circle they started the count. Clearly, a mitre is a sacred item so, according to Rav Sheshet, the priests must have been wearing their sacred clothing!

Curiously, though, the Gemara rejects this reasoning:

Rav Yehuda, and some say it was Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda, taught: A priest whose mother made a tunic for him may perform an individual service with it on.

Although priestly vestments were normally sewn in-house by professional garment makers, apparently some priests’ loved ones might have made them non-sacred versions of the priestly garb and this could well have included mitres. (It may be that the priests wore garments similar to their ceremonial garb while out and about, perhaps to visibly mark them as members of the priesthood. But these homemade priestly vestments were not approved for Temple use, in part because they were much more likely to become impure while being worn around town.)

While the Gemara rejects this explanation of Rav Sheshet’s position, it doesn’t ultimately take a side in the original debate about what the priests wore for the lottery. But it does paint a powerful

7 Myjewishlearning.com

20 picture for us of what Rav Sheshet’s vision would have looked like: Hundreds of priests dressed in sacred clothing, including their stately mitres, standing in a circle, willing and eager to serve. Some are chosen, and rush forth to fulfill their assigned sacred tasks. But most are not, and these must remove their sacred clothing and leave the Temple, wearing ordinary clothing and preparing for an ordinary day. The Gemara reminds us that these lotteries occurred every single day at the Temple; the priests could show up again the next day dressed in their sacred clothing and try again.

Interestingly, 500 years later Maimonides follows Rav Sheshet in his insistence that all the priests showed up to the lottery in their sacred garments. Maimonides insists that dressing for the job you want isn’t a guarantee that you’ll get it, but in the case of priests and the daily Temple service, it was the only way to have a shot at it.

The Memory of the Temple in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature

Nathan Schumer writes:8

One thing that has always bugged me is that the Mishnah is often historically accurate. The Mishnah often seems to know a great deal about Second Temple Jerusalem, and you can often corroborate the Mishnah’s claims with sources from the Second Temple period. This is evident as well in the Mishnah’s treatment of Second Temple figures. The Mishnah sheds a somewhat idiosyncratic vision on who these people are, but often in ways that seem plausible. Take, for instance, M. Yoma 3.9, which recalls a set of dedications to the Temple that the high priest sees on Yom Kippur:

The high priest came to the east of the courtyard, to the north of the altar. The assistant to the [high priest] was at his left and the head of priestly clan was at his [the high priest’s] right. There were two goats and also an urn, in which there were two lots. These lots were made of box wood, and Ben Gamla replaced them with gold, and they were remembering him for praise. Ben Katin made twelve spigots for the basin, for there were only two originally, and he also made a machine for the basin so that its water should not be invalidated by being kept overnight. Munbaz the King replaced all the handles of the Yom Kippur vessels with gold. Helena his mother made a lamp of gold for the gate of the sanctuary. She also made a tablet of gold, on which the words of the Sotah ritual were written. Miracles were done for Nicanor’s gates, and they used to remember him for praise.

8 https://www.ancientjewreview.com/articles/2017/11/13/dissertation-spotlight-nathan-schumer

21 With the exception of Ben Katin, the rest (Ben Gamla, Munbaz, Helena, and Nicanor) are all known figures from the Second Temple period. Ben Gamla was a high priest and factional leader during the revolt. Munbaz and Helena are immortalized in Josephus for their piety and are subjects of a long series of stories about their conversion. Nicanor is known to us from his epitaph, which states that he was from Alexandria and made the gates of the Temple.

Historical accuracy is not really what we expect from rabbinic literature. Our a priori assumption has been, and indeed, should be, that the Mishnah (and rabbinic literature more generally) are often inaccurate in their reports about the past. However, we can plausibly identify these figures with individuals from the Second Temple period, which is something that any reader of the Mishnah needs to account for in some detail.

There have been (to be a bit simplistic) two main methods for dealing with the Second Temple period and its depiction in the Mishnah, or to be more precise, the ritual narratives of the Mishnah that describe Temple rituals: pre-Neusnerian positivism and post-Neusnerian rhetorical readings. Pre-Neusnerian positivists used to consider the Mishnah’s ritual narratives as factual descriptions of the practices of the Second Temple.[1] They used the Mishnah and other sources in rabbinic literature to uncritically reconstruct the rituals and practices of the Jerusalem Temple, an argument that was buttressed by the Mishnah’s accuracy.[2]

Reacting to this positivism, Jacob Neusner emphasized the importance of the redactional hand, arguing that rabbinic literature is best understood on a documentary level. Neusner discredited the project of using the Mishnah’s descriptions of the Temple in a historically naïve way. Neusner had his own project, which is not relevant here. But this methodological revelation set the stage for later re-imaginings of the Mishnah’s material on the Second Temple period.

More recent scholars such as Beth Berkowitz, Moshe Simon-Shoshan, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, and Naftali Cohn have read these descriptions of the Temple service as discursive rituals that construct rabbinic authority. If you think about the core historiographic claim offered by Berkowitz, Rosen- Zvi, and Cohn, it’s that the rabbis of the Mishnah are wrong about the Temple. This makes sense insofar as these texts, according to the aforementioned authors, are being put to the service of the rabbis’ own agenda (primarily the construction of rabbinic authority). It’s fair to say that this is the consensus view of the Mishnah (and indeed rabbinic literature’s vision of the Second Temple period). However, a major issue for this current model is the historicity of the Mishnah’s memory. Why does the Mishnah get so many historical details about the Second Temple period right? If the Mishnah’s recollection of the Temple is primarily about the construction of rabbinic authority, why recall all of these highly specific and accurate details? If rabbinic authority construction is the

22 main goal, why recall these things at all? The detailed rabbinic remembrance of the Temple is striking, as it contrasts so intensely with the surreal versions of the Temple found in Ezekiel and the Temple Scroll.

The main intervention of my dissertation is to attempt to account for what rabbinic literature gets right about the past. It is just as historiographically significant that the rabbis are right about the Temple some of the time as it is that they are wrong. We need models that are able to account for both aspects of rabbinic literature.

I rely on social memory to provide a clearer model for why real memories of the Temple were retained. My claim is that the rabbis did occasionally attempt to recall individuals and figures associated with the Second Temple period and were at times successful in doing so. They recalled the events and figures of the past, but shaped these memories for their own purposes. The broader methodological thrust of social memory is that the past is in the process of being changed for the purposes of the present. This explanation accounts for the historicity of rabbinic recollection of the past, while at the same time acknowledging why aspects of it are biased or wrong. Social memory, thus, allows me to account for how and why these different historical details about the Second Temple period were retained in rabbinic literature. In constructing this argument, I focus on local explanations for rabbinic historicity, rather than some overarching global phenomenon. Each chapter of the dissertation considers a separate problem:

Chapter 1 focuses on the Temple in the first century CE by examining the descriptions of the Temple found in the works of the historian Josephus. This chapter is an explanatory prologue to the main body of my dissertation, which focuses on rabbinic literature.

Chapters 2 and 3 are the heart of the dissertation. Chapter 2 primarily concerns ritual narratives of Temple rituals in the Mishnah. I claim that one purpose of these narratives is to serve as a memorial of the destroyed Temple. Drawing on this account of the Mishnah, I turn to Mishnah Middot, a tractate that provides the measurements of the Temple’s space. I argue that Middot uses the commemoration of individuals and events from the Second Temple period to construct a narrative of the Jewish past, which accounts for its relatively accurate recollections of the Temple as it stood.

Chapter 3 concerns moral exemplarity as a means of commemorating the Second Temple period, focusing on stories Palestinian Amoraic texts. I provide close readings of three stories in which figures from the Second Temple period (who often seem to have been real individuals) are transformed into moral exemplars, that is, embodiments of moral virtues or vices. These stories of

23 moral exemplarity serve as a means of making these memories of the past useful, imbuing them with meaning in the current rabbinic context.

Chapter 4 identifies another discourse around the Second Temple past, which is found in the Yerushalmi and Eichah Rabbah (ER). I argue that this discourse, the “Romanization” of the Second Temple period, uses the Roman convivial meal and the Roman province of Palestine to describe the greatness of the Jews in the Second Temple period, projecting these institutions back onto the Second Temple past. This represents a strategy of displaced anachronism and misremembering the past serves as a strategy for commemorating Jewish greatness in the Second Temple period, a potential form of resistance to Roman rule, but the very means for doing so show the degree to which the rabbis are embedded in their Roman provincial context.

[1] Epstein, Introduction to Tannaitic Literature, 31. Another example of this sort of scholarship is Louis Ginzberg, “Tamid: The Oldest Treatise of the Mishnah,” Journal of Jewish Lore and Philosophy 1, no. 1 (1919): 33–44. Epstein, at least, was fairly skeptical of these narratives as composite finished Mishnaic projects, arguing that scholars had to unpack and cut out different sources of these narratives in the Mishnah as a means of finding the core historical content (although the positivist assumption remains the same).

[2] Thus, see Shmuel Safrai, Pilgrimage at the Time of the Second Temple (Tel Aviv: Am Hassefer Publishers Ltd., 1965); Shmuel Safrai, “The Divine Service in the Second Temple,” in Sefer Yerushalayim, ed. Michael Avi-Yonah (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1956), 369–91. The Kiyor (Laver) & The Sanctification of The Hands and Feet of the Kohanim

Esther Livingstone writes:9

It is a mitzvat aseh that a Kohen coming to perform the avodah, or entering the area of the heichal must first sanctify his hands and feet from the kiyor/laver.

We learn this from: “From it, Aharon and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet. Whenever they come to the Ohel Moed... or when they approach the mizbei’ach to serve...” (Shemos 30:19- 20). Therefore, all the Kohanim serving had to wash from the kiyor each morning, thus sanctifying their hands and feet.10

9 https://kehillanw.org/articles/beis-hamikdosh/the-kiyor-laver.html

10 Ramban (Shemos 30:19): The hands and feet represent the upper and lower extremities of the human body. By sanctifying them, servants of Hashem symbolize their total dedication to the service they are about to perform. For this same reason, Chazal instituted that we should wash our hands before davening.

24

1. How much water did the kiyor/laver need to hold minimally? 2. How many spigots did the kiyor have, and why was this the case? 3. Of what material was the kiyor made and where was it located? 4. Were the Kohanim’s hands and feet washed together or separately? 5. How was the washing performed? 6. Could a Kohen sanctify his hands and feet white sitting down, and why is this the case? 7. What was the status of avodah performed by a Kohen who did not wash/sanctify his hands and feet? 8. Under what 4 conditions would a Kohen be obligated to sanctify his hands and feet again during the day? 9. Was the laver all prepared and ready each morning, or did the first Kohen washing from it need to do something to it first? 10. If a Kohen did not sleep one night, would he still need to sanctify his hands/feet the next day? 11. What else did all Kohanim need to do daily before engaging in any avodah or before entering the azarah? 12. The Kohen who merited the terumas hadeshen/lifting of the ashes would sanctify his hands/feet before sunrise. Did he need to repeat this after sunrise? 13. If a Kohen sanctified his hands/feet not from the kiyor, but from one of the klei hashares sanctified vessels used in the Beis HaMikdash, was this valid? 14. What did a Kohen need to be standing on when performing any avodah?

ANSWERS

1. It had to contain enough water for at least 4 Kohanim to sanctify their hands and feet. (Shemos 40:31 “Moshe, Aharon and his sons would wash from it, their hands and their feet.”= 4 people.) (Hil Bi’as Hamikdash 5:13)

2. It originally had 2 spigots, but later on had 12, so that all the Kohanim involved in the Korban Tamid could sanctify themselves simultaneously. Only the shochet did not need to do so. (Hil Beis Habechira 3:18). The Kohen Gadol Ben Katin increased the number of spigots from 2 to 12 in the time of the Bayis Sheni. (Yoma 37 a)

3. It was made of copper and was located outside, between the heichal and the mizbei’ach, in the azarah.

4. They were washed together.

5. The Kohen would open the spigot, place his right hand on his right foot and wash them, place his left hand on his left foot and wash them, all while bent over. This due to the passuk in Shemos 30:19 saying “...shall wash from it, their hands and (v’et)/together with their feet.” (Rashi- Zevachim 19b). (Hil Bias HaMikdash 5:16)

6. No, because this washing/sanctifying is also an avodah, and all avodah could only be

25 performed standing, as it says in Devarim 18:5 “la’amod le’sharet”-“to stand and to serve.” (Hil Bias HaMikdash 5:16)

7. His service was passul/invalid- (“chok olam, lo ulezaro”- Shemos 30:21). (Hil Bias HaMikdash 5:2).

8. If he left the confines of the Beis Hamikdash, took a nap, relieved himself, or had hesech da’as /diversion from his task by thoughts other than those relating to his duties. (Hil Bias haMikdash 5:3)

9. The Kohen needed to raise it -via a pulley- from the well into which it had been submerged overnight. Because any water left in it overnight would be unfit to be used (linah), the Kohen Gadol Ben Katin, in the era of the Bayis Sheni, designed a pulley system to avoid disqualifying the water each morning, which he felt was disrespectful. If the kiyor was not submerged overnight, it would need to be emptied and refilled anew each morning. (Hil Bias HaMikdash 5:14 & Avodas Hakorbanos p24-25).

10. Yes, as the sanctifying was only valid for the day on which it was done. (Hil Bias HaMikdash 5:8).

11. They needed to immerse in a mikveh. (Hil Bias haMikdash 5:4)

12. No, because he had done the sanctifying at the start of the avodah for that day, albeit it was before sunrise. (Hil Bias HaMikdash 5:9)

13. Yes. (Hil Bias HaMikdash 5:10).

14. Only on the floor, without any intervening object between his foot and the floor, otherwise the avodah was invalid. (Hil Bias HaMikdash 5:17)

Sources

Sefer Avodah- Rambam- With comments. Editor- Yockai Makbili- Pub- Mishne Torah Project and Machon HaMikdash-2012.

Avodas Hakorbanos- by Rav Aharon HaKohen (Kagan ) Translation- Rabbi Moshe Weiss – Pub -Artscroll 2020

The Yom Kippur Avodah - by Menashe Moshe Oppen –CIS Publications/ M’chon Harbotzas Torah -1988

The Taryag Mitzvos- Rabbi A.Y. Kahan- Keser Torah Publications- 1988

The Mitzvot- Rabbi Abraham Chill-Keter Books -1974

Artscroll (Stone) Chumash- Editors- Rabbis Scherman and Zlotowitz.

26 REBBETZIN TZIPORAH HELLER writes:11

After spending time in Eretz Yisrael things are different. These cities are bigger, the workplace more faceless. On one hand the people who surround you as you walk to the train are more indifferent and on the other hand they are subtly more judgmental. They brand you, and you brand them. It takes an instant. How you look isn't just a matter of your own taste; like it or not, it's your statement about how you want to be seen.

This effects many things. One of them is how you relate to your mirror. Is your mirror one of your most precious possessions? It's hard to imagine living without one. The only kind of mirror I don't want to have, is the kind that magnifies every pore. It's easy to think of mirrors and the obsession with appearance that is so ‘Today’, as the Tool of Satan and the Weapon of the Vain. This isn't the picture you end up with when you look at the beginning of this week's Parshah. The laver is described at the very beginning of the narrative.

The what?

Come on, be honest, how many of you have any idea of what a laver is? It's a word like phylacteries and firmament. No one uses any of these words in normal conversation. They do all have an erudite sound to them. Laver means basin. The one described at the Parshah’s beginning was created out of the copper that was made out of the mirrors used by your great great grandmothers during the time of their enslavement.

Why did they make themselves mirrors?

They were slaves. Who could they possibly be out to impress? The mirrors were for "domestic use only" Before their husbands came home, they used the mirrors that they made by polishing copper to a high gloss to see themselves. They did their best to pretty themselves up, to fish their supper straight out of the Nile, and to have their men come home to the smell of food, and the atmosphere created by a woman whose appearance tells them that she still cares, and wants to bear children. These women saw a future when it looked like there was no future. They had hope when a sane person would have given up.

Nothing could be further from them, than the self-absorption and insecurity that you can easily associate with looking in the mirror. When they saw themselves, they saw women who were strong enough to take the chance of believing.

The laver was used for the Kohanim. They washed their hands and feet (remember, they didn't wear shoes or socks in the Mishkan or the Bais HaMikdash) in the water that poured out of its spigots. This kind of washing, like the washing that we do before eating bread, was for spiritual purity rather than just physical cleanliness - in fact nothing is allowed to intervene between the

11 http://www.tziporahheller.com/from-the-rebbetzins-desk/archives/02-2016

27 water and the hands. This kind of purity is the kind of purity that the mirrors in Egypt had absorbed from the women who used them.

What does this say to you?

Maybe it tells you that your bodies are noble, important and should be taken seriously. Orchos Tzadikim tells you that you should regard your body the way you would regard marble statues in the anteroom of a palace. They are well kept, spotless. If you were responsible for them, you would do everything to see that their beauty remains unmarred. If you did not it wouldn't be just a statement about you, it would be a statement about your relationship to the King.

When Rebbetzin Risha Kotler parted from her father on the railway station, they both knew it would be the last time that they see each other. She was headed to Shanghai with her husband; her father didn't have the papers that would have made his escape possible. The Nazi war machine was swallowing up everything in its way and they would soon capture the ground that they were standing on. He asked her to promise him something. She asked him what he wanted her to promise; she valued her commitments enough to not tell him that she would do something that was beyond her reach. "I want you to see that your shoes are always tied and that you walk straight and not look any man in the eye". His requests were strange; decades later when she told me about this last meeting, there was still a tone of wonder in her voice. She had expected him to ask for more - to keep the mitzvos, or to remember her family's standards. This seemed so irrelevant to what she would be facing in the next chapter of her life's story.

It wasn't.

When the Americans liberated Shanghai, the others marched into its streets with the self- assuredness of victors. They were young, strong, untried by the privations of years of wartime. They were carefree, generous, and arrogant. There was something about the way she carried herself, and the self-possession that everything about her echoed that made them know instinctively that she was out of their range; not for sale and not for the kind of artificial friendship that seemed so natural at the time.

The Kiyor and Our Preparation for Holiness

Rabbi Weinberg writes:12

One of the vessels of the Mishkan left out of Parshat Teruma is the Kiyor, the copper washbasin used to pour water over the hands and feet of the Kohanim prior to the performance of their service

12 https://rza.org/parshat-vayakhel-pedudei-the-kiyor-and-our-preparation-for-holiness-by-rabbi-brahm-weinberg/

28 in the Mishkan. It is only in Parshat Ki Tissa that we discover the command that Hashem gives to fashion the Kiyor.

Why is the Kiyor singled out from other vessels?

The Seforno (R. Ovadiah Seforno, 16th century Italy) notes that the Kiyor appears separately from the rest of the vessels of the Mishkan because it serves a very different function.

The other vessels serve integral roles as part of the mandated service and help invest the Mishkan with the spirit of the Divine. By contrast, the Kiyor serves no function in the actual service in the Mishkan but is used only to prepare the Kohanim. It is a vessel of “hachana,” preparation, and of “hechsher mitzvah,” preparation for the mitzvah, rather than a vessel of mitzvah itself.

One might conclude that its status as a preparatory vessel is indicative of its inferior status. On the other hand, one could also consider the preparatory stage to be the essence of the service itself for it defines all that comes afterwards. Preparation for life, for events, for encounters, and especially for the encounter with Hashem is integral to its success.

There is halachic evidence of just how defining the Kiyor’s preparation might be. The Minchat Chinuch (R. Yosef Babad, 19th century Ukraine) (Mitzvah 106) says that the Kohen who fails to wash prior to the service is like a Kohen Mechusar Begadim, like a Kohen not wearing the designated priestly clothing, and would invalidate whatever service he performs.

How exactly is the Kiyor meant to affect the service or the Kohanim performing it?

In this week’s parsha of Vayakhel-Pekudei we are told that the material used for the fashioning of the Kiyor was not collected from the normal donations of Parshat Teruma but from the mirrors that the women donated at the entryway of the Mishkan. While there is much significance to the origins of these mirrors, as Rashi notes, what interests me in this context is their physical properties.

The Kli Yakar (R. Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, Prague 17th Century) notes that what was unique about these mirrors was their reflective properties; the same reflective properties as the water inside the Kiyor itself. Although the Kli Yakar explains the symbolism of the reflective properties of the Kiyor in terms of its usage for the Sotah, I would like to suggest that those reflective properties come to define the symbolism of the Kiyor and its role in preparing the Kohanim for the service each day.

The Kiyor and its waters are not just meant to wash away dirt and impurity so that the Kohanim could perform the service in the most respectful and holy fashion, but they are perhaps meant to prepare the Kohanim emotionally and spiritually as well. The Kohanim are forced to see their reflection in the mirrored copper of the Kiyor and in its waters every time they enter the Mishkan. They are meant to take a good look at themselves and reflect upon their spiritual state, their kavana, their desire to be emissaries of the Jewish people, and their preparedness to face the

29 presence of Hashem. Self-reflection and preparedness are the necessary steps to be able to capture and absorb holiness.

We experience holiness daily through Tefilla and Talmud Torah, but also through the existence of the State of Israel. Moments of self-reflection are critical for us to ensure that we approach the holiness of that special place with the appropriate awe. As we physically visit Israel or even just engage with Israel through study and Jewish text, through interest in the news, through chesed, organizational work, or fundraising, we must stop to think about just how wondrous it is. We must look within ourselves to examine whether we have the requisite gratitude to Hashem, to the founders, and to the soldiers and citizens of Israel for the most unbelievable miracle that has occurred to our people in thousands of years. We must pause for a moment every day to recognize the enormity of our responsibility in ensuring the thriving success of our homeland and of our ability to truly apprehend its holiness.

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