Daf Ditty Yoma 40: Controversies Over the Temple Rites

Daf Ditty Yoma 40: Controversies over the Temple rites

Come and hear another challenge to Rabbi Yannai’s opinion, as presented in the second version of the dispute, which maintains that both Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Neḥemya hold that drawing of the lots is indispensable. A baraita teaches: It is a mitzva for the High Priest to draw the lots and

1 to confess upon the goat to be sent to Azazel. If he did not draw the lots or did not confess, the service is still valid. This baraita also appears to say that the drawing of the lots is not indispensable, in contradiction to Rabbi Yannai’s opinion. And if you say: So too, the baraita should be emended to say it is a mitzva to place the lots on the goats, this is problematic. How will you then say, i.e., explain, the latter clause of that baraita, which teaches: Rabbi Shimon says: If he does not draw the lots, it is valid. If he does not confess, it is invalid?

The Gemara clarifies the challenge from the latter clause: In this baraita, what is the meaning of: He did not draw the lots? If we say it means he did not place the lots on the goats, then by inference Rabbi Shimon holds that while the placing is not indispensable, the drawing of the lots is indispensable. But this is incorrect, since wasn’t it taught in a baraita: If, following the designation of the goats, one of them died, a new goat is brought to be the counterpart of the surviving goat and is designated without drawing lots; this is the statement of Rabbi Shimon. It would therefore appear that the baraita should not be understood as referring to the mitzva to place the lots, but as referring to the drawing of the lots themselves. Therefore, the challenge to Rabbi Yannai’s opinion remains.

The Gemara responds: Rabbi Yannai’s opinion can still be defended by claiming that Rabbi Shimon did not know precisely what the Sages were saying, i.e., whether they were referring to the drawing or the placing of the lots. Therefore, in his response to them, this is what he is saying: If when you say: Drawing of the lots, you are saying that the actual drawing of the lots is not indispensable, as I also hold, then I disagree with you only with regard to one halakha, namely with regard to the indispensability of the confession.

But if, when you say: Drawing of the lots, you are saying only that the placing of the lots is not indispensable, but you assume that the drawing of the lots is indispensable, then I disagree with you with regard to two halakhot, i.e., with regard to the indispensability of both the drawing of the lots and of the confession.

Come and hear a proof that the drawing of lots is not indispensable. A baraita teaches: Rabbi Akiva’s students asked him: If the lot for God was drawn by the High Priest’s left hand, what is the halakha with regard to whether he may transfer the lot to his right hand? He said to them: Do not give the heretics an opportunity to dominate. If it is allowed, they will adduce this as proof of their claim that the halakhot are not absolute, and the Sages have the power to change them as they see fit.

The Gemara infers: The only reason Rabbi Akiva provided to disallow it was so as not to give heretics an opportunity to dominate, which implies that if not for this reason, it would be permitted to transfer the lot to the right hand. How could this be true? Didn’t you say that the drawing of the lots is indispensable? And, consequently, once the designation of the goat has been defined by the drawing of the left hand, how then could we transfer the lot to the right hand? Perforce, the designation is not created by the actual drawing, and as such it is not indispensable.

The Gemara explains the baraita can be understood in a way in which it does not provide a proof: Rava said: This is what Rabbi Akiva’s students are saying: If the lot was drawn by his left hand, what is the halakha with regard to whether he may transfer it, the lot, and its associated goat to his right side. He said to them: Do not give the heretics an opportunity to dominate. Accordingly, there was never any suggestion of changing the designation of the goats. Therefore, no proof can be brought concerning the indispensability of the drawing of the lots.

RASHI

Summary

Rav Avrohom Adler writes:1

The chachaimim hold that putting the lot on the respective goats is not essential nor is the confession done on the goat la’azazel (the wilderness). Rabbi Shimon holds the confession is essential but the lottery is not.

The Gemora brings a Baraisa which appears to say that the lottery to determine which goat is bought as a sacrifice and which goat is sent to the wilderness is not essential to the Yom Kippur

1 http://dafnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Yoma_40.pdf

7 service. The Gemora rejects this by saying the chachaimim were speaking about placing the lots on the heads of the goats. The actual lottery, however, is indeed essential.

The Gemora then brings Rabbi Shimon who apparently agrees with the chachamim’s ruling in regards to the lottery, but disagree with their ruling in regards to the confession said over the goat. Whereas the chachamim hold the confession is not essential, Rabbi Shimon holds it is. The difficulty is that we know from elsewhere that Rabbi Shimon holds the entire lottery is not essential. How then, can Rabbi Shimon agree with chachamim who hold that putting the lots on the goats is not essential, but the actual lottery is essential?

The Gemora answers that Rabbi Shimon didn’t actually know what the chachamim said. He therefore responds to them, “If you are referring to the actual lottery I disagree only in regards to the confession. If, however, you are referring to putting the lots on the goats, I disagree with you on two matters, for I maintain that the actual lottery is also not essential.

Lottery on Shabbos

The Pardas Yosef (Vayikra p. 197) brings a question that is asked on the 'Taz Hayodua' - the famous Taz. The Taz, in three places in Shulchan Aruch states a rule that the chachamim cannot prohibit something that is explicitly stated in the Torah. According to this, how could the chachamim prohibit certain kinds of lotteries on Shabbos (as an injunction that it is similar to business or it might lead to writing), when the Torah explicitly said that this was done on Yom Kippur with the two goats?

The Seder Yoma (63) answers according to the Taz himself. The Taz is bothered as to why the chachamim did not prohibit the blowing of the shofar on Yom Tov (because of the injunction of perhaps one would come to fix musical instruments) in the same way they prohibited it on Shabbos. He answers that the Torah explicitly commands to blow shofar on Rosh Hashana and that cannot be uprooted, however a decree that it should not be blown on Shabbos does not uproot the verse, for it will still be blown on Yom Tov when it is not Shabbos.

Similarly, even though the Sages prohibited lotteries on Shabbos - that did not uproot the verse of having the raffle on Yom Kippur.

Switching the Lots

The students asked Rebbe Akiva if the lot for the korbon laHashem came out in the kohen gadol's left hand, can he return it to his right. This question was based on it being a good omen for the goat which will be used for the chatas to emerge in his right hand. Rabbi Akiva answered that we should not leave room for the tzidukkim to ridicule us.

The Gemora asks on the question: how could one possibly switch according to the Tanna that holds that the lottery is essential to the service. Tosfos HaRosh and Gevuros Ari ask that this question should be universally accepted, for even the Tanna who holds that the lottery is not essential would

8 agree that if it was done, the lots have established which goat is for which korban; so how can the kohen gadol possibly switch it?

The Mikdash Dovid (24 -3) answers that it is evident from here that according to the Tanna that holds that the lottery is not necessary, even if it was done, that was not what designated each goat to its particular destiny; rather, it was the words of the kohen. Even if the lots indicated one way, the kohen (if not for the tzidukkim problem) could have switched them. Another question can be asked. What would the benefit be to switch the left to the right? The result of the lots already shattered our hopes of the good omen?

THE NECESSITY TO SELECT THE GOATS WITH LOTS

Rav Mordechai Kornfeld writes:2

The Gemara discusses whether the process of Hagralah (or Goral), the drawing of lots to select the Sa'ir la'Shem and the Sa'ir ha'Mishtale'ach, is Me'akev or not. Must the Kohen Gadol perform the Goral to select the goats, or does it suffice if he verbally designates each goat?

The Gemara attempts to answer this question from a statement made by Rebbi Akiva in response to his students' question. If, during the Goral, the lot of "la'Shem" comes up in the left hand of the Kohen Gadol, may he move it to his right hand (and thereby designate the Sa'ir to his right as the one la'Shem)? Rebbi Akiva answered that he may not move the lot to his right hand, because the Tzedukim will use that act as an excuse to deride the Torah and the sages.

Rebbi Akiva's words imply that mid'Oraisa the Kohen Gadol may move the lot from his left hand to his right hand. In practice he is not permitted to do so only because of the concern that the Tzedukim will use it as an opportunity to deride the Torah. If the Goral is absolutely necessary (it is "Me'akev"), then why, me'Ikar ha'Din, may the lot be moved to the other hand? The Goral already determined that the Sa'ir to the left side of the Kohen Gadol is the one which is Kodesh la'Shem. It must be that the Goral is not Me'akev.

Why is the Gemara bothered by Rebbi Akiva's answer only if the Goral is Me'akev? Even if the Goral is not Me'akev, when the Goral is performed it certainly determines which Sa'ir is la'Shem, and the determination of the Goral cannot be retracted! Consequently, when the Kohen Gadol performs the Goral and the lot of la'Shem comes up in his left hand, the Sa'ir to his left should irrevocably be the Sa'ir la'Shem, even if the Goral is not Me'akev. (GEVURAS ARI, RASHASH)

The GEVURAS ARI answers that if the Goral is not Me'akev, then there is a way for the Kohen Gadol to avoid the lot of the Sa'ir la'Shem from coming up in his left hand. Prior to the Goral, the Kohen Gadol should stipulate that the Sa'ir to his right will be Kodesh la'Shem now on the condition that the lot of "la'Shem" comes up in his left hand when he makes a Goral. Consequently,

2 https://www.dafyomi.co.il/yoma/insites/yo-dt-040.htm

9 if the lot comes up in his right hand, then the Sa'ir to his right becomes Kodesh la'Shem as a result of the Goral. If it comes up in his left hand, then the Goral does not take effect at all because the goat to the right becomes Kodesh retroactively from the time that he pronounced it as such.

Perhaps if the Goral is not Me'akev, then the outcome of the Goral does not automatically determine which goat will be la'Shem. Rather, after the Goral is performed the Kohen must pronounce which goat is la'Shem, based on the Goral's outcome. The Mitzvah to perform a Goral l'Chatchilah is to perform a Goral and pronounce that the goat is la'Shem based on the Goral's outcome. Until he makes that pronouncement, the goats are not yet designated. If, however, the Goral is Me'akev, then the Goral itself determines which goat will be la'Shem even without the pronouncement of the Kohen Gadol, since the Torah requires no input of the Kohen Gadol to designate the goats.

The TCHEBINER REBBE (in DOVEV MEISHARIM) suggests that if the Goral is not Me'akev, then the Kohen Gadol may annul (be "Sho'el" on) the outcome of the Goral and revoke it, just as one may annul his pledge to Hekdesh or Terumah and revoke its status as Hekdesh or Terumah (Nedarim 59a). If the lot of the Sa'ir la'Shem comes up in his left hand, he may be "Sho'el" to remove the Kedushah of the Goral, and he may declare instead the goat to his right side as the one that is Kodesh la'Shem.

Steinzaltz (OBM) writes:3

We learned previously (daf 39) that a number of miracles took place in the Temple during the time that Shimon ha-Tzaddik was serving as the kohen gadol. One of them was that the lottery always ended up with the animal that was to be sacrificed to God coming up in his right hand.

The Gemara on our daf records a baraita which describes how Rabbi Akiva‘s students asked him whether it would have been recommended for other kohanim gedolim who found that the lottery for the sacrifice came up in their left hand to switch it to their right hand. Rabbi Akiva’s response was an enigmatic “do not allow the minim the opportunity to rule.”

During the latter part of the second Temple period there were sects of Jews who strayed from the traditional path of the Sages on one level or another. Among these minim were the early Christians, but mainly it was a variety of Gnostic sects. While there were major differences between the groups, all of them were similar in their rejection of the tradition as it was taught by the Sages. Among their accusations against the Sages was the claim that the Sages did not truly follow the Torah properly.

The simple meaning of Rabbi Akiva’s statement was that he wanted to defend the Sages from the accusation that they did as they chose. Rabbenu Chananel explains that if the lottery always turned up in the kohen gadol’s right hand, this may – in their minds – offer support to those sects who believed that there was two powers ruling the world, God and Azazel. Were the lottery to always

3 https://www.ou.org/life/torah/masechet_yoma_3743/

10 appear in the kohen gadol’s right hand, that would show the supremacy of God over His “rival” – Azazel. Since it sometimes came up in the left hand, their “proof” was destroyed.

The Meiri‘s explanation is that the minim would argue that the Sages were engaged in witchcraft and magic, were the lottery always to appear in the kohen gadol’s right hand, so it was important that it should be presented honestly.

is critical in order to הלרגה Our Daf conducts a discussion to determine whether the procedure of designate the status of each goat, or whether the role of each goat can be declared without the lottery.4 As a proof, the Gemara cites a query presented to Rabbi Akiva by his student. If the lot for Hashem came into the left hand of the Kohen Gadol, can he switch it over to his right hand? This question indicates that the lot coming into the left hand of the Kohen is obviously not a determining factor, for if it was, the status of the goat would have already been finalized, and handing the lot into the right hand would be futile.

both note that this question posed to Rabbi Akiva does not seem to prove ”ש שר and רא י ג ב ו תר The is critical. Even the opinion that the lottery procedure is not essential still holds that once הלרגה that it is done, the choosing of the lots has an effect. Therefore, according to both opinions, once the םירשימ .lot for Hashem has been taken by the left hand, the goat on the left has that designation ,inquires about the very nature of the lottery. It might be a manner of sanctification ( )בבוד #104:3 in general, and this would mean that a person could potentially ask for a שודיק similar to verbal In fact, this may be the perspective of the one). אש י ל ה ) release from the effects of the procedure .is not critical הלרגה who holds that

This procedure can be done by lots or by verbal designation. Or, it might be a form of clarification Once the lot enters into the respective hand, this is a form of a revelation that this particular). רוריב ) ,would be allowed) אש י ל ה ) goat is for Hashem or that it is for Azazel. If this is the case, no release This can resolve the . דק השו because we are not dealing with a case of a personal declaration of . רא י ג ב ו תר question of the

and we are dealing with a, בכעמ is not ה הלרג The query asked from Rabbi Akiva was that if the can the lot from the left hand be placed into the right? This should depend on, דקמ שי form of being the mindset of the kohen, and his intention that this lot would come in his right hand.

4 https://www.dafdigest.org/masechtos/Yoma%20040.pdf

Meiri (1) explains that although switching the goat and the lot from the left to the right does not invalidate the service, nonetheless it should not be done. The reason for this caution is the concern that the Tzedukim would claim that our activities are based upon witchcraft. The basis for the students’ suggestion is that there are two benefits when the lot for the goat to be brought as a korban appears in the Kohen Gadol’s right hand. The first is that it is a sign of Divine Providence and favor when the lottery falls on the right. [This is evident from the Gemara’s earlier statement that during the forty years leading up to the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash the lottery) טל ) ended up in the Kohen Gadol’s left hand.] The second benefit is that mitzvos performed with the right hand (2) carry a greater significance than mitzvos performed with the left hand. The students therefore asked that when the lottery ends up in the left hand of the Kohen Gadol although they were not privileged to Divine Providence and favor, but perhaps it should be switched to the right hand to give the mitzvah greater significance. To this, R’ Akiva replied that the Tzedukim will suspect us of doing witchcraft (3) and therefore it is not an option. This is similar to the prohibition Therefore, the practice of hanging ( גס תולו ) mentioned by the Rishonim (4) to engage in nostrums names of people who are looking for a shidduch on a tree should not be followed (5) ; rather one should beseech (6) Hashem for assistance.

12 Mark Kerzner writes:5

During the Yom Kippur service, the High Priest pronounced the Name of God ten times, and, as one of the miracles, his voice was heard far away from Jerusalem - up until Jericho, which is ten "parsah," or over twenty miles away. He pronounces the name three times in the first confession, three times in the second, another three - during the confession while sending a goat to Azazel, and once - during the lottery. Similarly, the goats in Jericho sneezed from the smell of the incense in Jerusalem, and women in Jericho did not have to perfume themselves, because of this fragrance.

Earlier we described how the High Priest would snatch the lot from the lottery box and place each lot on the designated goat. If he omitted the procedure, the service would become invalid. Since the Torah said, " And Aharon will place the lots ," the absence of this would become a show- stopper - these are the words of Rabbi Yannai.

However, Rabbi Yochanan disagrees: by his words, the High Priest designates on which goat the lot falls, and his words alone are sufficient. Thus, even if the omitted the lots altogether, the service would still be valid. All would agree that the actual placement of the lots on the goats is not essential and could be skipped - although it is a mitzvah to do it.

SUE PARKER GERSON writes:6

Yesterday, in the description of the Yom Kippur lottery during which two goats were designated either for God or for Azazel, we discovered the preference for having the lot reading “for God” appear in the high priest’s right hand. The daf concluded with a curveball: the opinion that the lottery itself was even not essential. Verbally designating each goat’s destiny was enough.

That discussion continues on today’s daf, where we see a fascinating reason why the lottery is in fact indispensable and why its integrity must be maintained.

Come and hear a proof that the drawing of lots is not indispensable. A beraita teaches: Rabbi Akiva’s students asked him: If the lot for God was drawn by the high priest’s left hand, what is the halakha with regard to whether he may transfer the lot to his right hand? He said to them: Do not give the heretics an opportunity to dominate. If it is allowed, they will adduce this as proof of their claim that the halakhot are not absolute, and the Sages have the power to change them as they see fit.

The heretics being called out here are none other than the Sadducees, a rival sect active during the time of the Second Temple. Tracing their pedigree to Tzadok, the high priest in the time of King Solomon, the Sadducees were primarily from the ruling and priestly class – the upper crust of

5 http://talmudilluminated.com/yoma/yoma40.html 6 https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yoma-40/

13 Second Temple times. The Sadducees often found themselves in conflict with the Pharisees, the forerunners of the rabbis.

For our purposes, the important thing to know about the Sadducees is that they believed in the primacy of the Written Torah – that is, a literal reading of the Torah devoid of later rabbinic interpretation. This makes sense because the priests got their power from the lineage described in the Torah; they are descendants of Aaron and in charge of Israelite worship and the Temple rituals. The Torah is where we learn about the Yom Kippur lottery in the first place, and the Sadducees are all about keeping those traditions intact.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed in both the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, the set of traditions passed down orally from Moses and reflected in the very Talmud we have in our hands today. The Pharisees invented rabbinic Judaism, and their power came from their ability to make Judaism portable and text-based after the Second Temple was destroyed. This philosophical difference put the two groups in conflict.

The rabbis recognized that if they finagled with the lottery too much – by manipulating it so the lot reading “for God” wound up in the high priest’s right hand or dispensing with the lottery altogether – they would run afoul of the Sadducees, who would call them out for what they saw as a cardinal sin: changing the directive of the Written Torah. Rabbi Akiva, one of the most influential early rabbis, understood this dynamic and sought to impart it to his students. If we change things too much, or even give the appearance of change, he says, it will give the wealthy and powerful Sadducees an opportunity to undercut the entire rabbinic enterprise.

In the years after the destruction of the Second Temple, the role of the Sadducees was deeply diminished. By the time of the conversation on our daf, a few hundred years after the destruction, the rabbis had achieved the primacy that the priests formerly held. And yet, they are still concerned about the appearance of impropriety. Why?

When the rabbis of the Talmud argue that while the high priest can dispense with the lottery but should not do so, it is not necessarily for the approval of the Sadducees, who by this time are long gone and exert no influence. It is for our benefit, teaching us that we should seek to avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing by being above board with our ritual actions. Ultimately, that is the benefit of the lottery. By conducting it in public, everyone can see what is going on, thereby knowing that their atonement is in good hands — and hopefully, the right one.

Rabbi Johnny Solomon writes:7

Our daf (Yoma 40b) records a question raised by Rabbi Akiva’s students to their revered teacher concerning the lottery drawn by the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur.

In terms of the lottery, there were two engraved plates placed in a box: One ‘L’Hashem’ (to God) - which destined one of two identical he-goat’s to be offered in the Beit HaMikdash, and the other

7 www.rabbijohnnysolomon.com

14 ‘L’Azazel’ (to the desert), which destined the other he-goat to the desert. And in terms of the process, the Kohen Gadol would have one goat to his right, and the other to his left, and then place both hands his hands in the box. Whichever hand – whether right or left - drew ‘L’Hashem’ determined that the animal of that hand and side was to the offered in the Beit HaMikdash, and vice versa with the goat ‘L’Azazel’.

Having explained all this, the question raised by Rabbi Akiva’s students was whether a Kohen Gadol who had initially drawn the lot ‘L’Hashem’ with their left hand may switch it to their right hand?

meaning, ‘do not – לא ת נת ו םוקמ םיקודצל תודרל :To this, Rabbi Akiva responded to them by saying give the Sadducees an opportunity to rebel’ which, though somewhat of a cryptic remark, clearly reflects the very real tensions that existed in Israel in the 1st century, and specifically, Rabbi Akiva’s concern that even the mere consideration of the theoretical halachic permissibility of such a switch by the Kohen Gadol would provide fuel to those who sought to challenge and undermine the role of the rabbis as teachers and interpreters of the Oral Tradition.

Today, our concern may not be the Sadducees per se. Still, there are many people who are looking for opportunities to challenge and undermine the role of the rabbis as teachers and interpreters of the Oral Tradition, and whose less-than-friendly agenda leads many Rabbis to think more than twice about publicly sharing their thoughts on nuanced matters of Jewish thought and Jewish law. In fact, it should be noted that in the pre-COVID era, many Rabbis actively refrained from sharing their Torah thoughts online for numerous reasons including this one, and even now, many have a long list of topics that they are wary to address in public for reasons that are almost identical to . לא נתת ו םוקמ םיקודצל תודרל those summed up by Rabbi Akiva in the words

But obviously this creates a catch-22, because if they do not address topics, they fail to lead. And if they do, they risk being misinterpreted and having their words used for agenda’s not reflective of their view. So how is this problem avoided?

The answer - I believe - is achieved through being crystal clear about what you are saying and what you are not, and also crystal clear about how your words can be applied, and in what circumstances they don’t apply (nb. we saw some examples of this with rulings produced over the past year in response to the difficult conditions we’ve experienced due to COVID).

Of course, such specificity does not always ‘fit’ the soundbite world in which we live where so many of us want deep ideas to be presented in just a few short words. But I believe that by taking a little longer to explaining precisely what you mean is the price that one needs to pay to engage in topics that matter, while also avoid being misinterpreted and misrepresented.

Christians and Heretics in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity

15 Richard Kalmin writes:8

This article argues that early and later rabbinic texts, as well as Babylonian 1 and Palestinian sources, express different attitudes toward minim1 ("heretics") and Christians, and that these differing attitudes are useful in reconstructing the histories of diverse rabbinic communities. In evaluating the historicity of the rabbinic sources, it is important to bear in mind that early sources do not necessarily provide reliable information about early periods, nor do Palestinian materials necessarily depict Palestinian reality more accurately than do Babylonian materials. Portrayals of minim and Christians in talmudic sources may tell us much about relations between Jews and Christians in the Persian and Roman empires of late antiquity, but they perhaps tell us more about the desires and prejudices of rabbinic authors and editors.

According to both alternatives, ancient rabbinic texts permit us to write history. The question is whether this history describes developing institutions, events, and personalities the usual subjects of historical inquiry- or the changing fantasies of rabbinic storytellers. The primary rabbinic sources used in this article are the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, and various midrashic compilations. The Mishnah and Tosefta are both tannaitic works, and the Talmuds were edited during the post tannaitic period but contain much tannaitic material. Some midrashic compilations are tannaitic, and others post tannaitic, although like the Talmuds even the latter contain much tannaitic material. The term "tannaitic" describes, approximately, the first two centuries CE, and the term "post tannaitic" describes the literature com- posed after this date, ending in about the eighth century CE. The term "early" used throughout this article corresponds roughly to the tannaitic period, and the term "later" to the post tannaitic period.2 The Mishnah, Tosefta, Palestinian Talmud, and midrashic compilations were edited in Palestine, while the Babylonian Talmud was edited under Persian domination in what is roughly modern-day Iraq.3 One difference between Palestinian and Babylonian sources is the unique tendency of Babylonian sources to depict Jesus as a rabbi.4 This Babylonian tendency is discernible, for example, in a story that shows Jesus as a disciple of Yehoshua ben Perahya, a prominent rabbinic sage.5 The story faults Yehoshua ben Perahya for "pushing [his disciple] away with two hands," that is, for refusing to accept Jesus' apology for insulting him; this refusal leads to Jesus' rebellion against rabbinic law. Yehoshua finally relents, but Jesus refuses to return to the rabbinic fold, quoting his teacher's opinion that one who induces the multitude to sin can never fully repent.6 This story's portrayal of Jesus as a rabbi is nowhere paralleled in Palestinian rabbinic literature.

The Palestinian Talmud's version of this story, for example, does not identify Jesus as the disciple alienated by his teacher.7 Other sources in the Babylonian Talmud also depict Jesus as a rabbi.8 According to one story, Yaakov Ish Kefar Sekhanya (Jacob of the village Sekhanya) reports a midrash halakhah, a standard rabbinic legal interpretation of scripture, in Jesus' name.9 This story depicts the Roman government's arrest of R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus on suspicion of being a min ("heretic"), and Eliezer interprets his arrest as punishment for improperly close contact with followers of Jesus. Eliezer believes he deserves punishment for listening to, and approving of, Yaakov's quotation of Jesus' midrash. The message of this story in its diverse contexts is that nonrabbis and outsiders pose a serious threat to rabbinic Judaism. Even, or especially, when these outsiders state opinions and offer interpretations that suit rabbinic tastes, they are to be avoided at

8 The Harvard Theological Review , Apr., 1994, Vol. 87,

16 all costs. They are dangerous, in no small part because of the attractiveness of their words to many Jews and/ or rabbis. The Babylonian version of the story makes Jesus a rabbi by adding the following exchange:

One scholar believes that this midrash is attributed to Jesus in order to make him look ridiculous. ll Despite the midrash's questionable taste from a modern perspective, however, there is no reason to doubt the story's explicit claim that Jesus' interpretation met with ancient rabbinic approval. The Babylonian version of the story, furthermore, claims that the interpretation pleased Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, one of the greatest rabbinic sages who ever lived.l2 The Babylonian version, therefore, does not ridicule Jesus, but rather credits him with the ability to derive law by means of scriptural interpretation and thus rabbinizes him.l3 The Palestinian version neither explicitly quotes nor describes Jesus' attractive "words," and therefore betrays no hint of an attempt to describe him as a rabbi. In light of this discussion, it is worthwhile to examine briefly the talmudic treatment of Hanina ben Dosa and Honi ha-Meagel, ancient healers, wonder-workers, and rainmakers whose rabbinization is discernible already in early Palestinian sources, but becomes particularly prominent in the Babylonian Talmud. Only the Babylonian Talmud, for example, depicts these men engaging in the study of Torah, the height of human endeavor according to the rabbinic system of values.l4 It is possible to account in various ways for this Babylonian tendency to make rabbis of nonrabbinic figures.

Wonder-working by especially endowed individuals was contrary to the religious program of early Jewish sages, who therefore viewed wonder-workers as outsiders. Baruch M. Bokser has claimed that "early rabbinic Judaism tried to. . . demonstrate that Judaism was available to everyone everywhere.... It therefore had to be antipathetic to a notion of special access to God and a religious piety limited to certain individuals.''l5 Later rabbis, who depicted themselves as wonderworkers, had no reason to view individuals like Honi and Hanina as outsiders: on the contrary, they claimed them as their own by adding a rabbinic veneer to originally nonrabbinic figures. To quote Bokser again, "In this period of political, social, and economic dislocation. . . it became socially acceptable for leaders to stand out from the rest of society, to appear special.,,16 In addition, later sages depicted ancient wonder-workers as rabbis in order to strengthen their claim to be the authoritative spokesmen for the Jewish people. Later sages validated their authority in the face of potentially

17 divergent or competing forms of religious expression by claiming that anybody who was prominent in the past was a rabbi, and by extension that anybody who is prominent in the present and the future should also be a rabbi. 17

What do the Babylonians accomplish by their rabbinization of Jesus? The story depicting Jesus as a lapsed disciple of an overly harsh teacher (see above p. 157) minimizes the threat that Jesus and his followers pose to the rabbinic way of life. Jesus has no competing message, the Babylonian rabbis claim. Remove his rabbinic qualities and only sorcery and idolatry remain, practices clearly condemned by the Bible and beyond the bounds of Jewish observance. According to this story, Jesus is nothing but a failed rabbi who reacts crudely to his master's rebuke by transgressing Judaism's most basic commands.l8 Moreover, by attributing a midrashic statement to Jesus in the Eliezer ben Hyrcanus story (see above p. 157-58), Babylonian rabbis increase the story's impact by emphasizing the insidious nature of contact with quasi- rabbinic sages who utter pleasing words. Jesus and his followers know how to talk like rabbis, claims the story, and therefore close contact with them is all the more to be avoided.

The addition of the midrashic statement, finally, is attributable to the Babylonian Talmud's tendency to expand and rework earlier sources to a greater degree than Palestinian compilations,l9 as well as to the natural tendency of any group to depict outsiders in terms familiar to the group.

Why these tendencies were stronger in Persia than in Palestine is not clear, but perhaps a better understanding of the non-Jewish milieu within which rabbinic sources took shape will yield an answer. Other examples of the tendency, both rabbinic and nonrabbinic, to project norms from within the group onto outsiders are easy to find. The rabbis claim, for example, that God himself wears tefillin and studies Torah; Moses is "Moses our rabbi"; and Aaron is a Torah scholar whose priestly activities are deemphasized or ignored altogether.20 Philo's Moses is a philosopher;2l medieval artists rendered ancient Greeks, Romans, and Israelites as medievals; people throughout the ages described encounters with super- natural beings in terms borrowed from their own culture. We also find that rabbinic traditions about minim and Christianity reveal important differences between early Palestinian sources, on the one hand, and later Palestinian and Babylonian sources, on the other.

To be specific, several early Palestinian sources urge avoidance of minim and Christians, contact with whom is depicted as dangerous but sought after because of their skill as healers and the attractiveness of their "words." This notion of the powerful attraction that minut ("heresy") and Christianity exerted on rabbis and their families is found almost exclusively in tannaitic collections such as the Tosefta, but also in tannaitic sources in the Babylonian Talmud that have toseftan parallels. Statements attributed to later Palestinian and Babylonian amoraim in both Talmuds, in contrast, reveal no hint of this notion.

A tannaitic source examined in a preliminary fashion above reflects the early Palestinian attitude.22 Both versions of this story, we may recall, describe R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus's arrest and mention Jesus' attractive statement. The story depicts a great sage seduced by the words of a follower of Jesus and punished as a result. Certainly, lesser Jews or rabbis will suffer even graver consequences, warns the story, if they fail to keep their distance from the teachings of such dangerous men.23 The early Palestinian attitude is also expressed on t. .Hul. 2.20-23 and paralleled

18 in b. 'Aboda Zar. 27b, which forbid Jews to have contact with followers of Jesus and in particular to employ them as healers.24 Elazar ben Dama has been bitten by a snake and wants to be cured by Yaakov Ish Kefar Sekhanya in the name of Jesus. Elazar ben Dama asserts that the Torah permits his cure, but he dies before revealing his proof. At the conclusion of the story Elazar ben Dama's uncle, R. Yishmael, expresses joy that his nephew died without transgressing the words of the rabbis.

The story implies that cure by a follower of Jesus is such a sensitive issue that Elazar ben Dama must be forcibly prevented from revealing his scriptural proof. Rabbis, or Jews in general, may be swayed by Elazar ben Dama's words, and had Elazar been cured in Jesus' name many may be drawn from rabbinic piety. Elazar ben Dama's death just before revealing his scriptural proof shows the hand of God, who intervenes at precisely the proper moment to ensure removal of the temptation to follow heresy. Another story involving an early Palestinian rabbi also emphasizes the attractiveness of minut and the need to avoid contact with heretics. This story, found in Ecclesiastes Rabbah, is part of a collection of stories that may consider minim to be Christians.25 Ecclesiastes Rabbah may have been edited after the Talmuds, but the relatively late date of its final editing is not ipso facto proof that all of its traditions are late. Even if the tradition is late, however, my conclusions are not significantly affected. The distinction between Palestinian and Babylonian sources remains, even though the distinction between early and later Palestinian sources disappears. The story involves R. Yonatan,26 an early Palestinian rabbi whose student has fled to the minim. The minim invite Yonatan to join them in performing "deeds of loving-kindness" for a bride, and he accepts the invitation, only to find them having group sex with- a young girl. Yonatan flees, the minim pursue, and he arrives home and locks the door in their faces. They taunt him, boasting that had he turned and looked at them, he instead would be pursuing them. This story also depicts minut as irresistible to rabbis if they examine it too closely. Early Palestinian sources in Sifrei Deuteronomy and Avot de-Rabbi Natan bear the same message.27 In the former, R. Shimon ben Menasya advises against drinking "turbid water" and being "drawn to the words of minim."28 In Avot de-Rabbi Natan, R. Yehoshua ben Korha advises against "going to the minim and listening to their words" lest one be influenced by their actions and stumble as a result.29 These sources further support my characterization of early Palestinian attitudes toward minut, although they do not explicitly link the term with Jesus or Christianity.

Rabbinic accounts of disputes between rabbis and minim further support my claim that Palestinian and Babylonian compilations express different attitudes toward minim. By the term "dispute," I refer to dialogues, or, more precisely, purported dialogues between rabbis and minim concerning beliefs, practices, and interpretations of biblical verses. Post tannaitic sources, found almost exclusively in the Babylonian Talmud, record numerous disputes between rabbis and minim.3l These disputes may be fabrications (most are Babylonian stories about Palestinian rabbis), but they may also have some basis in reality. They have clearly been reworked at least in part, since the rabbinic protagonists always have the final word and the "right side" always prevails in the end.32 Only once do we perhaps find an attempt to dissuade rabbis from participating in such discussions.33 Post tannaitic sources, in other words, depict rabbis as capable of holding their own in disputes with minim, in an attempt to assure Jews or rabbis who are anxious about heretics that the situation is firmly under control. These stories also provide a forum for rabbis to respond to accusations, objections, and insults leveled at them by heretics during the course of actual conversations or through literary sources.

Finally, these stories are perhaps part of a rabbinic effort to win converts by convincing others of the superiority of rabbinic doctrine and scriptural exegesis.34 Tannaitic statements that depict or describe rabbinic contacts with minim statements found in the Tosefta and paralleled in the Babylonian Talmud3s- clearly differ from the post tannaitic sources. Tannaitic sources prohibit social and sexual intercourse with minim, forbid their food and drink, and label their children mamzerim ("illegitimate"). These sources also forbid doing business and conversing with minim, as well as teaching their children a trade.

The early sources provide no record whatsoever of face-to-face disputes over doctrine, practice, or scriptural interpretation.36 Indeed, the need of tannaitic sources to engage in strenuous polemic against contact with heretics suggests that contact did take place and may have been quite frequent, but there is no indication in tannaitic sources that this contact took the form of disputes. Only in a few scattered sources, which are suspect as later, anachronistic projections of reality onto a much earlier age, do we find tannaim por- trayed as disputing with minim.37 These sources are suspect because (1) all are in Aramaic, the language of post tannaitic sources; (2) they lack the usual technical terms indicative of a source's tannaitic origin;38 and (3) such portrayals are never found in undeniably tannaitic documents such as the Mishnah and Tosefta, but only in a later edited work, the Babylonian Talmud. Very likely, these sources were invented or edited by post tannaitic generations in conformity with post tannaitic reality, fantasy, or literary convention. The Babylonian Talmud, in other words, distinguishes between authentically tannaitic sources, on the one hand, and traditions attributed to tannaim but authored or influenced by later generations, on the other.

Our findings support the Babylonian Talmud's differentiation, showing that at least in some cases the Talmud's Hebrew materials with appropriate technical terms conform to known tannaitic patterns, while its Aramaic materials without technical terms follow different patterns. When we turn to the question of historical significance, we may conclude that the above findings indicate that disputes between Palestinian rabbis and heretics were rare or nonexistent during the tannaitic period but became more frequent later. Just as plausibly, however, the sources attest to the changing fantasies of rabbinic storytellers. Later storytellers may have imagined such disputes, inventing narratives in which rabbis easily and consistently defeated their heretical opponents. These narratives served as tools in their struggle to win converts or in their fight against heresy; the stories functioned as attempts to convince anxious Jews that heretical arguments were easy to refute and that the fundamentals of rabbinic belief and practice were sound and secure.

Related to the question of historical significance is the problem of why disputes between rabbis and minim are virtually nonexistent in post tannaitic Palestinian documents such as the Palestinian Talmud but are more com- mon in the Babylonian Talmud. We would expect the opposite, since Bible- reading heretics such as Christians were a relatively powerful presence in the Roman world, but a relatively inconsequential minority in Babylonia under Persian rule. The Babylonian Talmud records many disputes between heretics and Palestinian rabbis, but Palestinian compilations record fewer than a handful of such disputes.

The lack of importance of heretics in Babylonia is reflected, for example, in the claim of one Babylonian rabbi that "there are no minim among the idolatrous nations."40 Elsewhere, in a story

20 preserved only in the Babylonian Talmud, R. Abahu explains why he is well versed in scripture but R. Sheshet is not: "We who are frequent among you [heretics] take it upon ourselves to examine [scripture]. They [Babylonians] do not examine [scripture].''4l It is very likely that the absence of a significant scripturally based challenge to Babylonian rabbis led to the relative neglect of haggadic (non-legal) exegesis in rabbinic Babylonia. Midrash, especially the haggadic variety, is to a large extent a Palestinian phenomenon.

All of our extant midrashic compilations were edited in Palestine, and relatively few haggadic scriptural comments are attributed to Babylonian rabbis. How do we account, then, for the scarcity of stories depicting disputes between rabbis and Bible-reading heretics in Palestinian compilations and the relative frequency of such stories in the Babylonian Talmud? The Babylonian interest in such materials evidently derives from their entertainment value, from the exciting and dramatic fashion in which Palestinian heroes defeat the alternatingly clever, devious, stupid, and dangerous heretics and thus demonstrate the superiority of rabbinic belief. The Babylonians could revel in the exploits of their coreligionists, fighting the good fight from the front lines in Palestine, while they, the Babylonians, enjoyed the relative peace and security of life without such virulent pests in Persia. What should we make, however, of the virtual absence of such stories from Palestinian compilations? One possible explanation is the general tendency of Palestinian compilations to contain relatively little dialogue, even dialogue between rabbis. The paucity of disputes between rabbis and minim may simply be part of this general tendency. The relative abundance of such disputes in the Babylonian Talmud is not surprising, therefore, since Babylonian sources appear to be much richer in dialogue. Tannaitic sources are likewise relatively sparse in dialogues, and the absence of such disputes from tannaitic sources may likewise be a function of the general paucity of tannaitic dialogue

A second possibility is that we have simply uncovered different Babylonian and Palestinian uses of terminology. Palestinian rabbis perhaps tended to avoid the term min, and Babylonian rabbis did not. A full study of all dialogues between rabbis and nonrabbis may reveal that Babylonian and Palestinian compilations do not differ on this issue as dramatically as focus on the term min would indicate.42 In other words, it may be that Palestinian compilations depict rabbis conversing with heretics about as frequently as do Babylonian compilations, but Palestinian compilations generally do not refer to them as minim. A third, less likely possibility is that disputes between rabbis and minim were deliberately suppressed in Palestine in an effort to avoid insulting the Bible- reading heretics who were particularly prominent in the Roman world. Fear of reprisal may have led to the suppression of stories explicitly critical of nonrabbinic doctrines and biblical interpretations.43

It is very likely, therefore, that rabbinic storytellers make little or no effort to reproduce the actual names of minim or Christians, but rather refer to them by stereotypical names. The content of the dialogues is also likely to be stereotypical, with rabbinic authors telling stories about "John Doe Her- etic" and attempting to reproduce typical discussions rather than transcripts of actual dialogue. It follows that overly careful attempts to determine the precise heresy described in the sources may be misguided. These sources give us rough stereotypes and sketches drawn in extremely broad strokes rather than finely nuanced portraits or scientifically precise descriptions.55

21 References: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1510119.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A342fe3302b3d0cd00b065fd329049676

Sadducees

Views on Temple Practises.9

10. Especially in regard to the Temple practice did they hold older views, based upon claims of greater sanctity for the priesthood and of its sole dominion over the sanctuary. Thus they insisted that the daily burnt offerings were, with reference to the singular used in Numbers 28:4, to be offered by the high priest at his own expense; whereas the Pharisees contended that they were to be furnished as a national sacrifice at the cost of the Temple treasury into which the "she-á¸³alim" collected from the whole people were paid (Meg. Ta'an. 1:1; Men. 65b; Sheá¸³. 3:1,3; Graetz, c. p. 694).

11. They claimed that the meal offering belonged to the priest's portion; whereas the Pharisees claimed it for the altar (Meg. Ta'an.; Men. 6:2).

12. They insisted on an especially high degree of purity in those who officiated at the preparation of the ashes of the Red Heifer. The Pharisees, on the contrary, demonstratively opposed such strictness (Parah 3:7; Tos. Parah 3:1-8).

13. They declared that the kindling of the incense in the vessel with which the high priest entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement was to take place outside, so that he might be wrapped in smoke while meeting the Shekinah within, according to Leviticus 16:2; whereas the Pharisees, denying the high priest the claim of such super-natural vision, insisted that the incense be kindled within (Sifra, Aá¸¥are Mot, 3; Yoma 19b, 53a, b; Yer. Yoma 1:39a, b; comp. Lev. R. 21:11).

14. They extended the power of contamination to indirect as well as to direct contact (Yad. 4:7).

15. They opposed the popular festivity of the water libation and the procession preceding the same on each night of the Sukkot feast, as well as the closing festivity, on which the Pharisees laid much stress, of the beating of the willow-trees (Suk. 43b, 48b; Tos. Suk. 3:16; comp. "Ant." 13:13, Â§ 5).

16. They opposed the Pharisaic assertion that the scrolls of the Holy Scriptures have, like any holy vessel, the power to render unclean (taboo) the hands that touch them (Yad. 4:6).

9 https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tje/h/sadducees.html

22 17. They opposed the Pharisaic idea of the 'Erub, the merging of several private precincts into one in order to admit of the carrying of food and vessels from one house to another on the Sabbath ('Er. 6:2).

18. In dating all civil documents, they used the phrase "after the high priest of the Most High," and they opposed the formula introduced by the Pharisees in divorce documents," According to the law of Moses and Israel" (Meg. Ta'an.; Yad. 4:8; see Geiger, c. p. 34).

THE SADDUCEES, THE PHARISEES, AND THE SACRED: MEANING AND IDEOLOGY IN THE HALAKHIC CONTROVERSIES BETWEEN THE SADDUCEES AND PHARISEES

Eyal Regev writes:10

In the Hasmonean and Herodian periods, a group called Sadducees had a prominent share in the political and religious governing institutions. The Hasmoneans John Hyrcanus and Alexander Jannaus, as well as the high priests Joseph Caiphas (who headed the Sanhedrin that turned Jesus in to Pilate) and Annaus son of Annaus (who sentenced Jacob, the brother of Jesus, to death), were all Sadducees.1 However, the Sadducees were the Jewish group in the Second Temple period about which our knowledge is the most scarce and obscure. Here I introduce some of the results of my study of the Sadducees, The Sadducees and Their Halakhah: Religion and Society in the Second Temple Period, 2 in which I reconstruct the Sadducees’ law, religious ideology, and social history, and by doing so also juxtapose the parallel religious history of the Pharisees and early rabbis with the Sadducees. Although the Pharisees and the Sadducees were perhaps the most influential religious group in Second Temple Judaism, Josephus, the New Testament, and other contemporary sources do not describe their views concerning law and theology in detail.3

The richest evidence about what the Pharisees and Sadducees aimed for and how they interpreted the Torah is found in the Rabbinic corpus, especially in the Mishnah (but also in the Tosefta, the halakhic midrashim, the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds). This is unfortunate, since, for two reasons, such evidence may not be reliable and accurate. First, the Rabbinic corpus was edited centuries after the destruction of the Temple, when the Pharisees and Sadducees ceased to exist; how, then, were the rabbis able to know what these groups thought and how they acted? Second,

10 file:///Users/julianungar-sargon/Desktop/sadducees.pdf

23 in many cases the Rabbinic accounts are tendentious, showing Pharisaic superiority and achievements. After all, the rabbis were the heirs of the Pharisees.4 For these reasons, reconstructing the religious and ideological world of the Pharisees and the Sadducees might seem impossible.5

To address these difficulties, I suggest a new approach to the halakhic disputes between the Pharisees/rabbis and Sadducees/Boethusians.6 The key to this reevaluation lies in examining the Rabbinic descriptions without prejudice, searching for pieces of information that do not seem polemical and that do not seem to be a product of a later imagination. I believe that authentic and reliable information can be sifted from the Rabbinic evidence if one is conscious enough of the difficulties raised above but is nevertheless sensitive to traces of halakhah and religious ideology that the rabbis could hardly have fabricated.

As I will try to show below, when the Rabbinic records are closely analyzed in light of our knowledge of Second Temple Halakhah (especially having in mind the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls), the conclusion that appears is very clear: the rabbis were extremely consistent in portraying the Sadducees as holding stricter views than the rabbis themselves concerning Sabbath, ritual purity, the penal code, and as putting a much greater emphasis on the priests and their prominence in relation to the laity.7 (These views seem somewhat close to the laws of the book of Jubilees, the Temple Scroll, and 4QMMT from Qumran; hence, although the laws of the Sadducees were not at all identical with them, there is clear evidence of such strictness in certain circles of Second Temple Judaism.)8

The strictness of the Sadducees appears time and time again throughout the Rabbinic corpus. The rabbis could scarcely invent it or increase it. They would have gained nothing from such a fabrication; indeed, it would have suggested that, in their leniency, the rabbis were less devoted to the Torah than the Sadducees. Their portrait of the Sadducean rigorous Halakhah does not emerge from a single text or editor but encompasses the whole Rabbinic halakhic corpus. For this reason, and as the result of an examination of each and every source discussed here, I take the Rabbinic portrayal of the halakhic disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees as relatively reliable in terms of the actual views of each side. I, however, doubt that the outcomes of the disputes, namely, the Pharisees/rabbis overcoming the Sadducees/Boethusians, are historical. Here we have no objective criteria to judge the authenticity of our sources, while it is clear that the rabbis were eager to show the superiority of the side with which they identified.

My main concern in the present discussion is to uncover the religious ideology that lies behind the different halakhic views of the Sadducees and Pharisees, the ideology that apparently motivated them to strive to implement their laws in the Temple and the courts even at the cost of a violent struggle (in the days of Alexander Jannaus, for example).9 I examine several selected halakhic controversies and point to the specific religious idea or value implicit in them. Then I suggest a model that aims to correspond to all those halakhic or religious values of the Sadducees on the one hand, and the Pharisees on the other hand. The model presents two concepts or world-views— dynamic holiness vs. static holiness—and is inspired by studies in cultural anthropology.

Purity Laws

24 The Sadducees argued that the red heifer should be burned only by a high priest who is entirely pure at sundown (that is, immersed in a ritual bath and then waited for sundown). The Pharisees claimed that the high priest may burn it in a state of incomplete Levitical purity, tebul yom, that is, even when he had just immersed and did not wait until sundown.14

Thus, the Sadducees demanded that the ritual of the red heifer be executed in a state of perfect purity, whereas the Pharisees seemed to claim that Scripture does not require this. In the Pharisaic view, since this ritual is not performed in the Temple, but on the mount opposite it, a perfect state of purity is unnecessary. In fact, the concept of the ritual state of tebul yom was created by the Pharisees, who deemed it a condition under which one may eat ordinary food in a state of purity.15 Rabbinic sources mention that the rabbis purposely defiled the high priest in order to make sure that he would immerse and be forced to burn the red heifer in a state of tebul yom (M. Par 3:7–8; T. Par. 3:8).

The Sadducees viewed the nizzok, the stream of liquid pouring from a pure vessel into an impure one, as contaminating (M. Yad. 4:7). Thus the Sadducees argued that the lower vessel’s impurity “climbs” to the upper vessel. The Pharisees, on the other hand, regarded the stream as pure, apart from cases of viscous liquids, like honey (M. Toh. 8:9; M. Makh. 5:9). The Sadducees and Pharisees disagreed about the identification of the blood of menstruation. Whereas the Pharisees considered several physical indications of the menstruation period, the Sadducees stressed that a woman is impure upon observing any blood. They were not acquainted with the principle of the monthly cycle of menstruation (vesset) as a means of identifying menstrual blood, or with other definitions in Rabbinic literature that permit such identification.

In Sadducean halakhah, the defiling sate of niddah was therefore much more frequent.16 In these three instances the Sadducees were stricter than the Pharisees, who reduced the scope of impurity and its consequences. The Sadducees strictly observed the division of pure and impure, while the Pharisees made more nuance observations—not derived from Scripture—that blurred such a stark dualism.

According to the Pharisees, the most prominent ritual of cleansing, that of the red heifer, did not require a complete state of purity; the contact between pure and impure liquids was limited to thick ones; and the definition of menstrual blood was dependent upon the human understanding of how the female body functioned. All this seemed too innovative and baseless for the Sadducees.

Sacrifices and Temple Cult

The scholion to Megilat Taaanit reports about the Pharisaic takeover of the Temple cult.17 While the Sadducees argued that the daily sacrifices should be financed by individuals (perhaps the serving priests) the Pharisees insisted that all the Jewish people should sponsor them. Consequently, the Pharisees (probably with the cooperation of the Hasmoneans) determined the half-shekel payment in which every Jew had an equal share in financing the sacrificial cult.18 This victory is dated to the first-to-the eighth of Nissan, but Rabbinic sources do not explain its eight day duration or why it was assigned in the beginning of Nissan. Interestingly, the very same days are assigned by the Temple Scroll as the days of priestly inauguration (mill’uim).

The Temple Scroll orders that this ritual be held every year, as an annual consecration of the priesthood.19 I think that the rabbis did not confuse the Sadducees or Boethusinas with the Temple Scroll; I suggest that the scholion implies that the Pharisees canceled the Sadducean days of inauguration.20 If indeed the Sadducees regulated this ritual, this would attest to their view that the priests needed to renew their appointment and consecration. This would also be in accordance with their opposition to the laity’s equal share in financing the sacrificial cult. The Sadducees held that on the day of atonement, the high priest should burn the incense in the heikhal before he enters the devir (the qodesh qodashim, the inner sancta).

The Pharisees, on the other hand, insisted that the high priest should first enter the devir and then burn there the incense.21 The debate on this seemingly marginal matter was far-reaching. According to the Mishnaic aggadah, the high-priest (probably a Sadducee) had to take an oath before the elders that he would not alter the (probably Pharisaic) instructions in performing the sacrificial rituals.22 But what was the actual meaning behind this controversy? I suggest that the question of where the incense would be burned had implications concerning its symbolic meaning. In the multitude accounts of this debate the opposing sides discuss the terms of the cloud of incense and the cloud of heavenly revelation. I therefore propose that the Sadducees viewed this cloud as a symbolic boundary between the high priest in his awesome moment and the rest of the people, a boundary that stresses his closeness to God in comparison to the rest of the people of Israel.23

The Pharisees argued that the cereal offering (elsewhere I have shown that this was the offering that accompanied the shelamim sacrifice) should be offered on the altar. The Sadducees responded that this cereal offering should be given to the priests, who eat it as holy food, just as he eats other cereal offerings.24 In the same vein I suggest interpreting cases in which, according to Rabbinic sources and Josephus, priests who may be identified as Sadducees took tithes from their owners, even forcefully.25 They did not wait for the delivery of the tithes to the Temple and their distribution to priests, destitute and lay-Pharisees (depicted in Yerushalmi Maaaser Sheni), nor did they follow the later Rabbinic practice that the main duty of the lay owners is to set aside the tithe, whether or not the priest or Levite will demands it.

I propose that these Sadducean priests believed that the tithes were a holy crop assigned to them, like the portions of the sacrifices. The Sadducees also reject lay cultic rituals such as the Pharisaic practice of the pouring of the water on the altar in the sim˙at beit ha-shoheva (literally “the feast of the house of drawing water”) on Sukkot. Rabbinic sources even mention a case in which a Boethusian priest poured the water on his feet instead of on the altar and was stoned by the laity with citrons.26

The Sadducees may have objected to it as a non-scriptural ritual, and perhaps also because during the ritual’s course lay people entered the priestly court when they encircled the altar. The Sadducees probably also wished to exclude the laity from entering the priestly court and having direct contact with the sacred. This seems to be attested to in their opposition to the Pharisaic immersion of the Menorah.27 In the conclusion of the festival, the Menorah and other sacred vessels were purified in water since the Pharisees suspected that the lay people defiled them by

26 their touch (M. Hag. 3:7–8). It seems that the Sadducees objected to the very circumstances that led to this suspicion.

References

1 Ant. 13:288–96 (Hyrcanus). Ant. 13:399–404 ( Jannaus); Acts 10:17 (Caiphas); Ant. 20:199 (Annaus son of Annaus).

2 Jerusalem, 2005 (in Hebrew).

3 For Josephus’s reports on the Pharisees, mainly on their beliefs, see S. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees (Leiden, 1991). For Pharisees and Sadducees in the New Testament, see idem, “Chief Priests, Sadducees, Pharisees and Sanhedrin in Acts,” in R. Bauckham, ed., The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting, VI: The Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting (Grand Rapids, 1995), pp. 119–77; A.J. Hultgren, Jesus and His Adversaries: The Form and Function of the Conflict Stories in the Synoptic Tradition (Minneapolis, 1979).

4 J. Neusner, The Rabbinic Tradition about the Pharisees before 70 (Leiden, 1971), 3 vols., discusses the non-halakhic evidence. 5 R. Leszynsky, Die Sadduzäer (Berlin, 1912); Le Moyne, Les Sadduceans (Paris, 1972) already showed that the Sadducees were a religious (and not only political) group and that they held stricter views than the Pharisees. Still, some scholars erroneously regard them as Hellenized (“secular”) aristocrats. See, for example, E.P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah (London, 1990) pp. 214–54.

6 For sources in which rabbis (and not Pharisees) confront the Sadducees, see E. Rivkin, “Defining the Pharisees: The Tannaitic Sources,” in Hebrew Union College Annual 40–41 (1969–1970), pp. 205–49. I take the Boethusians as another name for the Sadducees or as being a sub-group within the Sadducees as a whole. I also see no reason to confuse the Sadducees or Boethusians with the Qumran sectarians and to argue that the rabbis actually had disputed with the Qumranites. The first were high priests and aristocrats, whereas the latter separated themselves from the rest of the Jews and hardly influenced the governing institutions. See Regev, The Sadducees, pp. 32–58.

7 For the “multitude attestation” of this strictness in these different fields of Jewish Law, see Regev, The Sadducees, pp. 223–26.

8 For the points of similarity and especially points of difference between the Sadducees and the Qumranites, see E. Regev, “Were the Priests all the Same? Qumranic Halakhah in Comparison with Sadducean Halakhah,” in Dead Sea Discoveries 212 (2005), pp. 158–88.

9 Ant. 13:372–83 (compare B. Qid. 66a); Regev, The Sadducees, pp. 261–74.

10 This conclusion draws on my reading of B. Erub. 66b.

11 M. Men. 10:3; T. Men. 10:23. This also led to the dispute regarding the date of Pentecost (seven weeks after the harvest of the Omer). See T. R.H. 1:15; B. Men 65b.

12 Journal of Jewish Studies 48 (1997), pp. 276–89.

13 4Q169 fags. 3–4, 3:8–4:4, in M.P. Horgan, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretations of Biblical Books (Washington, 1979), appendix, pp. 49–50.

14 M. Par. 3:7–8; cf. M. Par. 5:4; T. Par. 3:6, 8. See J.M. Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic-Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” Journal of Jewish Studies 31 (1980), pp. 157–70.

15 See E. Regev, “Pure Individualism: The Idea of Non-Priestly Purity in Ancient Judaism,” in Journal for the Study of Judaism 31 (2000), pp. 176–202.

16 E. Regev, “On Blood, Impurity and Body Perception in the Halakhic Schools in the Second Temple and Talmudic Period,” in AJS Review 27.1 (2003), pp. 1–23 (Hebrew section).

17 MS. Oxford, of the beginning of the Scholion, in V. Noam, Megillat Taaanit: Versions, Interpretation, History ( Jerusalem, 2003), pp. 57–59, 165–73. See also the parallel in B. Men. 65a. Noam has analyzed the Scholion’s earliest manuscripts and relationship with the talmudic corpus and concluded that an early version of the Scholion was known, at least partly, to the Babylonian amoraim.

18 For the half-shekel payment as polemical act, see M. Sheq. 3:3.

19 Temple Scroll 15:3–17:5; Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll ( Jerusalem, 1977), vol. 1, p. 110; vol. 2, pp. 45–54 (in Hebrew).

20 For the Rabbinic view that this ceremony was not annual but was practiced only once, by Moses, see B. Suk. 43a.

21 M. Yom. 5:1; T. Yom. 1:8; Sifra, Akhrei Mot 3:10 (ed. Weiss, 81a); B. Yom. 19b; Y. Yom. 1:5, 39a.

22 M. Yom. 1:2–5; T. Yom. 1:8; B. Yom. 19b.

23 The cloud symbolizes revelation or disclosure as well as a veil for the divine presence. See Exod. 24:16–18; 25:22; 30:6, 36.

24 The scholion to Megillat Taaanit for 27 Marheshvan; Noam, Scholion, pp. 97–98 and 250–54. See Eyal Regev, “The Sectarian Controversies about the Cereal Offerings,” in Dead Sea Discoveries 5.1 (1998) pp. 33–56.

25 Ant. 20:199–81, 204–7; Y. M.S. 5:9, 56d; Y. Sot. 9:11, 24a. See my interpretation in Regev, The Sadducees, pp. 160–70, 323– 25.

26 T. Suk. 3:18; M. Suk. 4:9; B. Suk. 48b. Cf. Ant. 13:372.

27 T. Hag. 3:35. A similar view regarding the incense altar and showbread table may be implied in the Temple Scroll 3:10–12.