talmud_daily

We learned earlier how Shammai established no precautions at all, Hillel established too much, and the Sages took an intermediate position. What were their reasons?

Shammai said that if a woman sees blood, there is absolutely no ritual impurity applied to her retroactively, and that only ritually pure foods that she touches from now on will become impure. The Talmud found four possible reasons for his opinion. In the fourth approach, Shammai told to Hillel that if he declares a woman ritually impure retroactively, then he will also affect propagation and increase, because the pair will always be afraid that any blood she sees later will make her a niddah retroactively, and they will have transgressed.

Hillel answered that he is only talking about ritual food, something that would not apply outside the Temple or related requirements, but Shammai answered that even so they will be nervous.

The Sages felt that one position was too lenient, while the other too strict. Among their reasons was the prior Sages have established for women working with ritually pure foods a requirement to check themselves for blood every morning and evening. Since this requirement was taken seriously, they could rely on it and declare retroactive impurity only back to the previous check. If she missed a few checks, they still would not extend the impurity back more than twenty four hours, since it is inconceivable that a discharge would not be noticed for longer than that.

Art: Pierre Auguste Renoir - The Thinker Aka Seated Young Woman

The rule about ritual purity is learned from the law of suspected wife: if a husband tells his wife not to seclude herself with a specific man, but she nevertheless goes into seclusion with him, then they need to go to the Temple, where she drinks the bitter water, to prove her innocence.

This is a situation of doubt: it is not known if she was unfaithful or not. Since seclusion is only possible in a private place, we have a rule: any doubt about purity that arose in a public place is declared pure, and in a private place it is impure. For example, if dead mole was found next to a piece of sacrificial meat, so that it might have touched it, then if this happened in a public place, the meat is pure, but in a private place it is ritually impure.

If there was a mikveh, which initially had forty seah of water (about two by two by six feet) but then was found lacking the complete amount, the purity of all objects that were dipped in it is now in doubt. First of all, this rule seems to contradict the retroactive impurity rule we learned before. Secondly, in this case the Sages declare the objects impure – and compare this to suspected wife, who is forbidden to her husband until she proves her innocence. Rabbi Shimon also compares this to suspected wife, but derives that the objects in the public domain are pure. This leads to seeming multiple contradictions, and the Talmud resolves all of them.

Art: Georges Seurat - Seated and Standing Woman

A woman who discharges uterine blood becomes ritually impure, and transmits the impurity to the foods she is working with. That is true even if the blood has not yet descended through the vaginal canal to the outside of her body. Thus, if a woman performs an internal examination by wrapping a cloth around her finger and by carefully wiping it against the sides of the vaginal canal, and finds blood on the cloth, it is possible that she has been impure for some time before that.

Shammai says that nevertheless only those foods that she touches from now on become impure. That is because there is a rule of preserving the status quo: the woman was pure before, so we can assume that she only becomes impure from the moment when she actually sees the blood. Hillel, however, says that we go all the way to the previous examination, even days back, and declare all foods that she touched potentially impure – since the blood may have appeared right after her previous examination. Hillel agrees to the principle of status quo, but in this case there is something that weakens the presumption – she sees actual blood.

The Sages take an intermediate position, namely, that the food she touches are declared impure retroactively – either to the last examination, or twenty four hours back, whichever is shorter. The Sages agree in principle with Hillel, but they say that the blood cannot remain in the vaginal canal for longer than twenty four hours.

Art: Esaias Boursse - A Woman Seated at a Table Cutting a Slice of Cheese

The Sanctuary, which contained the Holy of Holies, was situated in the western part of the Temple. It had an entrance of twenty amot high (about 30 feet), and 10 amot wide. This entrance had four doors, two on the outside, and two on the inside of the entranceway. Additionally, the main gate had a smaller door to the south and another one to the north. The one to the south, no man ever entered through it, because, as Ezekiel said, “only God, the Lord of Israel, comes through it; it shall be closed.”

Inside the Sanctuary, there were thirty-eight cells (small rooms), arranged in three stories, and they were used to store gold, silver, and other valuable articles owned by the Temple.

The special chamber was the Chamber of Hewn Stone, where the Great Sanhedrin would sit. It was partially inside the Courtyard, where the Kohanim would come with their questions and stand, and the other half of it was outside the Courtyard, where the Sages would sit and judge. A Kohen in whom a disqualification was found would wrap his head in black, leave the chamber and go. And the Kohen in whom no disqualification was found would clothe himself in white, enter the Courtyard, and serve with this brethren the Kohanim. Those in whom no disqualification was found would make a day of celebration, and they would proclaim, “Blessed is the Omnipresent, Who Chose Aaron and his sons to stand an serve before God in the chamber of the Holy of Holies.”

Art: Pieter Bruegel - The Peasant Dance

The Altar measured thirty-two amot (about 50 feet) by thirty-two amot at its base. It was constructed by bringing a wooden base of that size, one amah high, and filling it with the mixture of lime, molten lead, and tar. After the mixture hardened and the wooden frame was removed, the remaining structure formed "the base" of the Altar.

The second form was thirty by thirty amot, and it was five amot (about 8 feet) high. It was filled with the same mixture.

The third tier was twenty-eight by twenty-eight amot, and had the height of three amot. On it corners there were protrusions, called “horns,” and the outside of it formed a shelf, known as “the ledge,” which could be used for walking. A ramp led up the Altar from its south side. It was as long as Altar itself, and its width was half that.

Both the stones of the Altar and of the ramp were quarried from the valley of Bait Kerem. They would dig beneath virgin soil and bring from there whole stones that were never touched by iron. Since iron renders the stones, and consequently the whole Altar, unfit by simply touching them, they went to great length to find stones that were unlikely to have been touched by iron. The Altar was protected by a layer coat of lime, and it was only wiped by web cloth.

Art: Gottlieb Daniel Paul Weber - Boulder Crossing, Pennsylvania

The area of the Temple Mount was five hundred by five hundred amot, or about 14-20 acres. Most chambers there were in the south, and most people would enter from the south. They would then turn to the right and circle around to their destination, because of the rule that all turns that one takes should be to the right.

The exception to this rule were mourners and people excommunicated by the court. They would turn to the left, and immediately evoke the compassion of the onlookers, who would say to the mourners, “May the One Who dwells in this House console you.” If he told them that he was excommunicated, they would say to him, “May the One Who dwells in this House instill compassion in the judges' hearts,” - these are the words of Rabbi Meir. However, Rabbi Yehudah said to him, “You have made the judges out as if they overstepped the bounds of the law.” Rather, they said to him, “May the One Who dwells in this House put reason into your heart, and you listen to the words of your colleagues.”

Inside the Temple Mount wall was a lattice-work fence. At one point in history there were thirteen breaches in it, made by the Greek kings. Later these were repaired, and the Sages instituted thirteen prostrations corresponding to them.

Further inside the Temple were the Women's Courtyard with the balcony, Israelite's Courtyard, the Courtyard of the Kohanim, the Altar, and the Temple proper.

Art: Carl Wilhelm Hübner - Mourning Their Loss

The study of the construction of the Temple is the current substitute for actually building it.

The Kohanim stood honorary guard in three places in the Temple, and the Levites – in twenty-one more places. The Officer of the Temple Mount would make rounds to each and every guard, with torches lit before him. The Levite guards, being posted on the Temple Mount rather than in the Courtyard, had the permission to sit there, but it was expected that they would rise to their feet, when they perceived the light of the torches. If they did not stand, the Officer would tell them, “Peace unto you,” to preclude the possibility that the guard was too absorbed in his thoughts. If it was apparent that the guide was sleeping, the Officer had the right to strike him with his staff, or even burn his outer garment.

The walls surrounding the Temple Mount had five gateways, each with its own name and function. The Temple Courtyard, too, was enclosed by walls on all four sides, and there were seven major gateways that  led to the Courtyard. The Hall of Fire – where, as we have described, slept the Kohanim during the night – had four chambers that opened into it, like suites that open into a ballroom. Two of them were in the consecrated portion – The Chamber of Sacrificial Lambs, and the Chamber of the Vision Bread, and two in the unconsecrated part – in one they hid the pieces of the Altar defiled by idol worship, and the other one led to the Immersion Room.

Art: Simon Kick - Guards from a Guild

Since the Kohanim were busy with the Temple service, they could say only the absolutely necessary prayers. At the command of the appointed Kohen, they would say the blessing before the “Shema Israel” prayer, the one that deals with the study of the Torah, then the Ten Commandments, then the Shema itself, then the blessing for the Divine acceptance of the Temple service, and then the blessing of the Kohanim for the people. Then they went back to the service.

The appointed Kohen told them, “Those who are new to the incense service, come and draw lots” – since this service was conducive to riches. After that, all of the Kohanim would draw lots for bringing the sacrificial limbs to the fire (these limbs were previously left on the ramp). Some say that six Kohanim won that, and some say that it was one Kohen. Rabbi Eliezer ben Yakov says that the same Kohanim who put the limbs on the ramp now carried them to the fire.

The non-selected Kohanim would return their holy garments and dress into their own. Those who continued the service brought the incense and the limbs, and then one of them threw a specially designated shovel on the floor, whose sound signaled for the Kohanim to go prostrate in the Hall, the Levites to start singing, and Kohanim who became impure to stand at the eastern entrance, either to preclude suspicion of eschewing the service, or to shame them into being more careful in the future.

Art: Ludwig Deutsch - At Prayer

Since on the previous page we mentioned the sun, the Talmud here recounts a story that also mentions the sun: Alexander asked the Sages about ten matters, the first dealing with the sun. He said, “Which distance is greater, from heaven to earth, or from east to to west?” The question was of a spiritual nature, concerning the two types of Divine Providence for the righteous, but nevertheless it had to be clothed in physical matters. They answered, “From east to west is greater, since people can see the sun in the east and in the west, but not when it is directly above.”

He asked, “Were the heavens created first, or the earth?” They answered, “The heavens,” based on the verse, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” He then asked “What was created first, light or darkness?” They said, “This matter has no resolution.” But let them respond that darkness was created first, based on the verse, “And darkness was upon the face of the earth, and God created light!” They did not want to give him the answer, lest he continues exploring what was before the Creation. If so, they should not have answered the first question either! At first they thought that he was asking about the plain meaning of the verses in the Torah, but when they saw that he was intent on knowing the mysteries also, they stopped there. He also asked many questions about proper conduct in life, and an advice in war.

Art: Ivan Fedorovich Choultse - Sunrise

Usually, when one transports a sheep to the market for sale, he binds all of its legs together, to prevent the sheep from running away. However, it would be disgraceful for the morning lamb sacrifice, so instead they bound it in the manner of the binding of Isaac: the right foreleg with the right back leg, and the left foreleg with the left back leg, except that in the case of Isaac his hands and feet were bound behind his back.

There were multiple rings in the floor of the Temple, between the Altar and the Temple Hall, because the slaughter had to be done “in front of God,” which meant opposite the Hall entrance. Each group of the Kohanim had a ring assigned to them, and each group served for a week about two times a year. However, for the morning sacrifice all groups used the same ring, near the northwest corner of the Altar, because the sacrifice had to be slaughtered in a sunlit area. The daily afternoon sacrifice was slaughtered, correspondingly, using the ring in the northeast corner.

The ring itself was used to immobilize the sacrifice before slaughter. The sheep was positioned with its head pointing to the south, its face to the west, while the slaughterer was to the east of the sheep, with his face to the west. They would hang the lamb using a hole in its knee, not like the butchers who break its leg, then they would skin, dismember, wash, and salt the lamb, and carry the pieces to the Altar.

Art: Theo van Sluys - Sheep And Chickens In A Farm Interior