Sotah 081

How [are we to understand] the Reading of the King? On the day following the first day of Sukkot, in the eighth year, at the end of the seventh, a wooden platform is erected for him in the courtyard, and he sits upon it. (This is based upon the words of the Torah: "at the end of seven years, at the time". The Overseer would take a Sefer Torah and pass it to the Head of the Assembly, who would pass it to the Deputy, who would pass it to the High Priest, who would hand it to the king. The king would stand to receive it and read from it while seated. King Agrippa stood to receive it and read it while standing and the sages praised him. When he reached "You may not appoint over you someone of foreign extraction" there were tears in his eyes. They said to him, "Do not worry, Agrippa, you are our brother, you are our brother!" He reads from the beginning of "These are the words..." as far as "Hear". [Then he reads] "Hear", "If you listen", "Tithe, you must tithe", "When you complete the tithing", the king's passage, and the blessings and the curses until he finishes that whole section. The same benedictions that the High Priest recites the king [also] recites, except that he mentions the festivals instead of the forgiveness of sin.

3:
Our mishnah first defines exactly when this ceremony is to take place. Basing itself on the words of the Torah we are offered a typical rabbinic conceit: the Torah [31:10] says that the ceremony of Hakhel is to take place At the end of every seven years, in the time of the Shemittah year, in the feast of Sukkot." This indicates that the ceremony is to take place once every seven years around the time of the last year of the seven-year cycle, the sabbatical year, Shemittah. (For more information on Shemittah click here and then navigate to mishnah 1, paragraph 20.) It also indicates that it is to take place during the festival of Sukkot. This is further defined as follows: "At the end" is understood to mean 'after the end' of the Shemittah. The Shemittah year ends with the onset of Rosh ha-Shanah of the eighth year (the first year of the new cycle); this year is known in rabbinic parlance as "motza'ei shevi'it". The festival of Sukkot occurs on the fifteenth day of the new cycle and lasts for seven days. However, the Torah states that the ceremony is to be held 'in the time of the Shemittah year, in the feast of Sukkot'. "In the time" renders the Hebrew "be-mo'ed"; "mo'ed" in rabbinic parlance indicates the non-sacred days of the festival ["ĥol ha-mo'ed"], and, in Eretz-Israel the first of these days is the second day of the festival. Thus the first opportunity for the Hakhel ceremony is on 16th Tishri immediately following the end of the Shemittah year - and the Gemara [Rosh ha-Shanah 32b] tells us that "the diligent perform a mitzvah at the earliest opportunity".

4:
The same hierarchical order is observed when providing the king with a sefer Torah from which to read as is observed when providing the High Priest with a Sefer Torah from which to read on Yom Kippur (see previous mishnah for details and explanation).

5:
The passages that the king is to declaim to the assembled people are detailed as follows: Deuteronomy 1:1 to 6:9, 11:13-21, 14:22 to 15:12, 17:14-20 and 26:12-19.

To be continued.

I have yet another message concerning mishnah 5. Victor Ryden writes:

I had a question about the tribes at the mountain. The first part says that "priests, the levites and the ark stood below in the middle", but then it has "Shim'on, Levi, Yehudah, Issachar, Yosef and Benjamin" on the Curse side of the mountain. Where was Levi, and why is Moses talking about the tribe of Yosef? I thought that he was replaced by his two son's tribes?

I respond:

Actually I have already answered both these questions, but for the sake of clarity let me elaborate. We have here a magnificent example of what I have already said concerning the twelve tribes. All that is constant is the fact that there were twelve - the twelve whose creation is detailed in the Torah [Genesis 29:31 to 30:24 and 35:16-18] and succinctly summarized at the very beginning of Exodus [1:2-5]: Re'uven, Shim'on, Levi, Yehudah, Issachar, Zevulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naftali, Gad, Asher, Yosef. Now there is here a careful division of Israel into the "children of Rachel" and the "children of Leah". Basically, we can say that the "children of Rachel" are the kernel of the future Kingdom of Israel and "the children of Leah" are the kernel of the future kingdom of Judah. The three premier tribes of Re'uven, Shim'on and Levi were historically displaced: Re'uven settled in Transjordan (together with Gad), Shim'on was absorbed into Yehudah. The tribe of Yosef waxed very large and subdivided into Efrayim and Menasheh (Menasheh being so large that it held territory on both sides of the Jordan). This division required that Levi be excluded in order to maintain the amphictiony of twelve tribes. Let us note that "Levi" means "accompanying".