Sotah 079

3:
The Seder Avodah, sacred ritual, of Yom Kippur in the Bet Mikdash was completed by the High Priest reading passages from the Torah whose subject was the Day of Atonement. Our mishnah mentions three readings, two if which were read from a Sefer Torah while the third selection was offered by the High Priest reciting by heart. The first reading was obvious: Leviticus 16:1-34, which institutes the Seder Avodah for Yom Kippur. In all traditional congregations it is still the selected reading from the Torah on the morning of Yom Kippur. (Our mishnah calls this selection "Aĥarei-Mot", which are the first significant Hebrew words of the section: "after the death [of Aaron's sons].) The second reading was from Leviticus 23:26-32. This contains the details concerning Yom Kippur that are given in the long list of festivals and their observances that is given in this chapter. The third selection is Numbers 29:7-11. This is also from a long list of festivals, detailing the sacrifices to be offered on each occasion.

4:
Officers of the Bet Mikdash would ceremonially hand the High Priest a Sefer Torah from which he would read the first selection; then the Sefer Torah would be scrolled forward a few columns and he would read the second selection. Since it would take a lot of time and trouble to scroll through to the place where the third selection is to be found, he would declaim this third selection by heart. In order that the people should not think that what he was declaiming were his own words, after completing the second selection he would announce that "more than what I have read to you is written here," and only then proceed to declaim the third selection.

5:
The readings completed, the High Priest would now pronounce eight benedictions – and it is these benedictions which is the real subject of our present mishnah, in that it is required that they be recited in the Hebrew language only. The content of these berakhot has been variously given. Here are the details as given by Rambam in his magnum opus on halakhah, Mishneh Torah [Hilkhot Avodat Yom ha-Kippurim 3:11]:

Modern misguided "purists" should note that most of these blessings, which occurred at a solemn conclusion to the most awesome ritual Israel knew were "ad libbed" by the High Priest and had no fixed content except the conclusion of each one.

Several people have sent messages concerning the tribes mentioned in mishnah 5 of this chapter. Much of their query overlaps, so I shall here present only what is unique to each. Rémy Landau writes:

I think that the only other time after that in which the tribal names are listed in the Mosaic text is in v'zot haBrachah, that is, the very last section of Torah. In the list of the tribal names, Shimon and not Reuven is listed first. And it is the tribe of Shimon that heads the list of tribes on Mt Gerizim from which the blessings are pronounced. However, in the blessings of Moses in the very last scriptural passages, v'zot haBrachah, no mention whatever is made of the name Shimon. Did you ever have any thoughts as to why the tribe of Shimon is given such prominence in one passage, and completely vanishes in name from the very last Mosaic passage, in which all of the other tribes are named?

I respond:

I think that Rémy must sleep in the synagogue all the times that lists and details about the tribes are given in the Torah so many times (in Genesis, in Exodus, in Numbers as well as in Deuteronomy). (This is understandable as some of those lists are very long, very boring and very repetitious!) The names in the lists of tribes given in various places in the Torah are not consistent. The only consistent fact is that they must add up to twelve. The tribe of Shim'on settled a large area of the northern Negev, south of Beersheva, but it was gradually absorbed administratively by the tribe of Judah and by the end of the period of settlement had already ceased to exist as a separate tribe. This weakness of Shim'on is already adumbrated in the blessing of Jacob [Genesis 49:5-7 – Rémy please note!]: "I shall disband them in Israel". Deuteronomy, according to modern scholarship, is a very late work (dating to the 7th century BCE) by which time the tribe of Shim'on had long since ceased to exist as an independent tribe.

More of your comments concerning the tribes next time.