Sotah 103

נושא: Sotah

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

When murderers increased the [ceremony of the] 'decapitated calf' came to an end. ([This was] when El'azar ben-Dinai came; he was [originally] called Teĥinah ben-Perishah, [but] they renamed him 'the homicide'.) When fornicators increased the [ceremony of the] 'cursing waters' ended; it was Rabban Yoĥanan ben-Zakkai who ended them, because it says: "I will not punish your women when they play the prostitute, nor your brides when they commit adultery; because the men etc." Once Yosé ben-Yo'ezer of Tzeredah and Yosé ben-Yoĥanan of Jerusalem died perfect scholarship came to an end, for it says: "There is no cluster of grapes to eat; my soul desires to eat the early fig."

1:
Our mishnah, which is the first of seven dealing with momentous change in halakhic development, consists of three parts. The Reisha is concerned with the 'decapitated calf', the Emtza'ita is concerned with the 'cursing waters' of the Sotah, and the Seifa is concerned with 'true scholarship'.

2:
The Reisha of our mishnah does not seem to hang together easily: try reading the translation without the connecting phrases introduced in square brackets. It is extremely noteworthy that Rambam did not include the Reisha in his copy of the Mishnah at all! We possess much of the original manuscript of Rambam's Mishnah Commentary, written out in his own handwriting, and, of course, it also contains the text of the mishnayot which undergo comment: it is most instructive that in Rambam's Mishnah our present mishnah starts with the Emtza'ita (as it were) and the Reisha is not treated at all. If this were from any other author one might be tempted to attribute the omission to 'scribal error', but in the case of the meticulous, almost pedantic, Rambam this is so highly unlikely that is borders on the ridiculous. It seems more than reasonable to assume that Rambam did not think that the Reisha of our mishnah is an integral part of the text.

3:
It is more than probable that the original text of the Reisha of our mishnah consisted of the first sentence only and that the whole of the section which is translated above within parentheses ( ) is a later addition – possibly to balance the explanatory historical addition to the Emtza'ita. The ascription of the parenthetical passage to later addition is surely also borne out by the fact that although it includes the words in the text of the mishnah the Babylonian Talmud, in the Gemara, makes no effort at all to explain the very difficult nomenclature that the text includes: who was this El'azar and when did he live?

4:
Although it is mandated by the Torah, at a certain point in Israel's history the ceremony of the 'decapitated calf' was abolished. The reason given for its abolition is that 'murderers increased'. In other words: at a certain point in time the number of people being killed by unknown assassins became so great that it was no longer feasible to maintain the ceremony. It is not too difficult to pinpoint that 'point in time': it was obviously during the almost lawless decades that preceded and included the great war against the Romans which erupted in the year 66 CE. The very few classical commentators who relate to the issue of the identity of the person or persons mentioned as being associated with this development suggest that El'azar ben-Dinai was a murdering member of the zealot party, who initiated the public murder of his opponents (so the murderer was not unknown).

5:
However, I have found a most interesting article on the Internet (which has really become an 'information highway'!). You can access this article and judge for yourself at http://members.aol.com/rdavidh218/davidicdynasty.html The author, David Hughes, claims to trace the descendents of King David up to almost modern times. How successful or authentic we deem his work to be is quite irrelevant to our present topic so I shall not relate to it. We should just note the following part of his genealogical notes:

… Descendants of Zorobabel's son Hananiah. The second son of Zorobabel and his Jewish wife Hananiah…, numbered 7th in the exilarch-list, was the father of two sons, who were Pelatiah (Phaltial) [and] Jeshaiah (Yeshayahu)(Yeshaiah)(Yeshaya), 8th Exilarch…

The record of the descendants of Pelatiah (above) is lost, however, descent from him was claimed by several later anti-kings:

Athronges, anti-king 4BC-AD6, claimed descent from Pelatiah (above), thus, was senior heir upon the failure of Meshullam's descent-line in 4BC.

The five sons of Athronges were:

Theudas … killed AD 44/46; = Miriam [see], and begot five sons and three daughters;

Amram, fl. circa AD 44/46, the father of Alexander "The Zealot" (AD50), the father of Aimar, who fled to France AD 50;

Hanibas (Annibas), fl. circa AD 44/46;

Dinai, the father of Eleazar "The Zealot", killed AD60, the father of Moshe (Moshi), executed AD60;

Perisha, the father of Tahinah "Asida", fl. circa AD 44/46

Note that this list of claimants of Davidic descent during the first half of the first century CE includes the names of Dinai, his son El'azar (mentioned in our mishnah), Perishah and Techinah also referred to in our mishnah. Therefore it seems quite reasonable to attribute the increase in violence and political assassination to the messianic (Davidic) fervour that gripped Eretz-Israel in the half-century leading up to the great Jewish War. One of the consequences of this messianic fervour was the abolition of the ceremony of the 'decapitated calf'.

To be continued.

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