Berakhot 166

1:
This mishnah is concerned with behaviour connected with a visit to the Temple Mount in the days when the Temple still existed there. At least three times every year tens of thousands could be expected to converge on Jerusalem: for the festivals of Pesaĥ, Shavu'ot and Sukkot. The largest concentration of pilgrims was usually for Pesaĥ, with many of them staying on in Jerusalem until after Shavu'ot – a two month stay. An alternative would have been to visit Jerusalem for Sukkot. These occasions must have been a real security headache for the police and the militia, as the passion story in the Christian scriptures clearly indicate. The Gemara [Pesaĥim 64b] recounts that King Herod Agrippa (who ruled from 40 to 44 CE) wanted to get an idea of how many people where in Jerusalem for the festival. Since a census was prohibited by the halakhic restriction on 'counting' Jews – and, for political reasons, Agrippa was meticulous in his halakhic observance and thus became the darling of the sages – he tried a circuitous route. He told the High Priest to remove the kidneys from each Paschal lamb brought for slaughtering on the afternoon before the Seder service. According to the Gemara 600,000 pairs of kidneys were counted. This figure is obviously inflated. If we assume at random that about ten people shared each lamb this could indicate a population that is absolutely impossible. But the story does serve to indicate the enormous numbers of 'internal tourists' who could be found in Jerusalem at such times, when the city seemed to be bursting at the seams.

2:
The visitors could approach Jerusalem from four directions: the smallest number would come from the south, up the road connecting Hebron and Jerusalem through Bet Tzur; these people would enter through the southern gate of the Temple Mount, known as the Ĥuldah gates, after Ĥuldah the prophetess. (This double entrance was an architectural curiosity in that the impressive gateway led to a flight of steps leading upwards through a tunnel which emerged in the main Temple courtyard.) Some visitors would approach Jerusalem from the west, through the city of Lod. Today, this scenic route is the most frequented approach to Jerusalem, with a modern motorway linking the capital with the coast; in Temple times it was far less frequented, for demographic reasons. There were two gates in the western wall of the Temple (on either side of what is now the "Western Wall", access to the Temple mount being granted by two flights of steps rising steeply. (What remains of the supporting buttresses of these steps are known today as "Robinson's Arch" and "Wilson's Arch", after the nineteenth-century archeologists who discovered them.) Access from the north was very meagre since the road connecting the Galil and Jerusalem passed through Shekhem (modern Nablus) which housed an unfriendly Samaritan population. This meant that one of the greatest concentrations of Jewish population, the Jews of the Galil, had to make their way to Jerusalem down the Jordan valley and would approach the Holy City through Jericho and the modern settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. Since the Galileans were renowned in Judah for being hot-headed (and speaking with an almost incomprehensible brogue) the largest and most boisterous contingent of pilgrims would approach the Temple from the East, and would obtain access to the Temple Mount through the Eastern Gate, known as the Nicanor Gate, after the Diaspora Jew who donated it: "plus ça change plus c'est la meme chose!". This – at long last! – brings us back to our mishnah.

3:
These boisterous Galileans are admonished not to "behave with levity towards the East Gate, which is orientated opposite the Holy of Holies". On Yom Kippur, the High Priest officiating in the Temple's main courtyard watched the Scapegoat being led out towards the desert crags to the east of the city, and he had a clear view through the various gates right up to the Mount of Olives. Pilgrims are also warned in our mishnah to approach the Temple precincts with reverence, after duly sprucing themselves up after their long journey: "One should not enter the Temple Mount with walking stick, shoes, pouch and dusty feet."

Richard Friedman writes concerning our shiur in Berakhot 165, in which I suggested that the proof text does not really fit the plain meaning of the mishnah.

I agree that the drash on "l'vav'cha" does not. But it seems to me that the drash on "b'chol naf'sh'cha" and the first one on "b'chol m'odecha" do fit – they say that one must continue to love God even if, or when, He deprives you of your life, and even if all of your material resources will be depleted. This does fit with a statement that one must continue to recognize God (not, I think, to "thank" Him) in bad times. And, as you noted, the second drash on "m'odecha" – "b'chol mida u'mida" – fits the mishna nicely. So, if two-thirds of the first midrash fit the plain sense of the mishna, isn't that enough? Couldn't it be that these three little drashot had previously been formulated and came as a package, and that the relevance of the second and third portions were what drove Rabbi (or one of his predecessors) to cite the whole midrash here? Or, could it be that the two midrashim (the 3-part one and the one just on "m'odecha") were both already packaged together, and the relevance of the last piece by itself was enough to lead Rabbi to include the whole package?

I respond:

I can think of nothing that would mitigate against Richard's suggestion!