Sotah 080
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BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
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Today's shiur is dedicated by Harry Pick in memory of his mother, Margareth Pick, Yocheved bat Yosef, Z"L, whose yahrzeit fell on 18th I Adar.
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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.
EXPLANATIONS:
1:
We now come to the sixth item of those stated in mishnah 2 as being required to be performed in the Hebrew language alone. This is the King's Reading, or the King's Passage. 'Passage' here must be understood in the sense of 'passage for reading'. The Hebrew term used is Parashat ha-Melekh. The Torah stipulates that once every seven years the head of government is to read extensively from the book of Deuteronomy in the presence of the assembled people. This assembly is called "Hakhel" and is instituted by the Torah [Deuteronomy 31:10-13] in the following terms:
Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the time of the Shemittah year, in the feast of Sukkot, when all Israel is come to appear before your God in the place which he shall choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, the men and the women and the little ones, and the foreigner who is within your gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear your God, and observe to do all the words of this law; and that their children, who have not known, may hear, and learn to fear your God, as long as you live in the land where you go over the Jordan to possess.
2:
A main feature of this ceremony, held once every seven years, was the reading from the Torah by the king. Our present mishnah describes how this ceremony was carried out towards the end of the second Bet Mikdash. (The episode involving King Agrippa must have been in the year 42 CE.) According to our mishnah the king was required to read from the Torah in Hebrew. To be continued. DISCUSSION:
I still have to present to you messages received concerning mishnah 5 of this chapter. Josh Greenfield writes:
I find it unusual that the Torah specifies that the tribe of Levi should stand on Mount Gerizim, when the Levites play a central role in the ceremony (and, according to the Mishnah at least, are surrounding the priests in the area between the two hills). Is this discrepancy noted by the commentaries on our mishnah? I respond: I noticed this too when I was preparing the shiur. I am not aware that any classical commentator has related to this, so I must assume that they did not find it problematical. I think that the solution is in a more complete understanding of the historical use of the term 'Levite' at various stages of Israel's development. King Solomon in Jerusalem vested the priesthood in one particular family of the tribe of Levi, the family of Zadok and his descendents. However, in the northern kingdom of Israel the religious functionaries who were in charge of the local sanctuaries ('high places') were called 'the Levite'. When the northern kingdom was overrun and destroyed by the Assyrians (in the summer of 722 BCE) many of these Levites flocked to the southern kingdom of Judah as refugees. In Judah there was only one sanctuary, the Temple in Jerusalem, so these Levites (and their descendents) were reduced to being secondary functionaries there – much to their displeasure. This dichotomy was finally established hierarchically during the first centuries of the Second Commonwealth, and was certainly completed by around the year 350 BCE, probably long before. Thus, it often happens that the priests are termed "the priests, the levites" – for instance in Deuteronomy 27:9. This, presumably, made it possible for the classical commentators to understand that the priests stood in the valley between the two hills (possibly accompanied by some Levites) while the Levites (now comprehended as a tribe) occupied on of the hills together with five other tribes. NOTICE:
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