Women of the Wool – Their Role in the Tabernacle and in Astrophysics

The Torah makes special note of the fact that one aspect of the Tabernacle's construction - the spinning of the goat hair - was done by the women (see Exodus 35:26). I had often wondered why, of all the types of manual labor which went into constructing the Tabernacle, this job (and perhaps others like it, such as weaving or embroidering) was given to the women. It is not necessarily the case that they were more experienced in this work than the men, since for 210 years prior (while slaves in Egypt) the men had been forced to do women's work and vice versa (Sotah 11b). Since spinning wool was traditionally a woman's job, it should emerge that, if anything, the men would have been better trained at this skill than the women.

View of Temple Mount / Eastern Gate

This is an update of the earlier post showing the interior of the Temple Mount.

In the foreground on the left is a large building representing the synagogue which was located on the eastern side of the Temple Mount. Just beyond the synagogue is the Sanhedrin courthouse. The other buildings are nondescript offices for Temple personnel.

Floating above the Temple Mount is an array of roof panels. The heights of the panels are staggered so that sunlight can come through, but they still offer enough coverage to shield the majority of the area from the hot summer sun and the winter rains. I have not yet decided if these are to be made of wood and supported by sturdy poles placed throughout the Temple Mount, or if they should be made of canvas and hung from ropes attached to the walls. The picture shows the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, which was lower than the other walls, but on the other three sides the roof panels would be roughly at the same height as the top of the walls, or 40 amos above floor level.

Looking east on the Temple Mount

Spices of the Incense: Karkom (Saffron)

Ground saffron
(americanspice.com)

Twice a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon, the Kohanim would offer Incense upon the Golden Altar inside the Sanctuary Building. This special blend of spices and other ingredients was prepared by the Avtinas Family in one large batch which lasted an entire year. The Talmud (Kereisos 6a), based upon an Oral Tradition, provides the names and quantities of each ingredient and in this post I would like to focus on the spice known as כרכום [karkom], commonly translated as saffron.

The Talmud records that 16 maneh of saffron were used in compounding the Incense. One maneh is equal to approximately 20 ounces, so 16 maneh would equal 320 ounces, or 20 pounds of saffron. If this does not sound like an inordinate amount of spice, consider how saffron is obtained.

Crocus sativus (common crocus)
with bright crimson stigmas
(Wikipedia)

Saffron is derived from the three bright crimson stigmas [thin stalks] which grow from the crocus flower. After being harvested, dried, and ground, the [modern day] yield of saffron per flower comes to about 0.00025 ounces. At this rate it takes over 4,000 crocus flowers to produce a single ounce of dried spice! For this reason, saffron has come to be known as the most expensive spice in the world.

To produce the 20 pounds of saffron used in the Temple for the Incense, a staggering 1.3 million flowers were needed. Based on modern planting densities used in the Mediterranean (see this article, under "Cultivation"), the amount of land required to grow this many flowers is 12.7 acres. For comparison, the entire Temple Mount (which measures 750 feet by 750 feet) is 12.9 acres. Even though there was a garden located on the western side of the Temple Mount which was used to cultivate the spices of the Incense, it emerges that another, much larger, plot of land was needed where the bulk of the saffron could be grown.

The Beit Hamikdash by Rabbi Zalman Koren

A book newly available in English is Rabbi Zalman Koren's The Beit Hamikdash (Shaar Press, 2010). This large and exquisitely illustrated volume showcases the author's research and model of the Second Temple. It comprises three parts: an introduction to the concept of a Temple and its place in Jerusalem; a detailed description of the Temple structure which incorporates Talmudic and archeological sources; and a walk-through of the Temple model on display in the Western Wall Tunnels. Students of Tractate Middos and the classic Second Temple literature will no doubt find some of the author's conclusions innovative (such as his skewed orientation of the Courtyard walls and the fact that the Women's Courtyard was not perfectly square), but these result from a reading of the Jewish sources which is heavily influenced by the archeology and features of today's Temple Mount. Nonetheless, the account he presents demonstrates a remarkable breadth of knowledge of the literature and is sure to pique the interest of anyone seeking a scholarly approach to the structure of the Temple.

Immersing the Paroches Curtain

The Paroches curtain of the Sanctuary Building had considerable weight and, according to the Mishnah, three hundred Kohanim were needed to assist in immersing it. [All Temple vessels were immersed in a mikveh prior to their first use.] While this number is understood to be an exaggeration, even when the Mishnah exaggerates it still allows for a literal interpretation of its words, as follows: When immersing the curtain it was important to keep it from bunching up or folding over itself which would prevent water from getting into all the folds of the cloth. For this reason Kohanim would be stationed all around the perimeter of the curtain and pull it taut while lowering it into a shallow mikveh that was (at least) 20 amos wide and 40 amos long. It was not necessary to have anyone stand along the top edge, however, since a band of gold fastened to that edge kept it from wrinkling. The remaining three sides had a total length of 100 amos (40+20+40) which is equivalent to 600 handbreadths (6 handbreadths per amah). Since a handbreadth is the size of a fist, 300 Kohanim holding on with two hands would require exactly 600 handbreadths.

The closest I came to experiencing this event was at the Fort McHenry flag raising. When the weather is nice and the winds are just right, the large flag is flown over the fort and all of the guests who are there at the time can participate in raising it. This flag measures 30x42 feet, which somewhat approximates the size of the Paroches (which was 30x60 feet). Not nearly as heavy, though, since this flag is made of lightweight material and is quite thin, while the Paroches was one handbreadth thick and weighed more than an elephant.

Raising the large flag at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD

Preview of Temple Mount / Eastern Gate

For my next scene I am working on some of the details of the Temple Mount interior.

Just inside the walls of the Temple Mount ran a cedar-covered portico supported by marble columns, each of which was hewn from a single block of stone and adorned with flowered capitals. The columns stood 25 amos tall and each measured “as wide as three men can reach” which is about 12 amos (18 feet) in circumference. The cedar roof covering this portico extended 30 amos (45 feet) from the inside of the Temple Mount walls and had a fence on top to prevent anyone who might be walking there from falling off.

Aside from this portico which covered the interior perimeter of the Temple Mount, the remaining area of the Temple Mount was also covered by a roof. This roof extended from the inner edge of the portico up to the walls around the Courtyard, leaving the Women’s Courtyard and the Main Courtyard open to the sky. The roof was designed to keep out the heat of the sun in the summer and the rain in the winter and had some sort of openings to let in light.

In the rendering shown below I have started putting many of these elements into place, such as the columns (modelled after those found at Persepolis), the cedar roof above the portico, and the fence around that roof. We are looking at the eastern wall which was lower than the other three walls of the Temple Mount and stood only 26 amos (39 feet) high. This is why it is not visible above the cedar-covered portico. The gate in this wall is the Shushan Gate leading out to the Mount of Olives. The building at the lower left is the Sanhedrin courthouse which was located just inside the eastern gate.

Not (yet) shown is the large roof of Temple Mount proper.

Interior of the Temple Mount, looking east.

(Final) View of Minor Sanhedrin Courthouse

Here is the final rendering of the minor sanhedrin courthouse. Amenities now include fine rugs for the students to sit upon, a fireplace to keep the room warm in the winter, a buffet to sustain the members of the court during long proceedings, and a large wall cabinet where transcripts of each session could be stored.

Major Change to the Minor Sanhedrin Courthouse

Last week I posted a description of the minor Sanhedrin courthouse but have since learned that a major change must be made to the overall design. Rashi to the Mishnah on the bottom of Sanhedrin 36b writes that the three rows of students who sat before the judges also arranged themselves in a semicircle, and this view is followed by Tiferes Yisrael (upon whom my model is based) to Sanhedrin 4:4 §24. The new description is as follows:

In these courts the judges sat on chairs or benches arranged in a semicircle facing south (where the door of the chamber was located) and three rows of 23 students each, also arranged in semicircles one behind the other, sat on the ground in front of the judges. A person is one amah wide which means that each semicircle had a diameter of about 16 amos and a radius of about 8 amos. Thus, from east to west the court would need 16 amos of space (to account for the diameter of the semicircle) while from north to south it needed 19 amos (8 amos for the radius of the judges' semicircle, one amah of space between the judges and students for the witnesses and litigants to enter before the court, 8 amos for the radius of the first row of students, and 2 more amos behind them for the next two rows).

Preview of Minor Sanhedrin Courthouse

The Temple complex housed a total of three courthouses: two minor sanhedrin courts of 23 members each and the Great Sanhedrin of 71 members. The first of these courts was situated on the Temple Mount just to the right (i.e., north) of the Shushan Gate. In these courts the judges sat on chairs or benches arranged in a semicircle facing south (where the door of the chamber was located) and three rows of students, 23 in each row, sat on the ground in front of the judges. Taking into account the space required to seat the judges (their semicircle had a diameter of about 16 amos) and students, and allowing one amah of space between the judges and students where the witnesses and litigants would stand, the minimum dimensions of this chamber were 23 amos wide (east to west) by 12 amos long (north to south).

This is the next scene that I am working on in my virtual Beis Hamikdash model. In the picture here I have just started blocking out the rough dimensions of the room and where everybody will be sitting or standing. The two litigants apparently cannot agree on the size of that fish...

Preparing the Temple for Pesach

In Temple times, the weeks leading up to Pesach included not only preparing the house but the body as well, for anyone who had contracted corpse-tumah had to purify themselves before partaking of the Pesach offering or visiting the Temple. The procedure entailed a one-week quarantine during which the individual was sprinkled with spring water mixed with the ashes of the red cow [parah adumah]. It was not necessary to travel to Jerusalem to do so but rather this could be  carried out in the comfort of one's own city since the family groups [mishmaros] of Kohanim living throughout the land of Israel possessed small, but sufficient, amounts of ashes for this express purpose.

It once happened in the First Temple era during the reign of King Chizkiah that an unprecedented breach of ritual purity caused the festival of Pesach to be delayed a full month (Sanhedrin 12a). One theory as to the source of this tumah is that the skull of Aravnah the Jebusite was discovered beneath the Altar (Tosafos ad loc., based on Yerushalmi Sotah 5:2). [Aravnah was the owner of the threshing floor purchased by King David to serve as the site of the future Temple (II Samuel 24:18-25).]

There are a number of difficulties with this approach:
1) If it was a matter of corpse-tumah, the purification procedure only takes one week, so why was a whole extra month needed?
2) If the remains of Aravnah were causing the tumah, could they not simply be removed from the Temple precincts (where they obviously did not belong) and reinterred elsewhere?
3) Why is it that the skull was only discovered at this point?
4) A closer look at the source in Yerushalmi indicates that this incident of the skull being found occurred in the Second Temple era, not the First Temple era (as Tosafos understand).

The Chasam Sofer (to Sanhedrin 12a) offers a novel historical perspective which addresses each of the above questions. When Aravnah sold his threshing floor to King David he reserved a small portion of his estate for himself and it was there that he was eventually buried. In that region of Jerusalem there were many natural subterranean tunnels and the tumah from Aravnah's tomb made its way through them to the area beneath the Temple. Now, when the First Temple was built King Solomon had taken this into account and he designed the walls in such a way to form a halachic barrier to the tumah which kept it from invading the Temple grounds.

Many years later, the evil King Achaz destroyed the original Altar and built a new one for idol worship in its place, and the extent of his "renovations" was such that it disrupted the halachic barriers put in place by Solomon. When King Chizkiah took office and began to repair the Temple, the tumah from Aravnah's tomb was rediscovered. [Although the Gemara speaks of Aravnah's "skull," Chasam Sofer explains that the term גלגל actually refers to the spreading of tumah underground. See further there.] The remains could not be moved since they were in their rightful place so Chizkiah needed to repair the halachic barriers in order to ready the Temple for use. This, however, was not a simple matter, and he found it necessary to delay the festival of Pesach by one month in order to allow his men time to carry out the repairs.

When the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians they razed the building down to its very foundations ["aru, aru, ad hayesod bah"], once again breaking down the barriers which shielded the Temple from the tumah of Aravnah's tomb. The Yerushalmi which indicates that the skull was discovered during the Second Temple era is describing what happened when the Temple was rebuilt by the returnees of the Babylonian exile when they once again had to address the issue of Aravnah's remains.

(Special thanks to R' Nechemiah Feldman for bringing this Chasam Sofer to my attention.)

LEGO® Outer Altar of the Tabernacle

There are many similarities between the Outer Altar constructed for the Tabernacle in the wilderness and the Outer Altar of the Temple in Jerusalem. Both have a one-amah high Yesod (base) around the bottom,  both have keranos (horns) at the four top corners, and both stand 10 amos tall.

The differences between these two altars range from the obvious to the obscure. In the obvious category are all those structural details which make the Tabernacle altar portable, such as the smaller size (it measured just 5 amos to a side, as opposed to 32 amos), the hollow interior which was filled with dirt when the Jews camped and emptied during travel (as opposed to being made of solid stone), the walls being made of wooden planks plated with copper, and the need for poles to carry it.

An interesting fact about the poles is that they were placed just above the midpoint of the Altar, some 6 amos from the ground. Now, most people measure 3 amos from their shoulders to the ground (Meiri to Shabbos 92a) which would make it nearly impossible for anyone to even reach the Altar's poles, let alone carry them on their shoulders. Turns out that the Levites, who carried the Altar, stood 10 amos tall and could easily handle this job (see Shabbos 92a).

Among the more subtle differences is that the Yesod of the Tabernacle Altar went around all four sides. In the Second Temple, due to certain technical requirements which had to do with the location of the Altar with respect to the boundary between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, there was no Yesod along most of the southern and eastern sides of the Altar. In the wilderness this was not an issue, hence the Yesod could surround the Altar on all four sides.

I assembled a Lego® model of both altars which I usually show together so that people can get a sense of the difference in size between the Tabernacle Altar (which most people are more familiar with from reading about it in the Torah) and the vastly larger altar built for the Second Temple. Below are some pictures of the Tabernacle Altar model. The body of this altar measures about 3 inches to a side and 6 inches tall.

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מלאכת המשכן וכליו

It is that time of year when I take out my copy of Meleches Hamishkan V'keilav by Rabbi Dovid Meyers (printed by the author, 2006 [second ed.]). This book is an exhaustive study of every element of the Tabernacle, from the beams and coverings to the Ark and Menorah. The author has researched so many of the sources which deal with these topics and presents each item in unprecedented detail. The book is arranged by topic in an easy-to-use format, first citing the relevant Torah passage and then a listing of all the laws and requirements which are derived from the verses and commentators. The meat of the book is found in the form of footnotes where the different opinions and sources are cited and discussed. In addition to all the above, there are copious line drawings to illustrate each point, and at the end of every section there is a very helpful collection of drawings which shows the item in question according to the various opinions cited in the notes.

The author has also reviewed much of the material in his book with HaRav Chaim Kanievsky and he prints the correspondance with HaRav Kanievsky in a separate section in the back.

One of my favorite gems of Tabernacle Torah which this book addresses is a question I had asked myself about the adanim (silver sockets) which hold the kerashim (wooden beams). Every student of the Tabernacle knows the dimensions of the adanim, which are 0.75 x 1 x 1 amos (with a hole in the middle to accept the kerashim), and we also know that each one was formed from one kikar of silver. The problem is that the volume of one kikar of silver is simply not enough to form the shape of the adanim! I was pleased to discover that this issue had been raised by others before me and that this question was asked to the Chazon Ish. He answered that the adanim were not, as commonly believed, made of solid silver, but rather were hollow on the inside (Meleches Hamishkan V'keilav p.311, note 15, citing Ta'ama D'kra).

Understanding the Term Nechoshes

The word nechoshes appears over 40 times in the Torah, from the development of metal tools (Genesis 4:22) to the vessels of the Tabernacle (Exodus 25:3 ff), to the curses of the tochachah (Leviticus 26:19 and Deuteronomy 28:23). Most translators understand this to mean copper while some prefer brass (Jerusalem Bible). To others, nechoshes denotes copper or bronze (Jastrow) or even all three—copper, bronze, or brass (Alkalai). The variant nechushah (Leviticus 26:19) is sometimes distinguished from the more standard nechoshes (copper) to mean brass (Aryeh Kaplan, Alkalai). As well, in the form nechushtan it is taken to mean bronze (Jastrow). Understanding the nature of copper, bronze, and brass will help explain the close relationship between these varying translations.

Copper is a naturally occurring metal whose ore has been mined and smelted since the beginnings of metallurgy. In fact, until about 3000 BCE, copper was the sole metal used in crafting tools and vessels with only occasional pieces of lead, silver, or gold being found. Beginning in the Early Bronze Age (3000 BCE-2600 BCE), which dates closely to the period of Tuval Kayin (Genesis 4:22), many metallurgical concepts were developed, among them the formation of bronzes. Bronze began as an alloy (a blend) of copper and arsenic, with arsenic eventually being replaced by tin. Brass is a rarer alloy of copper and zinc (zinc being less common than tin). By adding varying amounts of these other metals to the copper as it was smelted, the alloy’s properties could be adjusted to optimize workability, hardness, color, and finish. Arsenic and zinc deposits may have occurred together with some copper ores and when such ores were smelted they would form a natural alloy of either bronze or brass.

Thus nechoshes, in a general context, most likely refers to the pure copper. When describing vessels or tools (such as those used in the Tabernacle and Temple, both of which post-date the development of the copper alloys) it would tend to mean bronze or, less commonly, brass, as these were the alloys of choice for their advantages over pure copper.

Build your own LEGO® Altar

For those interested in creating their very own Lego® model of the Second Temple here is something to get you started. This is a (very) small model of the Outer Altar which you can build using only 25 bricks (a bit more manageable than my larger model which uses over 2000 bricks). The model was designed using Bricksmith. One of the very nice things about this program is that it puts together a parts list for your model and I have included that below the video.







Qty.     Part     Description     Color
1          3003       Brick  2 x  2       White
1          3002       Brick  2 x  3       White
2          3001       Brick  2 x  4       White
2          3024       Plate  1 x  1        White
3          3023       Plate  1 x  2        White
1          3623       Plate  1 x  3        White
1          3710       Plate  1 x  4        White
1          3795       Plate  2 x  6        White
1          3031       Plate  4 x  4        White
1          3031       Plate  4 x  4        Red
2          30363     Slope 18  4x2      White
1          30039     Tile  1 x  1          White
4          63864     Tile  1 x  3          White
1          2431       Tile  1 x  4          White
1          6636       Tile  1 x  6          White
2          3068b     Tile  2 x  2          White

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Collecting the Half-Shekel Donation in the Temple

The Mishnah (see Shekalim 2:1, 4:3, 6:5, and 6:6 with Tiferes Yisrael ad loc.) records that there were 13 collection boxes, called shofaros on account of their long, curved necks which resembled a shofar, which were placed within the Courtyard. They were used to collect funds for the following purposes:

1. Half-shekel donation collected from the public each year.
2. Half-shekel donations owed from the previous year (which would be appropriated for different uses than the current year’s shekalim).

Both of these shofaros for the half-shekel donations were kept inside a chamber. As the donations came in, the treasurers would deposit them into these shofaros and issue a receipt to the donor. At the end of each day the coins would be transferred to a (larger) storage container also located inside this chamber.

3. Mature bird offerings (turtledoves). One who is obligated to bring a pair of birds – one for a chatas and one for an olah offering – such as a zav, a zavah, a woman who has given birth, or a metzora, may discharge their obligation by placing enough money to cover the cost of the birds into this box. The Kohanim check this box daily and make sure to bring the offerings on behalf of the owner by the end of each day.

4. Young bird offerings (common doves). One who has pledged a voluntary bird olah may place the cost of the offering in this box and the Kohanim will bring the offering on his behalf.
5. Wood for the Altar.
6. Levonah (frankincense) which accompanied most offerings.
7. Gold for vessels of the Temple.
8-13: General donations for the purchase of additional olah offerings. Each of these six shofaros was designated for a specific beis av (of which there were six) who would receive the hides of the animals offered from these funds.

Two possibilities for the design of the collection boxes: was the "shofar" 
facing up or down?