Thursday 9 January 2014

Yoma 63 a, b

Everything has a time and a place.  Never more so than on Yom Kippur in the times of the Temple.  Amud (a) helps us to comprehend some of the rules around different sacrifices.  When is it alright to make an offering before its time? and when would that action result in a terrible consequence?  When must the Temple doors be open or closed?  Can assume that the doors will soon open and thus our current action is valid?  The rabbis look at guilt-offerings, sin-offerings, the offerings of different groups of people (zavim and zavot, lepers, etc.), and whether the sacrifice is inside or outside of the Temple.  The conditions binding each offering define what will invalidate that offering.

We are reintroduced to the principle of "since" or  ho'il.  Ho'il suggests that an action is valid because it is assumed that another separate but required condition will be completed retroactively.  Thus a current halacha can be decided based upon a future action.  Some rabbis acknowledge this principle but others are more stringent.

Amud (b) focuses more specifically on which animals are included or excluded from being offered based on a number of phrases.  "To the Lord", might refer only to animals that are consecrated to G-d, and thus might exclude the scapegoat. The rabbis carry this conversation toward other issues affecting the scapegoat.  Can it be replaced by another goat without a lottery if it develops a blemish?  What happens to a person who sacrifices the scapegoat that is blemished? or the scapegoat that is under 8 days old?

Why would the rabbis want to ensure that these rules were respected?  Small differences - sometimes only in intention - can lead to punishments including karet.  How would it serve the rabbis and the larger Jewish community to create such stringencies?

I wonder if part of their thinking might have included crown control.  To demand these thoughtful, careful rituals would suggest a 'slowing down' of the process.  Or perhaps this was about power, control, and the establishment of rabbinical authority.

  

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