Sotah 36a — the Talmud in English

According to whom

is this baraita?

According to Rabbi Shimon

who holds this view, as explained above.

Here the Gemara, the Talmudic discussion of the Mishna, returns to the continuation of the baraita—the matter of crossing the Jordan—that was quoted above.

Come and see how many miracles were performed

for Israel

on that day

when they crossed the Jordan:

a.

Israel crossed the Jordan.

b.

They came

on that same day

to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal,

which were a distance of

more than sixty mil

from the Jordan.

c.

No creature could stand before them, and anyone who stood before them immediately lost control of his bowels

[that is, he suffered diarrhea].

As it is stated

in Exodus 23:27: “

I will send My terror before you

[when you come to the Land],

and I will confound all the people among whom you shall come; and I will make all your enemies turn their backs before you [so that they flee from before you].” The expression “I will confound” refers to confusion and disturbance of the body and its contents.

и всех врагов твоих обращу перед тобой в тыл [чтобы они бежали от тебя]», а то, что Писание сказало: «И приведу в смятение», — это выражение смятения и перемешивания тела и находящегося в нём.

And it further says

in the verse [Exodus 15:15–16]: “Then the chiefs of Edom were terrified; the mighty men of Moab—trembling seized them; all the inhabitants of Canaan melted away.

Terror

and dread shall fall upon them until Your people, Hashem, pass over; until this people that You have acquired shall pass over”:

until Your people, O Lord, pass over, until this people that You have acquired passes over”:

“Until Your people, Hashem, pass over”: This is the first entry,

when Israel entered the land of Canaan in the days of Joshua.

“Until this people that You have acquired shall pass over”: This is the second entry,

when Israel came in the days of Ezra.

From now on, say: Israel should have been worthy of having a miracle performed for them during the second entry,

so that they could ascend forcefully to the Land of Israel and would not have needed to request permission from the kings of Persia, nor would they have been subjugated to that empire,

just

as had been the case

during the first entry.

But sin caused this not to happen

during the First Temple period, and it was decreed that they would ascend only with the permission of Cyrus. Throughout the reigns of the Persian kings they were subjugated to them—to Cyrus, Ahasuerus, and the last Darius.

The baraita continues to explain the order of the actions of the Children of Israel:

And afterward—

after Israel and the priests had crossed the Jordan—

they brought the stones

that they had taken up from the Jordan,

and built the altar

on Mount Ebal,

and plastered it with lime, and wrote all the words of the Torah upon them in seventy languages, as it is stated

“explain well.”

They offered

on the altar

burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and they ate, drank, and rejoiced, and they blessed and pronounced the curses

in accordance with the command given to Israel.

And

afterward

they removed

[peeled off]

the stones

of the altar from the lime covering them, and took the stones

and came and spent the night at Gilgal.

As it is stated

in Hashem’s command to Joshua: “And command them [the twelve men whom you shall designate], saying: Take for yourselves from here, from within the Jordan, from the place where the feet of the priests stood, twelve stones,

and carry them with you and place them in the lodging place

where you will spend the night.”

One might have thought that this means every lodging place,

the verse therefore states

“where you will spend the night,”

and the word “where” is singular.

And it is written

further in Joshua: “

And these twelve stones that they took

from the Jordan Joshua set up at Gilgal.” Thus, they took only twelve stones from the Jordan, and set up those stones—not twelve stones at every lodging place.

It is written [Exodus 23]: “I will send the hornet before you, and it will drive out the Hivite [who lived on the western side of the Jordan], the Canaanite, and the Hittite [who lived on the eastern side of the Jordan] from before you.”

A tanna

states in a baraita:

The hornet did not cross with them

the Jordan.

The Gemara asks:

But

is it really the case that

it did not

cross?

But it is written: “

I will send the hornet before you

and it will drive out the Hivite.” The Hivite lived on the western side of the Jordan, so the hornet necessarily crossed the Jordan?!

He said—

he answered—

Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish:

The hornet stood on the bank of the Jordan

and

cast at them

among the Hivite people

its poison: It blinded their eyes from above and made them impotent from below.

As it is stated

[Amos 2:9]: “

Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of cedars, and he was as strong as the oaks; and I destroyed his fruit from above

[this refers to his eyes],

and his roots from below

[this refers to castration].”

Rav Pappa said: There were two hornets: one in the time of Moses, and one in the time of Joshua.

The hornet

of Moses did not cross

the Jordan, but the hornet

of Joshua crossed

the Jordan.

We learned in the Mishna:

Six tribes ascended to the top of Mount Gerizim,

and six tribes ascended to the top of Mount Ebal; while the priests, the Levites, and the Ark stood below in the middle. The priests surrounded the Ark, the Levites surrounded the priests, and all Israel stood on either side, as it is stated: “All Israel, and their elders, officers, and judges, stood on either side of the Ark, facing the priests and the Levites who carried the Ark of the covenant of Hashem, both the stranger and the native-born; half of them facing Mount Gerizim and the other half facing Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of Hashem had commanded, to bless the people of Israel first”:

a. The division of the tribes between the mountains is explicit in the Torah [Deuteronomy 27:12]: Simeon, Levi [apart from those Levites who stood between the two mountains], Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin stood on Mount Gerizim; and on Mount Ebal stood Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

b. The order of the births of Jacob’s sons was: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah [the sons of Leah]; Dan and Naphtali [the sons of Bilhah]; Gad and Asher [the sons of Zilpah]; Issachar and Zebulun [the sons of Leah]; Joseph and Benjamin [the sons of Rachel].

c. It is written [Exodus 28:6]: “And they shall make the ephod of gold, blue, purple, crimson, and twined linen, the work of a designer. It shall have two shoulder pieces attached at its two edges, and it shall be attached. And you shall take two shoham stones and engrave upon them the names of the Children of Israel: six of their names on one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, according to their births” [and they were placed on the shoulder pieces of the ephod]. The verse does not specify how the tribes were divided between the two stones.

d. At the beginning of the “Book of the Census,” the Book of Numbers, Moses was commanded to count the Children of Israel, with one man from each tribe included in the census. The Torah lists the names of the men according to the following order of the tribes: Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun [the sons of Leah in the order of their births]; the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, and Benjamin [the sons of Rachel in the order of their births]; Dan and Asher [the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah in the order of their births]; Gad and Naphtali [the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah, not in the order of their births].

e. At the beginning of the Book of Exodus, the sons of Jacob who came to Egypt are listed in the following order: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun [the sons of Leah in the order of their births], Benjamin [the son of Rachel], Dan and Naphtali [the sons of Bilhah in the order of their births], Gad and Asher [the sons of Zilpah in the order of their births], “and Joseph was in Egypt.”

The Gemara asks:

What

is the meaning of what is written: “Half of them facing Mount Gerizim

and the other half

facing Mount Ebal”? The expression “the other half” implies a known half, or a half mentioned elsewhere.

Rav Kahana said:

Just

as the tribes are divided

between

here,

at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, according to the division explained in the Torah,

so are the names divided

among the names of the tribes

on the ephod stones

[the precious stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod, on each of which the names of six tribes were written]: Those who stood on this mountain were written on one stone, and those who stood on that mountain were written on the other stone.

This is the meaning of what the verse says: “the other half”—the known half engraved on one of the stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod.

They raise an objection from a source:

The High Priest had two precious stones on his shoulders, one on this side and one on that side, and the names of the twelve tribes were written on them: six on this stone and six on that stone.

As it is stated

[Exodus 28:6]: “

Six of their names on the one stone,

and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, according to their births.”

We learn from the verse’s statement, “on the other stone, according to their births,” that on

the second

stone alone, six tribes were written

in

the order of

their births,

one after another,

but not

on the

first

stone were six tribes written

in

the order of

their births—

because Judah was placed first

on one stone. This was their written order: Judah was first of them all, and then it returned to Reuben and continued according to the order of their births, one after another: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Dan, and Naphtali.

And there were fifty letters

in the names of the tribes

on

the two stones together:

Twenty-five

letters

on this stone,

as the total number of letters in the names of the tribes listed there comes to,

and twenty-five

letters

on that stone,

as will be explained further in the discussion.

Rabbi Hanina ben Gamliel says: