Sukkah 51b (נא:) — the Talmud in English

Pious men and men of worthy deeds would dance before them

with flaming torches in their hands,

throwing several torches one after another, catching them in their hands, and repeating the feat again and again.

And they would recite before them words of song and praise,

which will be explained in the Gemara.

And the Levites

would play

on lyres, harps, cymbals, trumpets, and every kind of song without number.

The Levites who played would stand

on the fifteen steps descending from the Israelites’ Courtyard to the Women’s Courtyard.

These fifteen steps correspond

to the fifteen

Songs of Ascents in Psalms, upon which the Levites would stand with musical instruments and recite song.

And two priests would stand at the Upper Gate, which descends from the Israelites’ Courtyard to the Women’s Courtyard, with two trumpets in their hands.

At the time when

the rooster crowed

the rooster,

they sounded a tekia, a terua, and a tekia,

and this was a sign that they were to go and draw water from the Shiloah spring in order to pour the water as a libation in the morning, together with the daily morning offering. The two priests who sounded the trumpets then began descending from the Upper Gate down the fifteen steps that descend from the Israelites’ Courtyard to the Women’s Courtyard.

When they reached

the priests

the tenth step,

again

they sounded a tekia, a terua, and a tekia.

When they reached the Courtyard

the Women’s Courtyard, at the bottom of the steps,

they sounded a tekia, a terua, and a tekia.

And so

they would sound the blasts as they proceeded

that is, they would prolong the final blasts

until they reached the gate that leads out to the east

of the Women’s Courtyard. They would descend from the western side toward the eastern side, at the foot of the Temple Mount.

When they reached the gate that leads out to the east

of the Women’s Courtyard, which was aligned with the Nicanor Gate on the western side, where the entrance to the Courtyard was located,

they turned their faces from east to west and said:

Our forefathers who were in this place

angered You, in that

their backs

were turned

toward

the direction of

the Sanctuary, and

if

their faces

had been turned

eastward, and they would bow eastward to the sun.

But

we

turn our eyes to God.

Rabbi Yehuda says: They would repeat

the words,

and say, “

We are for God, and our eyes are toward God.”

Gemara:

The Sages taught: One who never saw the rejoicing of the Place of the Drawing of the Water

never saw rejoicing in his life.

One who never saw Jerusalem in its glory

never saw a beautiful city in his life.

One who never saw the Temple in its construction

never saw a magnificent building in his life,

and we raise an objection:

What is it?

Which construction of the Temple is being discussed?

Abaye said, and some say Rav Ḥisda: This is the construction of Herod.

With what did he build it?

With what stones did he build it?

Rabba said: With stones of green marble

green marble,

and white marble.

Some say:

Some say: With stones of blue marble

marble colored blue,

and white marble.

He projected

the stones outward in the construction of the wall

one row,

a row of stones,

and recessed

the next

row,

recessing inward the row beneath it. He made these spaces between the rows

so that they could hold the plaster,

so that the wall would retain the plaster spread over it.

He considered coating them with gold,

covering and smoothing the walls of the building with gold.

The Sages said to him: Leave it,

leave the walls and keep them as they are,

for this is more beautiful, since they look like the waves of the sea,

as they resemble waves of the sea.

It was taught in a beraita: Rabbi Yehuda says: One who never saw the double colonnade

the magnificent building of the synagogue

of Alexandria in Egypt

never saw the glory of Israel.

They said: It was like a great basilica,

a palace,

with one colonnade within another,

a partition of chambers within another partition of chambers, with rows of distinguished chambers there, and

at times there were six hundred thousand people there,

people

like those who went out of Egypt.

And some say: Twice as many as those who went out of Egypt.

And there were seventy-one golden platforms in it, corresponding to the seventy-one members of the Great Sanhedrin; each and every one was worth no less than twenty-one myriad talents of gold.

And they established a Sanhedrin for them.

And there was a wooden platform in its center, upon which the synagogue attendant would stand, with scarves in his hand.

And when he reached the point at which the congregation was to answer Amen,

because of the great size of the synagogue, everyone could not hear the prayer leader, so

he

the attendant

would wave the scarf, and all the people would answer Amen.

And they would not sit mixed together.

Rather,

the craftsmen who made

gold objects would sit separately, and

the craftsmen who made

silver objects would sit separately, and the blacksmiths would sit separately, and the coppersmiths

coppersmiths

would sit separately, and the weavers

weavers

would sit separately.

And when a poor person entered there, he would recognize the members of his trade and turn there,

and they would hire him.

And from there would come his livelihood and the livelihood of the members of his household.

Abaye said: And all of them

were killed by Alexander of Macedon.

Why were they punished?

Because they transgressed this verse

Deuteronomy 17: “

You shall not return again on this road any more.”

And

if

they

had returned there

they returned and came to Egypt.

When he came,

when Alexander of Macedon came there,

he found them

at the time

when they were reading from a scroll

Deuteronomy 28: “

The Lord will raise up against you a nation from afar.”

He said: Since,

indeed,

that man

I am the one designated to carry out this decree, for

I intended to come by ship in ten days,

I intended to come by ship on a route that takes ten days,

but a strong wind arose

and a powerful wind blew,

and the ship arrived in five days

and the ship came in only five days. This miracle is a sign for me that I am the one who must carry out the punishment of the Alexandrians.

He fell upon them and killed them.

We learned in the Mishna:

At the conclusion of the Festival.

What is the great rectification?

Rabbi Elazar said: It is like that which we learned

in a beraita:

It was level

flat

originally

the Courtyard

was.

And they surrounded it with a balcony,

by placing beams on projections fixed into the wall.

And they instituted that the women should sit above and the men below.

The Sages taught: Originally, the women were inside and the men outside, and they would come to frivolity.

They instituted that the women should sit outside

the Courtyard, on the Temple Mount and in the area surrounding the Courtyard,

and the men inside,

inside the “Women’s Courtyard.”

And still they would come to frivolity. They instituted

that the women should sit above and the men below.

And we raise an objection:

How could they do this

to install a balcony in the Courtyard?

But it is written

in the account of the construction of the Temple, I Chronicles 28: “

Everything is in writing from the hand of the Lord, which He gave me insight into.”

The verse teaches that every part of the construction of the Temple must be carried out solely according to this written plan!

Rav said: They found a verse and expounded it.