Yoma 9b — the Talmud in English

And

because ![](pamud.bmp "

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they

had

delayed

the sons of Eli

taking their nests

of those women,

at least, Scripture considers it as though they had slept with them

there, and it is regarded for them as forbidden sexual relations.

Profanation of sacred offerings —

as it is written: “Even before they burned the fat, the young man of the priest would come and say to the man who was sacrificing

the offering:

Give

immediately

meat to roast for the priest,

and he would not wait until the meat was cooked after the fats had been burned,

“and he will not take cooked meat from you, but only raw.”

“And the man would say to him: Let them burn the fat today

[now] the

fat,

and burning the fats is what permits the meat to be eaten.

For we learned in tractate Pesachim, on page 59b, in a

beraita, a tannaitic source not included in the Mishna: “Perhaps the priests are permitted to eat the breast and thigh [the portions given to them from a peace-offering] before the fats have been burned? It says: ‘And the priest shall burn the fat on the altar,’ and afterward it says: ‘And the fat shall be Aaron’s and his sons’.”

And take for yourself

after the burning

whatever your appetite desires.”

And the young man said to him:

No,

“for now you shall give it!”

And if you do not

give it,

“I will take it

[I shall take it]

by force.”

“And the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for they disdained

[they profaned]

the offering of the Lord.”

b.

Why was the First Temple destroyed?

Because of three things that existed in it: idolatry, forbidden sexual relations, and bloodshed.

The Gemara, the Talmudic discussion of the Mishna, explains these three matters:

Idolatry —

as it is written

in Isaiah:

“For the bed is too short for stretching out,

and the cover is too narrow for gathering in.”

And

Rabbi Yonatan said: What is the meaning of “the bed is too short for stretching out”?

He interpreted this verse as referring to idolatry: Manasseh brought an idol into the Sanctuary, and the verse compares this to a bed on which a person lies, whose length is insufficient for him to stretch out upon it and extend his limbs.

This is the meaning of

“the bed is too short” —

the Temple, which is the place where the Holy One, blessed be He, dwells — “for stretching out.” He interprets this word as an abbreviation, as though it said

“for two rulers”

one beside the other, for there is no room

for two companions to rule over it at once.

Just as two women who are companions become rivals when they marry one man, so, as it were, the place became too constricted for the Holy One, blessed be He, once Manasseh brought the idol there.

And concerning the continuation of the verse,

“and the cover is too narrow for gathering in” —

Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said: When

[he reached]

Rabbi Yonatan reached this verse, he wept,

and

said:

He of whom it is written —

the Holy One, blessed be He, of whom it is said,

“He gathers the waters of the sea like a mound,”

as it were, all

of Him,

the Almighty,

of whom it is written

the praise [Psalms 33:7]

“He gathered the waters of the sea like a mound”

[alluded to in the verse in Isaiah by the expression “for gathering in”] —

has an idolatrous cover

like a woman

who is a rival,

present together with Him in the Temple!

The Gemara continues to explain the beraita’s statements about the causes of the destruction of the First Temple:

Forbidden sexual relations —

as it is written

[Isaiah 3]:

“And the Lord said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with an outstretched neck, and make eyes

as they walk and stamp with their feet.”

And we interpret the verse:

“Because the daughters of Zion are haughty” —

they would walk

one woman

tall beside

another woman

who was short,

so that the taller woman would stand out.

“And walk with an outstretched neck” —

they would walk upright.

And “make eyes

[from the word for the red coloring called sikra]

” —

they would fill

[they filled]

with kohl

a blue coloring around

their eyes.

“As they walk and stamp” —

they would walk

with short steps,

heel beside toe,

so that their walking would take longer and people would look at them.

“And stamp with their feet” —

Rabbi Yitzḥak said: They would bring myrrh and balsam and place them in their shoes, and when they reached the young men of Israel,

they would

kick and spray them

with the perfume,

and implant in them the evil inclination,

which is

like the venom

found

in a

snake

when it is angry.

Bloodshed —

as it is written

[II Kings 21]:

“And Manasseh also shed very much innocent blood, until he filled Jerusalem from one end to the other.”

And the beraita continues:

But the Second Temple, in which they were occupied with Torah, the commandments, and acts of kindness —

why was it destroyed?

Because there was baseless hatred in it.

This teaches you that baseless hatred is equivalent to the three sins: idolatry, forbidden sexual relations, and bloodshed.

The beraita further says:

They were wicked, but they placed their trust in the Holy One, blessed be He.

The Gemara explains that these words of the beraita

refer

to

the First Temple.

As it is written

in it [Micah 3]:

“Its leaders judge for bribes, its priests teach for payment, and its prophets divine for money,”

and

by committing these sins they compounded their wrongdoing by trusting that the Lord would not punish them, because

“they rely on the Lord, saying: Surely the Lord is among us,

and therefore

no evil will come upon us!”

Therefore, the Holy One, blessed be He, brought upon them three decrees, corresponding to the three sins they had committed.

As it is stated:

[Micah 3]

“Therefore, because of you:

a.

Zion shall be plowed like a field;

b.

and Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins;

c.

and the Temple Mount like the high places of a forest.”

The Gemara asks:

And

if

was there no baseless hatred in the First Temple?

But it is written

[Ezekiel 21:17]:

“Those who were in fear of the sword were with My people; therefore strike your thigh.”

And Rabbi Elazar said: These are people who eat and drink with one another,

as though they lived together, like friends,

and

even though they were together,

they stab one another with the swords of their tongues.

That is, this is baseless hatred.

The Gemara answers:

That

was among the leaders of Israel

alone

that it existed.

The proof is:

As it is written

at the beginning of the verse:

“Cry out and wail, son of man, for it has come upon My people.”

And it is taught in a beraita: “Cry out and wail, son of man.”

Perhaps this applies to everyone?

The verse says: “It” —

among all the leaders of Israel.

But in the Second Temple, everyone sinned through baseless hatred.

Rabbi Yoḥanan and Rabbi Elazar both say: The earlier ones,

the people of the First Temple,

whose sin was revealed

in Scripture —

their

also

end was revealed,

namely, after seventy years.

But the people of the Second Temple, who were

the later ones

who went into exile,

whose sin was not revealed

explicitly — their

end was also not revealed,

when they would be redeemed.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said,

by way of a parable:

The dried fingernail

that had withered

of the earlier ones

who went into exile with the First Temple

is better than

[an expression used as an example of soft flesh]

the flesh of the later ones.

Reish Lakish said to him: On the contrary, the later ones are superior,

for we, the later exiles,

despite the domination of the kingdoms,

are engaged in Torah!

He said to him: The fortress

[the Temple]

proves it: it returned to the earlier ones but did not return to the later ones.

They asked Rabbi Elazar: Are

they

the earlier ones greater

than the later ones,

or are the later ones greater

than the earlier ones?

He said to them: Direct your eyes to the fortress

[the Temple, which was restored to the earlier ones after seventy years, but has still not been restored to the later ones].

Some say that he said to them

in these words:

Your witness

is

the fortress.

Reish Lakish was bathing

and swimming

in the

river

Jordan.

Rabba bar bar Ḥana came and gave him his hand

so that Reish Lakish could lean on it when leaving the river.

He said to him,

Reish Lakish:

“By God! I hate you,

I hate you, people of Babylonia,

as it is written

[Song of Songs 8]:

‘If she is a wall, we will build upon her a silver tower; and if she is a door, we will enclose her with a cedar plank.’”

And we interpret this:

If you made yourselves like a wall

that encloses the city,

and all of you had ascended in the days of Ezra —

the Divine Presence would have rested fully among the people of Israel, and then

you would have been compared to silver, which decay does not control.

Now that you have ascended like doors,

one of which is open and one locked —

you are compared to cedar, which decay controls

because the Divine Presence rests among you only partially.

The Gemara explains:

What

is the parable of decay in

cedar?

Ulla said:

In the cedar

called sasmegor,

which is eaten from within by a worm called sas megor.

The Gemara explains:

What

is the reason that, with regard to the resting of the Divine Presence, they were compared in the Second Temple to

the sasmegor

?

Rabbi Abba said: The lesson of the parable is

this:

a heavenly voice,

for a small remnant of prophecy remained for them, just as a small amount of the cedar’s outer layer remains after the worm has eaten it from within.

As it is taught in a beraita: When the last prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, died —

the Divine Spirit departed from Israel.

But they still made use of a heavenly voice.

The Gemara wonders:

And Reish Lakish —

did he speak

[was he conversing]

with

Rabba bar bar Ḥana?

him?

For

after all,

what of Rabbi Elazar, who was the “master

[the greatest]

of the Land of Israel”

[in his extensive knowledge]

— and

nevertheless

Reish Lakish did not speak

with him,

with Reish Lakish

him. This was because

anyone with whom Reish Lakish spoke in the marketplace,

a person with whom Reish Lakish would converse in the marketplace, was considered so trustworthy that

they would give him

money for a

business partnership

even

without

having to produce so many

witnesses

[witnesses].

And if so, would he

with Rabba bar bar Ḥana,

who was not as great as Rabbi Elazar, really

speak

[converse]!?

Rav Pappa said: The names must be switched:

they should exchange the names,

throwing

and replacing

one person

one of them

between them,

between the two names mentioned in the account.

Or it was Reish Lakish

who was bathing in the Jordan,

and Zeiri,

who was from Babylonia, extended his hand to him, and it was to Zeiri that he said this.

Or it was Rabba bar bar Ḥana

who was bathing in the Jordan,

and Rabbi Elazar

was the one who extended his hand to him.

When

Reish Lakish came

before Rabbi Yoḥanan

and told him what he had said to Rabbi Elazar,

he said to him,

Rabbi Yoḥanan:

“That is not the meaning”,

not the parable and its lesson in the verse.

For

even if they had all ascended

they had gone up

in the days of Ezra,

also

the Divine Presence would not have rested

would not have dwelled

in the Second Temple.

Because

it is written

[Genesis 9:27]:

“May God grant beauty to Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem.”