Non socially distanced Passover

Ben Blaukopf ר ַמ ֲא .ל ֵּא ָּר ְשִּי י ֵּסוּל ְכוּא ְב ויָּני ֵּע ן ֵּתי ִּל ךְ ֶּל ֶּמ ַה ס ַפי ִּר ְג ַא שׁ ֵּקי ִּב ת ַח ַא ם ַע ַפ :ןַנ ָּב ַר וּנ ָּת םי ִּש ִּשׁ ם ָּשׁ וּא ְצ ְמִּנְו ,ד ָּח ֶּא לׇּכּ ִּמ אָּי ְלוּכּ ל ַטָּנ .םי ִּח ָּס ְפ ַב ךָיֶּני ֵּע ן ֵּת :לוֹדָּג ן ֵּהֹכ ְל הּי ֵּל ןי ֵּאְו .ה ָּקוֹח ְר ךְ ֶּר ֶּד ְב הָּי ָּה ֶּשְׁו א ֵּמ ָּט ִּמ ץוּח .םִּי ַר ְצ ִּמ י ֵּא ְצוֹי ְכּ םִּי ַל ְפ ִּכּ תוֹי ָּל ְכ יֵּגוּז אוֹבי ִּר וֹתוֹא ןי ִּא ְרוֹק וּי ָּהְו .ם ָּד ָּא יֵּנ ְב ה ָּר ָּשֲע ֵּמ ר ֵּתוֹי וי ָּל ָּע וּנ ְמ ִּנ אֹ ל ֶּשׁ ח ַס ֶּפוּ ח ַס ֶּפ לׇּכּ ךְ ָּל ןי ִּבוּע ְמ ח ַס ֶּפ״ ״. We learn in a beraita1 that King Agrippa once wished to set his eyes on the population of Israel. He said to the High Priest: Observe every pesach sacrifice (when I write pesach in this article, I mean the sacrifice). He (the High Priest) took a kidney from each one, and found that there were 600,000 pairs of kidneys, double the number of people who left Egypt! This excluded those who were impure, or who were distant. And you would not have found any pesach that had fewer than ten people registered for it. They called it the Crowded Passover. Josephus records a similar event2, but here Cestius, the Legate of Syria, replaces Agrippa. Cestius, desiring to inform Nero, who was inclined to condemn the nation, of the power of the city, requested the high priests to take a count, if possible, of the entire population. So these high priests did so upon the arrival of their feast which is called the Passover. On this day they slay their sacrifices from the ninth hour until the eleventh, with a company [phatria] of not less than ten belonging to every sacrifice - for it is not lawful for them to have the feast singly by themselves - and many of us are twenty in a company. These priests found the number of the sacrifices was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred.

1 Pesachim 64b 2 Wars of the Jews 6.9.3 422

Page 12

These numbers seem implausibly large. The Awassi breed of sheep is indigenous to (and common throughout) the Middle East, and a male weighs around 5kg at birth3. Lambing season in Israel, however, is around December/January4, so a sheep could be more like two to three months by Passover5. They put on weight at quite a rate: a three-month-old might weigh 25kg. For the sake of argument, let us stick with the baby lamb, and two and a half kilos of dressed meat you might get from it. Feeding ten people on that seems plausible, if a bit tight. That's two quarter-pounders per person . However, we need to allow for people bringing a chagiga (also known as the burnt egg on the seder plate) offering as well. This was eaten first: the mitzva is to eat the pesach after you have satisfied your hunger6. The Seder today is not just out of order in having the Four Questions first, we ought to eat the Yom Tov meal first and only then start talking about Hillel and Korech. I think we can take the beraita at face value when it says "you wouldn't find any pesach there that had fewer than ten people registered for it". At any rate, the Talmudic numbers leave us looking at twelve million people registered to eat a korban pesach, even if we only slaughter eight-day-old lambs, and even if we don't bring any chagiga offerings to supplement the meal. How much space would all this take? Let's say if we cram everyone in (with the lambs) you can fit five people in a square metre, at the upper limit of what is considered safe7 for standing spaces with no

3 Everything I know about lambs, I read on the Interweb. It might be true. 4 Luke 2:8-20 :) But also see Rosh Hashana 8a which describes lambs born in Elul. 5 Note that Passover nowadays (but not specifically in 2021) is on average about eight days later than it was at the time of the temple, due to calendar drift. 6 Pesachim 70a 7 Pesachim 64b where a crushing death is mentioned.

Page 13

accompanying sheep. We would need an area considerably bigger than the Old City of Jerusalem, never mind the temple courtyard itself. It's getting a bit crowded. No wonder they locked the doors8. Maybe they had kohanim in white gloves to push everyone in, like Japanese trains. Time to go back and take another look at the beraita. Why does it feel the need to tell us that the sacrifices “excluded those who were unclean, or on a distant journey”? This really is, in the words of the gemara, a “peshita”, something so obvious that it doesn't need saying. To me, the answer is because the beraita is not telling the sages or us. It's telling Agrippa. Perhaps it went something like this. I'm about to mix classics and Talmud, in the presence of experts on both. Don't take it too seriously. Any accuracy is unintended. Somewhere in Jerusalem, 64CE9 . Mattathias: Hail, Agrippa, King of Judea! King Agrippa II: Hail, err <whispers to aide> Mattathias, High Priest. <awkward pause> KA: So, the temple. We're considering building a new arch to celebrate the bounty of Rome, maybe in front of the sanctum sanctorum? What do you think? M: <thinking quickly> A wonderful idea, Sire. I would be fully in favour. But there may be a problem with the Health and Safety committee. We need all the space we can get in the courtyard. It gets very crowded.

8 Ibid 64a in a mishna which is certainly worth reading before Seder. It describes the spectacular procedure of the korban pesach. 9 I'll go with Josephus for dating, which therefore means we are dealing with Agrippa II and Matatthias the High Priest - and the deputy may well have been Hanina.

Page 14

KA: Really? How many of you are there? M: Uncountable numbers, King. In fact, we're not supposed to count Jews. But we can count kidneys. KA: Are you trying to be funny? This isn't Life of Brian. M: Not at all, King. The Jews don't take the kidneys with them, they leave them for the priests to burn. If we count the kidneys, we can count the sacrifices. And if we count the Pesach sacrifices, we will know how many Jews are using the temple. KA: Alright, sounds good. Vale! Backing music: The Liberty Bell <We observe as Mattathias, High Priest, separates one kidney from every Korban Pesach> Mattathias: Right, where's the Sgan HaKohanim when you need him? <shouts> HANIIIIINA <enter running man in priestly garments>. Hanina, we've got six thousand kidneys. Hanina, deputy High Priest: No, that won't do. Not enough. Kidneys come in pairs. We'll count the one we didn't pick up as well. After all, we only said we'd count pesach sacrifices; that am haaretz won't know a pesach from a chagiga. Tell him we've got six thousand pairs of kidneys. King Agrippa II: So, how many Jews were there? M: We took a kidney from each sacrifice, King. We counted twelve thousand kidneys. KA: So, twelve thousand Jews? There's more than that come to a good crucifixion. Doesn't sound too many to me. My great grandfather made this place pretty big. M: Your Highness, there are many more Jews who could not come, because they are impure, or live too far away. KA: Still... surely we can squeeze an arch in, even if it had to be a bit smaller…

Page 15

M: And, your Highness, each sacrifice is offered on behalf of many Jews. At least ten. KA: Alright, alright, you've made your point. Now, I freely admit that I made all of this up, but I am open to hearing an alternative explanation which doesn't rely on miracles. You noticed I wrote 6,000 in the dialogue above, not 600,000? It seems a more plausible number to me. If 6,000 pesachim were brought, then we need to fit 6,000 men and lambs into the azarah, the temple courtyard, in three shifts. That sounds crowded to me, but not impossible. If each lamb was more like three months old and yielding 12kg of meat, then with chagigot to round out the meal you could conceivably feed 600,000 people. A little conflation of numbers, and suddenly we have 600,000 pesachim. Next thing we'll be saying there were 300 plagues instead of 10.

רשכו חמש גח

Page 16