6 Responses to “The Efficiency of the Web and the Korban Pesach”

1. Gershon Seif
   March 29th, 2006 @ 6:00 pm

   Just some more info to think this through out loud. There were large crowds who did this in long rows simultaneously. There were silver cups to receive the blood and and multiple assembly lines of priests were there to pass the blood up to the altar. Where othere priests received the blood, did the spinkling, then passed them back. The rows of kohanim were therefore passing 2 bowls at the same time, crisscrossing their arms – one with blood – one empty.

   We know from the talmud, that in total there were only 3 shifts. The gates of the azara closed at each shift. So using that figure that would imply 400,000 people crammed in there at each shift. That’s a bit of a squeeze…

   I don’t know how many people and animals fit into the azara but my guess is it was tens of thousands all crammed in there and probably a few thousand all at once, then a pause for a few seconds and the next few thousand got into position. I can’t imagine how 400,000 peopel, plus animals, plus lines of priests could have fit in there – forget about the time factor…

   I don’t have a Gemara in front of me and don’t really remember such a figure. You sure the Gemara says there were that many, or perhaps it says that’s how many people were represented? That would take the number way down as each korbal pesach was shared by many.

2. Mark Frankel
   March 29th, 2006 @ 6:14 pm

   The Gemara as translated by Art Scroll (64b2) says that “the Kohen Gadol took a kidney from each (one of the pesach offerings) and 600,000 pairs of kidneys were found there, double (the amount of) those (people) who went out of Egypt.”

   The Gemara also says that each korbon had at least than 10 people registered for it.

   The problem could be a little worse in that the Gemara says that the first two shifts were much more busy then the third.

3. Ruby
   March 29th, 2006 @ 6:43 pm

   Correct, Mark. Hallel was recited up to three times while all the Korban Pesachs were being offered during each of the first two shifts. But in the third shift, Hallel NEVER went past halfway through the first recitation. That means that shifts 1 and 2 each had over 40% of the total, not an even 33%.

4. Bob Miller
   March 30th, 2006 @ 8:22 am

   Rabbis in this blog’s audience,

   Has any Rabbinic commentator included this event among the miracles that took place in the Beis HaMikdash?

5. Gershon Seif
   March 30th, 2006 @ 10:49 am

   Well the closest I canthink of is that we are taught about how on Yom Kippur they all stood there were squahed, and yet when they bowed down when they heard God’s name being uttered, somehow there was room for all.

   We also know that the poles of the Aron Kodesh, shouldn’t really have been able to make it into the Kodesh Hakodoshim, but somehow they did.

   Perhaps we expected to extrapolate from these two things that space was no issue in Temple.

   I suppose if space was no issue, why should time be an issue either?

6. Bob Miller
   March 30th, 2006 @ 11:29 am

   Gershon,

   That is what I was thinking of. But “normal” things also went on in the Beis HaMikdash. We need information from our Mesorah to clarify what category these Korban Pesach events belonged to.

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