[Avodah] How many Korban Pesachs could be sacrificed in 1 day

[Chana Luntz]

I wrote:
>   but given the
> gemora's resolution that in fact he only took the kidney from the 
> korban pesach for a moment until he was given some sort of token in 
> exchange (which allowed the korban pesach kidney to then be burnt on 
> the mizbeach as required), it could be that he took the kidney, and 
> then gave it back in exchange for some tokens that illustrated the 
> numbers of people counted on that korban, and those tokens were then 
> themselves deemed (and called) "kidneys" - and it is to those that the
shishim ribui zugei kilos refers.
> That would cut the numbers in the Azarah to at least a tenth of RMB's 
> calculation - which would still make for serious numbers,  but 
> presumably not enough to make Rava's position bizarre.


And RZS replied:

>So what does "and there is no Pesach that does not have at least ten people
signed up for it" mean?  If he was counting people rather than korbanos, how
is the minimum subscription per korban >relevant?  Is the gemara trying to
tell us how many korbanos those 1.2M tokens represented, and minimising the
number by saying that if there were 1.2M tokens there could have been *no
more* than 120K?!  That doesn't seem consistent with the immediately
preceding line, "beside those who were tamei or far away", which serves to
*increase* the population.

You would have to read that line disjunctively - ie the first section is
telling you how many people (1.2 million) plus the people who were tamei or
far away.  Then one would have to understand there being a slight shift in
topic, despite the vav, ie a shift to then telling us about how many
korbanos there actually were, now that we know about the people.  There
might *perhaps* be some support for this from the next line "And they called
it the pesach "meuvin"" - which seems to come from "avah" - fat or thick.
Rashi suggests this is because of the number of people - but could it be
because of the fatness of the korbanei pesach? - ie that year the korbanei
pesach were so very fat that many people were able to be registered for each
- and that is how they managed even with this number of people (if you cease
being beguiled by extraordinary numbers like 12 million - you realise that
1.2 million is still an incredibly large number.  If there were 1.2 million
plus those who were tameh then, as R' Bulman suggests, the vast majority
would still have had to stay home on that afternoon to avoid the streets
being gridlocked.  But Jerusalem today does house more than that, and if
most people stayed put where they were staying in Jerusalem, and only one in
ten or an even smaller percentage went to the Beis HaMikdash, then it would
seem manageable without miracles, despite being noteworthy, just like a
large levaya with 100,000 in attendance in the streets of Jerusalem).

I agree it is not nearly as smooth a read as the one R' Marty Bluke
suggested.  Were there not the practical problems with the simple read, I
would never suggest it - but the alternative does avoid bringing masses of
miracles into the equation - so that at the very least the simplest read
cannot be how Rava understood it.  And the alternative read also avoids the
other problems that people have raised - such as us having a pretty good
idea from Roman censuses and the like how many people there were in the
Roman empire.  Not to mention how many Roman soldiers there were with
Vespasian and Titus.  With 12 million able to come up for aliyah l'regal -
the Jews should have been able to overwhelm the attacking Roman legions just
a few years later by sheer numbers.  You start needing miracles on the other
side - ie on the side of the Romans, to have them win at all (and yet the
Romans did not claim "rabim b'yad meatim" - which you inevitably do if you
win against the odds, nor did they claim to have anything near this number
of soldiers).

-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and

Gmar Chatima Tova

Chana