[Avodah] Zipped

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, February 22, 2007 1:36 pm, R Zev Sero wrote:
: It can't mean that, because buttons (as a means of fastening) had not
: yet been invented.

It was fastened by a blue string on one side, and a stone in a setting sowed
onto a shoulder strap on the other. It could have been a loop at the end of
the string, which is pretty much buttoning, perhaps the string was repeatedly
wrapped around a narrowing in the setting, or perhaps the eiphod was hung
using loops of techeiles that ran through the ring around a narrowing in the
setting of one of the avnei shoham and tied again.

Josephus isn't a maqor for halakhah, but as a kohein who served in the BHMQ,
there is a likelihood he wrote the following from personal observation of the
kohein gadol. The translator assumes he is speaking of buttons, but to me it
sounds more like the loop idea.

Antiquities of the Jews
Book III, Chapter VII, Section 5

5. Besides these, the high priest put on a third garment, which was called the
Ephod, which resembles the Epomis of the Greeks. Its make was after this
manner: it was woven to the depth of a cubit, of several colors, with gold
intermixed, and embroidered, but it left the middle of the breast uncovered:
it was made with sleeves also; nor did it appear to be at all differently made
from a short coat. But in the void place of this garment there was inserted a
piece of the bigness of a span, embroidered with gold, and the other colors of
the ephod, and was called Essen, [the breastplate,] which in the Greek
language signifies the Oracle. This piece exactly filled up the void space in
the ephod. It was united to it by golden rings at every corner, the like rings
being annexed to the ephod, and a blue riband was made use of to tie them
together by those rings; and that the space between the rings might not appear
empty, they contrived to fill it up with stitches of blue ribands. There were
also two sardonyxes upon the ephod, at the shoulders, to fasten it in the
nature of buttons, having each end running to the sardonyxes of gold, that
they might be buttoned by them. On these were engraven the names of the sons
of Jacob, in our own country letters, and in our own tongue, six on each of
the stones, on either side; and the elder sons' names were on the right
shoulder. Twelve stones also there were upon the breast-plate, extraordinary
in largeness and beauty; and they were an ornament not to be purchased by men,
because of their immense value. These stones, however, stood in three rows, by
four in a row, and were inserted into the breastplate itself, and they were
set in ouches of gold, that were themselves inserted in the breastplate, and
were so made that they might not fall out. Now the first three stones were a
sardonyx, a topaz, and an emerald. The second row contained a carbuncle, a
jasper, and a sapphire. The first of the third row was a ligure, then an
amethyst, and the third an agate, being the ninth of the whole number. The
first of the fourth row was a chrysolite, the next was an onyx, and then a
beryl, which was the last of all. Now the names of all those sons of Jacob
were engraven in these stones, whom we esteem the heads of our tribes, each
stone having the honor of a name, in the order according to which they were
born. And whereas the rings were too weak of themselves to bear the weight of
the stones, they made two other rings of a larger size, at the edge of that
part of the breastplate which reached to the neck, and inserted into the very
texture of the breastplate, to receive chains finely wrought, which connected
them with golden bands to the tops of the shoulders, whose extremity turned
backwards, and went into the ring, on the prominent back part of the ephod;
and this was for the security of the breastplate, that it might not fall out
of its place. There was also a girdle sewed to the breastplate, which was of
the forementioned colors, with gold intermixed, which, when it had gone once
round, was tied again upon the seam, and hung down. There were also golden
loops that admitted its fringes at each extremity of the girdle, and included
them entirely.

Ad kan "Antiquities".

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter