[Avodah] havdallah, and other berachos

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 10:24:03AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> BTW, was the Knesset Hagedolah a standing body, a 120-member super-
> sanhedrin, which eventually decreased by attrition to the standard 71?
> Or was it a one-time event, like the Knessios Gedolos of the Agudah,
> or like the Philadelphia convention that wrote the USA constitution,
> a convention that met for perhaps a few years and then disbanded, its
> work done?

I think it was a multigenerational period of the Sanhedrin running from
around Purim -- empowered by "qiymu veqiblu haYdhudim" until Shim'on
haTzadiq's generation (as in Avos 1:2). "Imeihem kamah nevi'im",
so their rulings are at times diverei soferim rather than a regular
derabbanan. They are thus different in authority to tannaim.

There are two candidates for Shim'on haTzadiq, both Shim'on ben Hanniya.
One lived either 310-291 or 300-273 BCE, the other -- 219-199 BCE. Even
if we place Ezra during Artaxerxes II, among the latest possibilities,
he would still be no later than 359 BCE. There is no way they could
have met -- the latest possibility for Ezra and the newest for Shim'on
haTzadiq are still 49 years apart (plus Shim'on haTzadiq's youth).

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             None of us will leave this place alive.
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