[Avodah] havdallah, and other berachos

[Lisa Liel]

On 8/15/2011 10:14 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> 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.

I always heard that.  That there were 120 members from its inception 
until its end, but never more than 71 at any one time.

> 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).

By Hanniya do you mean Chonyo?  That's a diminutive of Yochanan.  The 
fact that Josephus tells the same story about Yaddua that Chazal tell 
about Shimon HaTzaddik (with Alexander and the visions) suggests that 
Shimon HaTzaddik was Yaddua.

And of course, the dates you're given assume that Chazal's understanding 
of the chronology of Bayit Sheni is wrong, and the Greeks got it right. 
  Because according to Chazal, Ezra came to Eretz Yisrael in the 7th 
year of Artaxerxes/Darius the Persian, and Alexander was the one who 
defeated that king in his 36th year.  Which puts Ezra and Shimon a 
maximum of 29 years apart.

Lisa