[Avodah] Association of Positive Mitzvot with Days of Year?

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 04:39:42PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> I'm not sure what you mean by this.  Surely they didn't keep anything;
> whatever they took on the 29th of Adar in lieu of wages, they sold back
> on the 1st of Nissan, so this had no net effect on the accumulated size
> of the mixture....

I already pointed you to the gemara in Sheqalim which says otherwise.

A person from Beis Avtimas could be maqdish the qetores back to
the beis hamiqdash for service. Thus, they DID take it home. See
Sheqalim 11b in the Bavli edition.

...
> It would seem that the average KG's handful was something like 1/3 of a
> maneh, so the question I implied above still stands: why provide 3 manim
> for this purpose?  My only guess is that once in a while there was a KG
> with giant hands; if Moshe Rabbenu was 10 amos tall...

I figured it had to do with the grinding. YK qetores was ground finer,
and probably wouldn't come out as well if that grinding was in too
small of a batch. For reasons similar to "shehakol yafeh labesamim",
I would think it quite possible that the quality improved if more of
the perfume was in the air.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
micha at aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
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