[Avodah] Halachic Requirement for Dayanim Evaluating In-Person Facial Expressions of Parties in Bais Din

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Wed Aug 19 10:17:48 PDT 2015


On Tue, Aug 04, 2015 at 10:49:07AM -0700, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote:
:                 ... The Mishnah describes how the members of the Sanhedrin
: sat in a row in the shape of a half-circle...

:           Rambam (Hilchos Sanhedrin 1:3) ...
:                                                                The Tosefta
: (8:1) cites differing opinions regarding the seating position of the
: President of the Sanhedrin. Tanna Kamma holds that the President sat in the
: center of the semi-circle, with thirty-five of the members of the Sanhedrin
: seated on each side of him. R' Elazar b. Tzadok says that when Rabban
: Gamliel sat in the Sanhedrin in Yavne, one of the sages sat to his right,
: and all the others sat to his left....

My apologies to RBC that I don't have any thoughts about his intended
topic, but he got me thinking about something else...

To quote myself from 2010
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n146.shtml#04>:
> REMT quoted the IE, which I found at Shemos 25:37, in what Bar Ilan
> calls the short version of the IE:
>     Neiroseha: And the qadmonim said that one lamp was in the middle
>     ve"hashisha ne'erachim ze achar ze bachatzi iggul" (to cut-n-paste
>     from REMT's post)
>     And after the scripture said "vehei'ir al eiver paneha", and the
>     reason for "al eiver" one [eiver], behold the shape is clear.

Not semicircular as seen from the front, but the lamps in that pattern
as seen from above.

Continuing:
> The IE appears to very explicitly places all the lamps on the same side
> of the middle one. Similarly, in the long version of the IE, Shemos 27:21:
>     Yaarokh: baavur hayos haneiros bechatzi igul. Ve'od adaber al zeh.

Notice that leshitaso, the layout of the Sanhderin parallels the layout
of the neiros in the keli most associated with chokhmah.

Which makes it interesting that the definition of neir ma'aravi also
parallels the machloqes about where the nasi sat. We generally assume
it's the middle lamp, on the central shaft. However, Tamid 33a speaks of
the two western lights, which we also find implied in Abayei hava mesader,
"hatavas shetei neiros" being at a different time than "hatavav 5 neiros".
>From which Rashi (see also Rashi Menachos 86b "mimenah hayah madliq")
concludes that the neir ma'ariv was the 2nd in the row.

So it looks like a two machloqes, leshitasam, setup. But...

IE's semicircular menorah is based on the idea that the middle lamp was
westmost, the other lamps curving off toward the NE and SE directions.
A variant on the shitah that the menorah stood so the lamps run north
to south.

The idea that the 2nd was the ner hama'ari has the lamps running from
west to east. The 2 neiros on the west are lit on their own. The second
from the west end is the neir hama'arivi, a title not given the westmost
candle because it is lit facing the NhM, with the wick on the east.

But that leshitasam looked so pretty! Anyone want to help me salvage it?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
micha at aishdas.org        man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries
http://www.aishdas.org   about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter



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