[Avodah] Corners of the Chatzeir

[Akiva Miller]

.
R' Micha Berger asked:

> If you didn't know about Fencepost Errors, you might just assume
> that the pillars were every 5 amos. But...

Okay, class, listen up! We have a curtain 100 amos long, being supported by
20 vertical posts. How far apart are the posts?

If your answer was 5 amos, then you missed the important clue that RMB gave
you. You need to go to Wikipedia and search for the article on "Fencepost
Errors". You don't need to read the whole thing, just the first few
paragraphs will suffice. It's okay, we'll wait till you get back...

> If one of the back's 10 pillars was in the corner, i.e. 0 amos
> from the corner, then the second is at 5 amos, the 3rd at 10...
> and the 10th at 45 amos from that first corner. Not yet at the
> second corner.
>
> So, were there amudim at the corners? And if so, which side's
> count included the corners? Those pillars would end up being
> more than 5 amos apart.

The first place I looked was the beautiful full-color coffee-table sefer,
"The Tabernacle" published by Soncino. Their pictures (pp 71-81) show the
curtains being suspended from horizontal poles that were held up by the
amudim, and there are no amudim at any of the corners. Rather, the poles
made a sharp right-angle turn at the corners, and were not held up at that
point, but the corner of the bent pole could still hold up the corner of
the curtain. The text on page 72 reads, "The four corners of the court were
formed by hangings alone, as there were no pillars at the corners."

> Or maybe the corners of the chatzeir cut the diagonal, and
> there were no pillars at the corner. So, the northmost pillar
> on the west side was a bit away from the corner, the westmost
> pillar on the south side as well, and the qela'im ran from
> one to the other, cutting the corner.

This is exactly how the western side is illustrated on the top of page 237
of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's "The Living Torah". (In other words, instead of
making a sharp corner, the curtains veer off on the diagonal.) The eastern
side is shown a bit differently, and I leave that as an exercise for the
reader.

> Anyone know if this is discussed?

I'm sorry to admit that I can only cite these pictures. I do not know what
sources, if any, those artists followed.

Akiva Miller
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