Torah Tuesday - Lag BaOmer edition

He said: Is there something that needs repair? They said to him: There is a place where there is uncertainty with regard to ritual impurity and the priests are troubled by being forced to circumvent it, as it is prohibited for them to become ritually impure from contact with a corpse. There was suspicion, but no certainty, that a corpse was buried there. Therefore, they were unable to definitively determine its status. Rabbi Shimon said: Is there a person who knows that there was a presumption of ritual purity here? Is there anyone who remembers a time when this place was not considered ritually impure, or that at least part of it was considered to be ritually pure? An Elder said to him: Here ben Zakkai planted and cut the teruma of lupines. In this marketplace Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, who himself was a priest, once planted lupines that were given to him as teruma. On that basis, the conclusion can be drawn that it was definitely ritually pure. Rabbi Shimon, like Jacob, also did so and took steps to improve the city and examined the ground (Tosafot). Everywhere that the ground was hard, he pronounced it ritually pure as there was certainly no corpse there, and every place that the ground was soft, he marked it indicating that perhaps a corpse was buried there. In that way, he purified the marketplace so that even priests could walk through it.

It was taught that Rabbi Yosei said: One time, the world was in need of rain. They came to Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Yaisa, Rabbi Chizkiya and the other members of the Chevraya. When they found them, they realized that Rabbi Shimon and his son Rabbi Elazar were going to see Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair. When Rabbi Shimon saw him, he opened and said, 'A Song of Ascents: Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers sit together.'

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: From where do you know that if even one Jew was absent [at Mt. Sinai], the Shechina would not have been revealed to them? [The source is from] the verse (Shemos 19:11), "for on the third day, Hashem will descend before the eyes of all the people upon Mount Sinai."

When Rebbi was reading to begin teaching in the large Beis Midrash, he would inquire, "See if everyone is inside." From where is this derived? From the Giving of the Torah (Devarim 4:10): "Assemble the people for Me, and I will let them hear My words."