#1 Ezra & Men of Great Assembly

(1) Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be patient in [the administration of] justice, raise many disciples and make a fence round the Torah.

(24) 24. The Rabbi: This is a severe reproach, O king of the Khazars. It is the sin which kept the divine promise with regard to the second Temple, viz.: Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion' (Zachariah 2:10), from being fulfilled. Divine Providence was ready to restore everything as it had been at first, if they had all willingly consented to return. But only a part was ready to do so, whilst the majority and the aristocracy remained in Babylon, preferring dependence and slavery, and unwilling to leave their houses and their affairs. An allusion to them might be found in the enigmatic words of Solomon: I sleep, but my heart waketh (Song of Songs 5:2-4). He designates the exile by sleep, and the continuance of prophecy among them by the wakefulness of the heart. 'It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh' means God's call to return; 'My head is filled with dew' alludes to the Shekhinah which emerged from the shadow of the Temple. The words: 'I have put off my coat,' refer to the people's slothfulness in consenting to return. The sentence: 'My beloved stretcheth forth his hand through the opening' may be interpreted as the urgent call of Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Prophets, until a portion of the people grudgingly responded to their invitation. In accordance with their mean mind they did not receive full measure. Divine Providence only gives man as much as he is prepared to receive; if his receptive capacity be small, he obtains little, and much if it be great. Were we prepared to meet the God of our forefathers with a pure mind, we should find the same salvation as our fathers did in Egypt. If we say: 'Worship his holy hill--worship at His footstool--He who restoreth His glory to Zion' (Psalms 99:9, Psalsm 99:5), and other words, this is but as the chattering of the starling and the nightingale. We do not realise what we say by this sentence, nor others, as thou rightly observest, O Prince of the Khazars.

The Sages taught: After the last of the prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, died, the Divine Spirit of prophetic revelation departed from the Jewish people. But nevertheless, they were still utilizing a Divine Voice, which they heard as a kind of echo of prophecy. One time, a group of Sages were reclining in the loft of the house of Gurya in Jericho, and a Divine Voice was bestowed upon them from Heaven, saying: There is one here who is fit for the Divine Presence to rest upon him as it rested upon Moses our teacher, but his generation is not deserving of this distinction. The Sages set their eyes upon Hillel the Elder, trusting that he was the one indicated by the Divine Voice.

...

65. The Rabbi: Prophecy lasted about forty years during the second Temple among those elders who had the assistance of the Shekhinah from the first Temple. Individually acquired prophecy had ceased with the removal of the Shekhinah, and only appeared in extraordinary times or on account of great force, as that of Abraham, Moses, the expected Messiah, Elijah and their equals. In them the Shekhinah found a worthy abode, and their very existence helped their contemporaries to gain the degree. of prophecy. The people, after their return, still had Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra and others. Forty years later these prophets were succeeded by an assembly of Sages, called the Men of the Great Synode. They were too numerous to be counted. They had returned with Zerubbabel and inherited their tradition from the Prophets, as it is said: 'The prophets handed [the law] down to the Men of the Great Synode' (Aboth, I. i.).

it is taught in a baraita: Shimon HaPakuli arranged the eighteen blessings of the Amida prayer before Rabban Gamliel in their fixed order in Yavne, ... Rabbi Yoḥanan said, and some say that it was taught in a baraita: A hundred and twenty Elders, i.e., the Men of the Great Assembly, and among them several prophets, established the eighteen blessings of the Amida in their fixed order,

(4) When the people of Israel went into exile in the days of the wicked Nebucednezzar, they mingled with the Persians, Greeks and other nations. In those foreign countries, children were born to them, whose language was confused. Everyone's speech was a mixture of many tongues. No one was able, when he spoke, to express his thoughts adequately in any one language, otherwise than incoherently, as it is said, "And their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod and they could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people" (Nehemiah 13:24). Consequently, when anyone of them prayed in Hebrew, he was unable adequately to express his needs or recount the praises of God, without mixing Hebrew with other languages. When Ezra and his Council realized this condition, they ordained the Eighteen Benedictions in their present order. The first three blessings consist of praises of God and the last three, of thanksgiving to Him. The intermediate benedictions are petitions for the things which may stand as categories of all the desires of the individual and the needs of the community. The object aimed at was that these prayers should be in an orderly form in everyone's mouth, that all should learn them, and thus the prayer of those who were not expert in speech would be as perfect as that of those who had command of a chaste style. For the same reason, they arranged [in a fixed form] all the blessings and prayers for all Jews so that the substance of every blessing should be familiar and current in the mouth of one who is not expert in speech.

And they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God (Nehemiah 9:4). What was said? Rav said, and some say it was Rabbi Yoḥanan who said: Woe, woe. It is this, i.e., the evil inclination for idol worship, that destroyed the Temple, and burned its Sanctuary, and murdered all the righteous ones, and caused the Jewish people to be exiled from their land. And it still dances among us, i.e., it still affects us. Didn’t You gave it to us for solely for the purpose of our receiving reward for overcoming it. We do not want it, and we do not want its reward. We are prepared to forgo the potential rewards for overcoming the evil inclination as long as it departs from us. In response to their prayer a note fell to them from the heavens upon which was written: Truth, indicating that God accepted their request. The Gemara makes a parenthetical observation. Rav Ḥanina said: Learn from this that the seal of the Holy One, Blessed be He, is truth. In response to the indication of divine acceptance, they observed a fast for three days and three nights, and He delivered the evil inclination to them. A form of a fiery lion cub came forth from the chamber of the Holy of Holies. Zechariah the prophet said to the Jewish people: This is the evil inclination for idol worship, as it is stated in the verse that refers to this event: “And he said: This is the evil one” (Zechariah 5:8). The use of the word “this” indicates that the evil inclination was perceived in a physical form. When they caught hold of it one of its hairs fell, and it let out a shriek of pain that was heard for four hundred parasangs. They said: What should we do to kill it? Perhaps, Heaven forfend, they will have mercy upon him from Heaven, since it cries out so much. The prophet said to them: Throw it into a container made of lead and seal the opening with lead, since lead absorbs sound. As it is stated: “And he said: This is the evil one. And he cast it down into the midst of the measure, and he cast a stone of lead upon its opening” (Zechariah 5:8). They followed this advice and were freed of the evil inclination for idol worship. When they saw that the evil inclination for idol worship was delivered into their hands as they requested, the Sages said: Since it is an auspicious time, let us pray also concerning the evil inclination for sin in the area of sexual relationships. They prayed, and it was also delivered into their hands. Zechariah the prophet said to them: See and understand that if you kill this evil inclination the world will be destroyed because as a result there will also no longer be any desire to procreate. They followed his warning, and instead of killing the evil inclination they imprisoned it for three days. At that time, people searched for a fresh egg throughout all of Eretz Yisrael and could not find one. Since the inclination to reproduce was quashed, the chickens stopped laying eggs. They said: What should we do? If we kill it, the world will be destroyed. If we pray for half, i.e., that only half its power be annulled, nothing will be achieved because Heaven does not grant half gifts, only whole gifts. What did they do? They gouged out its eyes, effectively limiting its power, and set it free. And this was effective to the extent that a person is no longer aroused to commit incest with his close relatives. The Gemara returns to its discussion of the verse in Nehemiah cited above: In the West, i.e., Eretz Yisrael, they taught the debate concerning the verse “the Lord, the great God” as follows: Rav Giddel said: “Great” means that he ascribed greatness to Him by enunciating God’s explicit name. And Rav Mattana said: They reinserted the following appellations of God into their prayers: “The great, the mighty, and the awesome God” (Nehemiah 9:32). The Gemara comments: This interpretation that Rav Mattana said leans to, i.e., is consonant with, the exposition of RabbiYehoshua ben Levi. As Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Why are the Sages of those generations called the members of the Great Assembly? It is because they returned the crown of the Holy One, Blessed be He, to its former glory. How so? Moses came and said in his prayer: “The great, the mighty, and the awesomeGod” (Deuteronomy 10:17). Jeremiah the prophet came and said: Gentiles, i.e., the minions of Nebuchadnezzar, are carousing in His sanctuary; where is His awesomeness? Therefore, he did not say awesome in his prayer: “The great God, the mighty Lord of Hosts, is His name” (Jeremiah 32:18). Daniel came and said: Gentiles are enslaving His children; where is His might? Therefore he did not say mighty in his prayer: “The great and awesome God” (Daniel 9:4). The members of the Great Assembly came and said: On the contrary, this is the might of His might, i.e., this is the fullest expression of it, that He conquers His inclination in that He exercises patience toward the wicked. God’s anger is flared by the gentile nations’ enslavement of His people, yet He expresses tremendous might by suppressing His anger and holding back from punishing them immediately. Therefore, it is still appropriate to refer to God as mighty. And these acts also express His awesomeness: Were it not for the awesomeness of the Holy One, Blessed be He, how could one people, i.e., the Jewish people, who are alone and hated by the gentile nations, survive among the nations? The Gemara asks: And the Rabbis, i.e., Jeremiah and Daniel, how could they do this and uproot an ordinance instituted by Moses, the greatest teacher, who instituted the mention of these attributes in prayer? Rabbi Elazar said: They did so because they knew of the Holy One Blessed be He, that He is truthful and hates a lie. Consequently, they did not speak falsely about Him. Since they did not perceive His attributes of might and awesomeness, they did not refer to them; therefore, they cannot be criticized for doing so.

Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi received from the Prophets. The Men of the Great Assembly received from Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. And they said three things: Be deliberate in judgment, and raise up many students, and make a fence around the Torah.

(4) Be deliberate in judgment. How so? This teaches that a person should carefully deliberate in judgment, for all who are careful in judgment will feel settled about their judgment, as it says (Proverbs 25:1), "These, too, are the proverbs of Solomon, which the men of King Hezekiah of Judah copied." This does not mean they merely copied them, but that they deliberated over them. Abba Shaul says: They did not merely deliberate carefully over them, but explained them. Originally, they would say: Proverbs, and Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes had to be hidden, for people would recite proverbs that were at odds with Scripture. So they decided to hide them, until the Men of the Great Assembly came along and explained them...

Rabbi Tanchuma in the name of the Rabbis said: "Three things the lower Beit Din decreed and the upper Beit Din agreed with them; and these were: ..., the megillah of Esther, and ma'aserot"...From where comes the megillah of Esther? Rabbi Jeremiah in the name of Rabbi Samuel son of Isaac said: "What did Mordechai and Esther do? They wrote letters and sent them to all the people in the exile and they said "you undertake to celebrate these two days in the future", and they sent letters back and replied: "These crises with Haman, were they not enough, and yet you require us to celebrate these two days?" And they said to them: "If you say this because you are afraid, see!, this is written in the scrolls, as it is said "Are not these things written in the Book of Chronicles (Esther 10:2)?". What did they do? They wrote a second letter and sent it to them: "this second letter is the letter of Purim (Esther 9:29)". Rabbi Chelbo in the name of Rabbi Samuel the son of Nachman: "85 elders and from them around 30 prophets were concerned about this verse: "These are the commandments which Hashem commanded Moses (Leviticus 27:34)". [It says] "these", and there is no adding and there is no subtracting and the prophets cannot add to the thing from thence, but Mordechai and Esther tried to add a new law upon them until the Holy One, blessed be He, illuminated their eyes and they found this written in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. In the Torah it is written: "Write this remembrance in a book (Exodus 17:14)". In the Prophets it is written: "Then they that feared Hashem spoke one with another; and Hashem hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written (Malachi 3:16)." In the writings it is said: "Are not these things written in the Book of Chronicles?" Rab and Rabbi Chanina and Rabbi Yonatan the son of Kappara and Rabbi Joshua the son of Levi said: "this megillah, it did not say it was from the mouth of the Beit Din, but it was said to be from Sinai; rather, there is no before and after in the Torah". And from where did the Holy One, blessed be He, agree? Rab said: ""the Jews ordained, and took upon them (the text is spelled qbl but is read qiblu) (Esther 9:27)", but that is not written, qibel is written: the Rabbi of the Jews [Moses] "ordained it"". And as for the ma'aserot where are they from? Rabbi Berachya in the name of Rabbi Keritzfah: "Because of the sin of terumot and ma'aserot they were exiled. Shimon the son of Abba in the name of Rabbi Yochanan said "because they were exiled, they were exempt, and yet they took on the requirement personally on themselves". What did the men of the Great Assembly do? They wrote a book and spread it out in the temple courtyard, and at morning they woke up and they found it sealed. See! as it is written " And yet for all this we make a sure covenant, and subscribe it; and our princes, our Levites, and our priests, set their seal unto it (Nehemiah 10:1)". Further it is written "and on the seal (al hachatum) and still further it says "Now those that set their seals (al hachatumim) (Nehemiah 10:2)". How does this work? Rather, "on the seal (al hachatum)" is the Beit Din above, and "their seals (al hachatumim)" is the Beit Din below.

(1) And when Yehoshua bin Nun, peace be upon him, died, he taught the elders that which he received of the [Torah's oral] explanation; and the laws that they extrapolated during his time about which no disagreement occurred; and [those] about which there occurred a disagreement [and] they decided the law according to the majority of the elders. And about them the verse states (Joshua 24:31), "and all the days of the elders who had length of days after Joshua." And afterward, these elders taught that which they received from Yehoshua to the prophets, peace be upon them. And the prophets learned, one from another.

(2) And there was no time that there was not contemplation and innovation of the matters. And the sages of each generation would make the words of the predecessors the main thing, and they would learn from them and innovate matters. And there was no disagreement [about] the fundamentals passed on.

(3) Until came the time of the men of the Great Assembly – and they were Chaggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Daniel, Chananiah, Mishael, Azariah, Ezra the Scribe, Nechemiah ben Chakhaliah, Mordechai, Zerubavel ben Shaltiel; and accompanying these prophets were the remainder of the hundred and twenty elders, from 'the craftsmen and sentry' and similar to them. And they also contemplated [the laws] as had done their predecessors, and they decreed decrees and ordained ordinances. And the last of this holy fellowship was the beginning of the sages mentioned in the mishnah – and that is Shimon the Righteous. And he was high priest in that generation.

The Sages taught that Ezra the Scribe instituted ten ordinances: He instituted that communities read the Torah on Shabbat in the afternoon; and they also read the Torah on every Monday and Thursday; and the courts convene and judge every Monday and Thursday; and one does laundry on Thursday; and one eats garlic on Shabbat eve. And Ezra further instituted that a woman should rise early and bake bread on those days when she wants to bake; and that a woman should don a breechcloth; and that a woman should first comb her hair and only then immerse in a ritual bath after being ritually impure; and that peddlers of cosmetics and perfumes should travel around through all the towns. And Ezra further instituted the requirement of immersion for those who experienced a seminal emission. The Gemara analyzes these ordinances, the first of which is that communities shall read the Torah on Shabbat afternoon. This Gemara explains that this ordinance was instituted due to those who sit idly on street corners, who do not attend the synagogue during the week. The Gemara discusses the second of Ezra’s ordinances: And that they should read the Torah on every Monday and Thursday. The Gemara asks: Did Ezra institute this practice? But it was instituted from the beginning, i.e., long before his time. As it is taught in a baraita with regard to the verse: “And Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water” (Exodus 15:22). Those who interpret verses metaphorically said that water here is referring to nothing other than Torah, as it is stated metaphorically, concerning those who desire wisdom: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come for water” (Isaiah 55:1). The baraita continues: The verse means that since the Jews traveled for three days without hearing any Torah they became weary, and therefore the prophets among them arose and instituted for them that they should read from the Torah each Shabbat, and pause on Sunday, and read again on Monday, and pause on Tuesday and Wednesday, and read again on Thursday, and pause on Shabbat eve, so they would not tarry three days without hearing the Torah. Evidently this practice predates Ezra. The Gemara answers: Initially they instituted that one man read three verses; or alternatively, that three men read three verses. Either way, the number three corresponds to the three types of Jews: Priests, Levites, and Israelites. Ezra later came and instituted that three men always read, and that ten verses altogether be read by them, corresponding to the ten idlers in a city, i.e., the ten men who are paid to spend their time dealing with synagogue and communal matters. The next ordinance of Ezra is: And the courts convene and judge every Monday and Thursday. The Gemara explains that the reason for this ordinance is that many people are found in a city on these days, as they come from the countryside for the reading of the holy book, the Torah, which is performed on Mondays and Thursdays, as stated above.

h Rav Yosef said: Studying Torah is greater than saving lives, as initially, when listing the Jewish leaders who came to Eretz Yisrael, Mordecai was mentioned after four other people, but at the end he was listed after five. This is taken to indicate that his involvement in governmental affairs instead of in Torah study lowered his stature one notch. The Gemara proves this: At first it is written: “Who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan” (Ezra 2:2); but in the end in a later list it is written: “Who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahmani, Mordecai, Bilshan” (Nehemiah 7:7). Rav said, and some say that Rav Shmuel bar Marta said: Studying Torah is greater and more important that building the Temple. A proof of this is that for as long as Baruch ben Neriah was alive in Babylonia, Ezra, who was his disciple, did not leave him and go up to Eretz Yisrael to build the Temple.

Mar Zutra says, and some say that it is Mar Ukva who says: Initially, the Torah was given to the Jewish people in Ivrit script, the original form of the written language, and the sacred tongue, Hebrew. It was given to them again in the days of Ezra in Ashurit script and the Aramaic tongue. The Jewish people selected Ashurit script and the sacred tongue for the Torah scroll and left Ivrit script and the Aramaic tongue for the commoners. The Gemara asks: Who are these commoners? Rav Ḥisda said: The Samaritans [Kutim]. The Gemara asks: What is Ivrit script? Rav Ḥisda says: Libona’a script. It is taught in a baraita (Tosefta 4:5): Rabbi Yosei says: Ezra was suitable, given his greatness, for the Torah to be given by him to the Jewish people, had Moses not come first and received the Torah already. With regard to Moses the verse states: “And Moses went up to God” (Exodus 19:3), and with regard to Ezra the verse states: “This Ezra went up from Babylon and he was a ready scribe in the Torah of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given” (Ezra 7:6). Just as the going up stated here, with regard to Moses, is for the Torah, which he received from God and transmitted to the Jewish people, so too, the going up stated there, with regard to Ezra, is for the Torah, as he taught Torah to the Jewish people and was suitable to have originally merited to give it. The baraita continues: With regard to Moses the verse states: “And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances” (Deuteronomy 4:14), and with regard to Ezra the verse states: “For Ezra had set his heart to seek the Torah of the Lord his God and to do it and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances” (Ezra 7:10). And even though the Torah was not given literally by him, the script of the Torah was changed by him, as it is stated:

(2) On the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Teaching before the congregation, men and women and all who could listen with understanding. (3) He read from it, facing the square before the Water Gate, from the first light until midday, to the men and the women and those who could understand; the ears of all the people were given to the scroll of the Teaching....They read from the scroll of the Teaching of God, translating it and giving the sense; so they understood the reading.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: The members of the Great Assembly observed twenty-four fasts, corresponding to the twenty-four priestly watches (Maharsha), for scribes who write Torah scrolls, phylacteries, and mezuzot, so that they will not become wealthy from their craft, as were they to become wealthy, they would no longer write these sacred items. Similarly, the Sages taught: Scribes who write scrolls, phylacteries, and mezuzot; and their merchants, who buy the sacred scrolls from the scribes to sell them; and their merchants’ merchants; and all those engaged in the work of Heaven and earn their living from it, a phrase that comes to include those who sell the sky-blue dye for ritual fringes, never see a sign of blessing from their labor. And if they engage in these activities for their own sake, to ensure that there will be more sacred items available to the public, then they do see blessing from their labor.

aThe Sages taught in the Tosefta: Initially, they would say that only three utensils may be moved on Shabbat: A knife for cutting a cake of dried figs, and a combined spoon and fork (ge’onim) to clean the filth [zuhama listeran] of a pot, and a small knife that is on the table. Each of these items is required for eating and may be used, and it had been prohibited to move any other utensil. However, over the generations, when the Rabbis saw that Jewish people were vigilant in observing the prohibitions of Shabbat, they permitted, and then they permitted again, and then they permitted again, until they said in the last mishna: All utensils may be moved on Shabbat except for a large saw and the blade of a plow. ...Rabbi Ḥanina said: This mishna was taught in the days of Nehemiah, son of Hacaliah, a period when many stringent decrees were issued with regard to Shabbat prohibitions, as it is written: “In those days I saw in Judea some treading winepresses on Shabbat and bringing in heaps of grain and lading donkeys with them; as also wine, grapes, figs, and all manner of burdens which are brought into Jerusalem on the Shabbat day. I forewarned them on that day when they sold food” (Nehemiah 13:15). Since the people treated the sanctity of Shabbat with disdain, Nehemiah instituted many stringencies with regard to all the halakhot of Shabbat in order to educate the people to observe Shabbat.