there assembled themselves unto him all the sons of Levi." Rabhina was sitting and repeating this saying. The children of R. Papa b. Abba objected to him: It is written [Deut. xxxiii. 9]: "Who said of his father and his mother, I have not seen him."[1] By this is meant, those who slew for worshipping the calf, inflicted penalty on their relatives. Whence we see some of the Levites were guilty. Rabhina replied: By father is meant the maternal grandfather, who was of Israel, by brother a half-brother of the mother, and by children, the daughter's children, whose father was an Israelite.
"An elevated walk had been constructed," etc. We have learned in a Boraitha: R. Jehudah says: They were not Babylonian, but Alexandrian (Jews). Said R. Jose to him: May thy mind be appeased, as thou hast appeased mine (for he was a Babylonian himself).
"Take and go." Ne have learned in a Boraitha: They used to say: Wherefore are they detaining the goat, the sins being so great?
MISHNA: Some of the prominent men of Jerusalem used to accompany him [the goat] as far as the first booth [of the ten, supplied with provisions for the conductor]. There were ten booths between Jerusalem and Tsuk [the rock of its destination], a distance of 90 Ris [7½ Ris are equal to one mile]. At each booth they said to him [to the conductor]: "Here is food, and here is water." And they [persons of the booth] accompanied him from booth to booth, excepting the last of them, for the rock was not reached by them; but they stood at some distance looking on what he [the conductor] did [to the scapegoat]. What did he do? He divided the tongue of crimson wool: the half of it he tied to the rock, and the second half between his [the scapegoat's] horns; he pushed him down backward. He went rolling and falling down; he did not reach halfway of the mountain before he became separated limb from limb. He [the conductor] returned to sit down under the last booth, till dark. And since when became his clothes unclean? After he had issued from the walls of Jerusalem. R. Simeon says: After he had pushed it down from the rock.
GEMARA: The rabbis taught: There were ten booths, and twelve miles: so says R. Meir. R. Jebudah says: There were nine booths, and ten miles. R. Jose says: Five booths, and
- ↑ We follow Leeser's translation in all our biblical quotations, which see.
