day? He does not compare; only in case of the priest of the red cow it is an optional improvement. R. Jose b. R. Hanina opposes this: Why is he sprinkled on the fourth day? (The law is that one unclean must be sprinkled on the third day and on the seventh [Num. xix. 12]. The first three days it was apprehended lest each be the third or seventh (after his unintentional defilement), but the fourth after the removal from his house can neither be the third nor the seventh. Even without this, could he be sprinkled all the seven days? One of them must have been on Sabbath, and sprinkling does not supersede Sabbath? Therefore we must say that what is said of the seven days, is meant with the exception of Sabbath. The same is the case with the fourth; it is meant, all the seven days, except the fourth, Said Rabba: Therefore the high-priest must be removed seven days before the Day of Atonement, whose date is not dependent on us; but on the third day of the month,[1] he must be removed seven days before that day, no matter when the fourth day falls. But the priest of the red cow, the date of whose removal depends on us, should be removed on such a day that the fourth shall fall on Sabbath.
"To the Palhedrin Chamber." We have learned in a Boraitha: R. Jehudah said: Was it called the Palhedrin Chamber, it was called the Chamber of the Lords? He answers: Formerly it was called the Chamber of the Lords, but after the high-priests began to be appointed for money, and changed as government officers (Palhedrin, changed once in twelve months), it began to be called the Hall of the Palhedrin. What is meant by Palhedrin? Officers.
Rabba bar bar Hana in the name of R. Johanan said: It is written [in Proverbs x. 27]: "The fear of the Lord increases man's days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened." "The fear of the Lord increases the days"; that refers to the first Temple, during whose existence of four hundred and ten years there were only eighteen high-priests. "The years of the wicked will be shortened," refers to the second Temple, which existed four hundred and twenty years, and more than three hundred high-priests succeeded each other during that period. Subtract the forty years during which Simeon the Righteous ministered, eighty years of Johanan the high-priest’s ministry, and ten years of Ishmael b. Favi—according to others, eleven
- ↑ The Day of Atonement always occurs on the tenth day of the month Tishri.
