yoma 27

after the slaughter and the blood has been spilled, what is left for a non-priest to do?

...anything?

non-priests were permitted to slaughter the animal, but other parts of the avodah - temple sacrifical rite - were forbidden. this page discusses various stages of the avodah, if it would be a suitable job for a non-priest and justifying their lack of inclusion.

yoma 26

with ruthless competition to be one of the 9 priests involved in the sacred work, make sure it is a priest who will do the job in accordance to how the rabbis & people want it done, and not waste water and etrogs

(counting how many priests are needed to bring the various parts of the sacrifice. and a story of a Sadducee priest who disagreed with pouring water over the altar so poured it on his feet instead. The crowd pelted him with etrogs)

apologies for picture quality. it has been photographed rather then scanned. I am away at the moment. i am in Israel where the lovely people at Ein harod Art Musuem will be showing 5 notebooks of the draw yomi project.

exhibition at Ein Harod

tomorrow I am carefully packing a few of the daf yomi notebooks and flying to Israel. They are going to be part of an exhibition at the Art Museum in Ein Harod. The exhibition is called Tosefta, Women Drawing Talmud. and it features my daf yomi drawings and the art of Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli. The curator Dvora Liss found 2 female artist who are both drawing the Talmud... The opening is this friday - the 6th december. so if you find yourself in the area, come by. it will be lovely to see you.

apologies for the late updating of this website. whilst keeping up with the daily drawings was a challenge. scanning and uploading was impossible. and unfortunately the white on black don't photograph as well as they scan. But I reconfigured something (not sure how, or what...) and my scanner now has a new lease of life... for now...

yoma 25

it all begins with the head

the bare head that indicates the start of the counting for the lottery.
and the animal head that begins the sacrifice.

(in the discussion of how to do the lottery, the priests would stand in a circle and would be counted off. the starting point was indicated by removal of a priest's hat.
There is also a discussion about what order the limbs of the sacrifice are brought to the altar. there are various systems of organising it. but they all agree. It starts with the head)

yoma 24

the non-priest might want to do the work of the priest, but it is punishable by death.

and the priest want to wear the sacred clothes and perform the tasks.

ordinary & holy
in people and in clothes.

yoma 23

caring more about the knife not becoming impure than about the dead child.

(horrific story to show how corrupt the morality of the temple was. during the competition of which priest got which job, one priest stabbed another. during the commotion of what to do, who to bring the sacrifice to atone for this, the dying priest's father realises his son is not yet a corpse and is concerned to ensure the knife is removed so not to become impure through contact with a corpse. it is a sharp shocking story, written in the Talmud about those corrupt priests who had their priorities all wrong... )

yoma 22

every leader needs a shameful past, to keep them in line and stop them being too arrogant.

(King Saul did not establish a regal dynasty because his ancestry was impeccable. David on the other hand was the descendent of various dodgy sexual encounters. This shameful past is described in the talmud as 'a box of creeping animals')

yoma 21

the temple ground that swallows up feathers, shards,

and

dimensions

yoma 20

who is really louder - the cockerel who crows at night, just before dawn.
or the temple crier - whose shout has to overpower the sound of the sun moving across the sphere.

(discussion about the phrase 'keriat hagever' . the cockerel cries at end of night, just before daybreak. and the Temple crier was reputed to be so loud that he could be heard 3 parsangs away. Pah! that's nothing. the High Priest during the middle of Yom Kippur, while he was weak from fasting, could still make his voice heard 10 parsangs away. and the human criers have to overcome the noise of the sun moving across the sky during the day. - I like how the cockerel's mouth in the drawing is crescent/moon shaped. night-time. and the human mouth mid-shout is round, like the sun. Day.)

yoma 19

not all priests are joyously wrapped in white.

some have to wear black and grieve that they are disqualified blemished bastards.

and the angel with the cloven hoof ensures that things are done properly.

yoma 18

what sort of person would pay for an illiterate High Priest?!

... a woman. a rich woman....

yoma 17

half to the priests and slightly less than half to the High Priest.

mustn't be greedy....

yoma 16

outsiders

separate from the temple in distance and in qualification. and yet remaining in contact.

the red heifer is offered away from the temple but in direct sightline.

the disqualified priest stays attached to temple service by checking for worms...

yoma 15

identifying what is where, orientation of the temple.

and what is sprinkled above and below.

yoma 14

something happens in-between the lottery, the selecting the jobs and doing the actual work.
things don't stay the same in the abstract theory to physical reality.
things go out of order

yoma 13

the High Priest must always be married.
so even when mourning his wife, he might be separate from the temple, but he is never alone.

yoma 12

once you have crossed the border and worn the belt of the High Priest - even for a day, there is no going back to the ordinary.

(the temple is on the border between Yehuda and Binyamin, with rivalry and jealousy and what bit of the temple is in whose bit. discussion about the High Priest's belt that is different from an ordinary priest's. And if a priest had to stand in for the High Priest, even if the substitution was just for a day, they don't go back to being an ordinary priest. But neither are they the High Priest. due to potential for rivalry and jealousy)