Sukkah 51a Part 4/4

AI summary (may contain mistakes)

What was the Simchas Beis HaShoeivah like? The Mishnah pictures it in the Ezras Nashim, with golden menoros, chassidim dancing with torches, and Leviim playing on fifteen steps. At the rooster's crow two kohanim blew trumpets and went down to the eastern gate, where the people turned west and declared that their eyes were to Hashem. The yud and hei of that word add up to fifteen, matching the fifteen steps, and more fifteens follow from there.

Key points

• The Mishnah has the wicks made from the kohanim's worn-out pants and belts.
• The Mishnah says no courtyard in Yerushalayim was left unlit by the Simchas Beis HaShoeivah.
• Rashi describes the dancers throwing torches up and catching them, some with four or eight.
• The Mishnah ties the fifteen steps of the Leviim to the fifteen Shir HaMaalos in Tehillim.
• Yishtabach's fifteen praises sit between Shlomo's and Avraham's signatures, matching the fifteen generations between them.

In this shiur

1. 0:00Back to the Mishnah of Simchas Beis HaShoeivah
2. 2:56Golden menoros and their oil
3. 4:32Wicks from the kohanim's worn clothing
4. 11:14Dancing with torches
5. 13:57Leviim, instruments and fifteen steps
6. 18:48Two kohanim with trumpets
7. 24:09The proclamation at the eastern gate
8. 28:06Fifteen in Hashem's name and Yishtabach

Topics

• Simchas Beis HaShoeivah
• Beis HaMikdash
• Shir HaMaalos
• Yishtabach