Mishnah Yoma Chapter 1 Siyyum

Check out the extraordinary commentary from Mishnah Collective participants on this daf:

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This chapter is incredible! The Temple service for Yom Kippur is clearly outlined in the Torah, and includes almost nothing that this chapter mentions. Now, of course, we can see the mishnah as an *elaboration* on what the Torah is, which is how it was described to me in most spaces. But for me, this chapter offers such an amazing example of a different story: we see here that the rabbis *create a reality* in which they are not only useful, but they are in charge. It is the chachamim that teach the priests, in their fantasy version of history, how the Temple service should go. By writing these words, the rabbis become more powerful—they create and get to inhabit a world that never existed, but they claim continuity as they write about it.

As we close this chapter, I’m grateful for this amazing example of what it looks like for the rabbis to retroject themselves into processes and stories where they simply hadn’t existed, and to build new worlds through their learning. I’m *even more* grateful, though, for the ways y’all do that work, too, and the ways we do this work together in this space, in our yeshiva, and in the world.