וְאִם הָיוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם שָׁוִין הַמְמֻנֶּה אוֹמֵר לָהֶם הַצְבִּיעוּ
And if both of them were equal, the appointed [priest] says to them, “Raise your fingers [for a lottery].”
We continued our exploration of the process through which the priest designated to remove the ashes from the altar was determined. If there were two priests who reached the altar simultaneously—a tie as it were—the priest appointed to make the designation tells the two priests to raise their fingers for a lottery. Most Temple ritual labor was done by lottery as I wrote about on Thursday. The removal of the ashes was not. I hold some curiosity about how this lottery unfolded. We are introduced to a priest today whose role is to determine who performed what service. Known as the appointed one in our translation, the root of the word is mem-nun-hey which, according to Jastrow also means to number. I am curious about how often a tie happens. As our teacher, Jhos pointed out to us, this text may be more about the Rabbis who edited, compiled, and wrote it than about the service itself. If so, the Rabbis’ claims about the behavior exhibited by the priests, though implicit, say quite a bit.