Mishnah Yoma Chapter 2 Mishnah 2 Pt. 4

My word of the week is the deceptively simple word בְפַיִס / v’fayis, meaning “by lots”. The prefix -בְ means in, with, or by. That leaves the word פַיִס as our core idea-generator. According to Jastrow the seminal root is פ-ס-ס meaning to be cut off, be gone; be cut into strips, divided; to be distributed (as with a shovel). I suspect that there’s a whole lotta linguistic history I’m missing, but somewhere along the line the root shifts over to the hollow verb form פ-י-ס where its meaning expands into to split, divide, distribute; to penetrate, to cause abdominal pain; to break a person’s anger or will, to persuade, pacify, or comfort; to arbitrate or decide. And from all of that we get “lots”, as in things one casts to arbitrarily determine an outcome!! Once again, Hebrew liquidity for the win!!!

I’m perpetually enthralled with the “tale within a tale within a tale” storytelling genre. As a youth my narrative world was rocked by the 1965 Polish film surrealist masterpiece “The Saragossa Manuscript”, which I saw in a rare uncut version in 1979. While it is arguably the standard bearer for how to tell interweaving stories on film, the Talmud surely could be argued to be its unequaled, in length and breadth, print and oral tradition predecessor. At this point our Mishnah is sliding into one such dreamland pocket, wherein the rabbis elaborate on the Biblical account of Yom Kippur, while slowly steering us away from preparing the High Priest for his duties into the trippy waters of imagined interpersonal Temple dramas. The Gemara (Yoma 23a-b) takes these musings even further, from an ill fated shoving match during a foot race to a brutal stabbing, a father’s grief, questions regarding the purity of ritual implements, and a very long discussion of the proper couture for ritual facilitators. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Rabbis mastered the art of stream of consciousness storytelling!

The very first thing I learned from my teacher, friend, colleague, and fellow Jewish trickster, the much beloved and missed Rachel Brodie, z”l, was to look for the agenda of any text, and especially when dealing with the rabbis. As this Mishnah unfolds, I can’t help but notice that the rabbis are subtly taking the reins away from the Torah. They do so by holding the past with reverence and respect while simultaneously dismantling the authority of the Priesthood. They show the human side of the High Priest, who requires a lot of coaching before his big event, a testimonial to the fact that he isn’t exalted and unblemished, but striving and fallible. And though everyone around him knows it, they are going to risk entrusting the rite to him anyway. The rabbis accept this and futhermore insinuate that there was infighting, coveting, and even banality happening amongst the Temple leadership top to bottom. In this imaginative recreation of the Sanctuary service the Mishnah introduces a Beit Din to adjudicate and guide the now defunct priesthood. Most importantly their agenda includes lifting beauty and blessing out of the rubble, humbly addressing and bravely learning from the messes, brokenness, and failures of the past, ever looking forward to an evolving, wholistic future.