אָמַר בֶּן עַזַּאי לִפְנֵי רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא מִשּׁוּם רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ דֶּרֶךְ הִלּוּכוֹ הָיָה קָרֵב
Ben Azzai said before Rabbi Akiva in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua, “The way [the animals] walked was [the order in which their parts] were sacrificed.”
We are continuing through the Mishnah’s discussion of the Second Temple’s lottery system. Monday’s text covered the part of the second lottery that determined who takes the limbs of the daily offering up the ramp, and in what order. Today we get a secondary take on the details of how animal sacrifice was handled.
The word derekh, while relatively straightforward, opens up some really interesting room for interpretation about Ben Azzai’s motivations. It comes from the root daled-reish-khaf, meaning “to tread, stamp, or walk”. As a noun, it means way, road, method, or manner. This seems to imply that Ben Azzai is referring not just to the order of the animal’s parts, but also the specific movements it would make.
Admittedly, for much of Mishnah Yoma, I’ve been haunted by the question, “Who cares!?” Why was the nitty gritty of the temple so important? When I find myself feeling this way, I often try doing what my teacher Rabbi Sarra Lev calls “sitting at the rabbinic table.” Our contemporary table is full of things and ideas that aren’t on the rabbi’s table, and vice versa! This concept invites us to try and understand things as the rabbis would have. In various Mishnah Collective sessions we’ve talked about how perhaps the rabbis’ were trying to claim that their newfound practice and influence was directly in line with temple practice. And some of the earliest rabbis took part in temple practice too! But I wonder if there’s another aspect to their deep discussion of the temple. When the temple was destroyed, not only did they have the opportunity to set up new structures, but also new narratives. So much of this mishnah has been really descriptive! We’ve had roosters waiting for the Jews to fill courtyards before crowing, all-nighters filled with incense and torah study and cold floors. And now, Ben Azzai seems to be painting an image of the animal that’s set to be sacrificed as symbolically walking up the ramp. This process is much more theatrical if it really mimics not just the order of the animal, but derekh hilkhu / the way it walked. I can imagine that if this gruesome but awe-inspiring pantomime really happened, the drama of it all was a vital aspect. When I sit at the rabbinic table, I can see how perhaps Ben Azzai wanted to make sure that future iterations of post-temple Judaism kept the theatrics and grandeur of temple life.