Mishnah Yoma Chapter 2 Mishnah 7 Pt. 1

Welcome to the final mishnah of Chapter 2 of Mishnah Yoma. So far, this chapter has taken us from the storied history of temple lotteries (how priests were chosen for the multitude of roles in the temple), to enumerations of how many priests it takes to lug sacrifices up to the altar. Let’s recap so we have a sense of building scale: First we learned about the Tamid / daily offering, which included two year-old lambs—one for the morning, and one for the evening—both of which were offered alongside an offering of flour mixed with oil and a libation offering of wine. That took between nine and twelve priests depending on additional festival or Shabbos accoutrements. Yesterday we learned that it takes eleven priests to sacrifice a ram—which makes sense based on size. Today we’re going up to the heavyweight division! The bull 🐂 which takes a whopping עֶשְׂרִים וְאַרְבָּעָה / twenty-four (24) priests to sacrifice!

Twenty-four is a number that has continued to catch my attention as I study Talmud. Although we never make it that high at the Passover seder game of “Who Knows One,” I’d like to share a few instances with you—and if you have more, I’d love to hear them! I first noticed 24 at the end of the tragedy of Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish (Bava Metzia 84a). The one-time lovers/chevrutas broke up after a heated debate in the bet midrash, and Reish Lakish died of a broken heart about it. The sages tried to give Rabbi Yochanan a new chevruta to study with, but the new kid would only ever come up with sources which supported Rabbi Yochanan’s opinions—the opposite of what he needed. He moaned, “Whenever I would say anything, Reish Lakish would object with twenty-four difficulties, and I would unleash twenty-four solutions! And thus the tradition would become wide, spirited!” Reading this again in the context of Yoma, I hear him saying that their every debate on halakha took the work of sacrificing a whole bull. Every difficulty and solution a priest; their sacred debate, a massive post-Temple offering to the Eternal.

And there are many more twenty-fours in Talmud!

• “The Priesthood is acquired by twenty-four steps.” (Pirkei Avot 6:6)
• Rabbi Pinḥas ben Ya’ir and Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai were another chevruta pair who would respond with twenty-four answers. (Shabbat 33b)
• Rabbi Akiva had twenty-four thousand students / twelve thousand pairs (Ketubot 63a), although most met a horrible end (Yevamot 62b)…
• A lady/matronita once asked why Rabbi Yehuda son of Rabbi El’ai was so beautiful, and he said it was because there were twenty-four bathrooms between his home and the bet midrash, and he would examine himself in all of them! (Berakhot 55a/Nedarim 49b)
• According to some ways of counting, there are 24 books in the Hebrew Bible.
• At one point, there were twenty-four dream interpreters in Jerusalem. Rabbi Bena’a brought the same dream to all of them; they all interpreted it differently, and all of their interpretations came to be. (Berakhot 55b)
• In Nehardea, as soon as the Rabbis permitted them to, twenty-four women went out wearing k’lee’lay / circlettes on Shabbat. (Shabbat 59b)

My search for “twenty-four” on Sefaria brings up hundreds of appearances in Talmud alone! Sometimes, it’s the length of a day, two years, or a measurement of cubits or handbreadths; but it shows up so regularly as a counted number I feel like Jim Carrey in the Talmud version of The Number 23 (2007). Is “twenty-four” simply a colloquial way of say “a bunch” or “dozens”—or is there something more spiritual going on when we invoke this number? For now, 24 shall remain an אֲחִידָה, a riddle, an enigma, a word with the gematria of, you guessed it, twenty-four.