Passover is one of the three pilgrimage holidays as the Torah says “You shall slaughter the Passover sacrifice for the Lord your God, from the flock in the herd, in the place with the Lord will choose to establish his name.” (Deuteronomy 16:2) Jews were supposed to go up to Jerusalem, offer up their korban Pesakh (Passover sacrifice), and celebrate Passover by eating the korban Pesakh, matzah, and bitter herbs. Imagine the magnitude of the number of people going up to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover!“
Today’s daf TB Pesakhim 64 tells the story about who King Agrppas[1] wanted to know how many Jews actually came to the Temple Mount to offer up their korban Pesakh. “The Sages taught: Once, King Agrippa wished to set his eyes on the multitudes [ukhlosin] of Israel to know how many they were. He said to the High Priest: Set your eyes on the Paschal lambs; count how many animals are brought in order to approximate the number of people. The High Priest took a kidney from each one, as the kidneys are burned on the altar, and six hundred thousand pairs of kidneys were found there, double the number of those who left Egypt. This did not reflect the sum total of the Jewish people, as it excluded those who were ritually impure or at a great distance, who did not come to offer the sacrifice. Furthermore, this was a count of the Paschal lambs and not of the people, and there was not a single Paschal lamb that did not have more than ten people registered for it. They called that Passover the Passover of the crowded, due to the large number of people.” (Sefaria.org translation)
How did the priests sacrifice so many lambs in the time slot allowed? Well, they used korban copies! (I waited 64 days to tell this joke that only people of a certain age will understand.) Actually, the Mishnah explains the assembly line procedure which enabled the priests to accomplish this daunting obligation.
“The Paschal lamb was slaughtered in three groups, meaning those bringing the offering were divided into three separate sets, as it is stated: “And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall slaughter it in the afternoon” (Exodus 12:6). The verse is interpreted as referring to three groups: Assembly, congregation, and Israel. The procedure for sacrificing the offering was as follows: The first group of people sacrificing the offering entered, and when the Temple courtyard became filled with them they closed the doors of the Temple courtyard. They sounded uninterrupted, broken, and uninterrupted trumpet blasts, as was done while sacrificing any offering.
“The priests stood in rows from the place of slaughter to the altar, and in their hands they held bowls [bezikhin] of silver and bowls of gold in order to receive the blood of the offerings. There was a row entirely composed of priests holding silver bowls, and a row entirely composed of priests holding gold bowls, as the gold and silver bowls were not mixed in the same row. The bowls did not have flat bases that would allow them to be put down, out of concern that perhaps the priests would set them down and forget about them and in the meantime the blood would congeal and become disqualified for sprinkling on the altar.
“An Israelite would slaughter the sacrifice, and a priest would receive the blood and immediately hand it to another priest standing next to him, and the other priest would pass it to another. Each priest would receive a full bowl of blood from the priest next to him and return to him an empty bowl being passed in the opposite direction, the contents of which had already been sprinkled on the altar. The priest who was closest to the altar would sprinkle a single sprinkling of blood against the base of the altar, i.e., against the north and west sides of the altar, where there was a base.
“The first group exited upon completion of the rite, and the second group entered; the second group left upon completion of its rite, and the third group entered. As it was done by the first group, so was it done by the second and third groups. All the people standing in the Temple courtyard while the Paschal lambs were being slaughtered would recite hallel[2]. If they finished reciting it before all the offerings were slaughtered, they recited it a second time, and if they finished reciting it a second time, they recited it a third time, although in practice they never recited it a third time, as the priests worked efficiently and finished the rite before this became necessary. Rabbi Yehuda says: The third group never reached even once the opening verse of the fourth chapter of hallel: “I love that the Lord hears the voice of my supplications” (Psalms 116:1), because its people were few and the slaughtering of all the offerings was completed during the recitation of the first three chapters.” (Sefaia.org translation)
Rashi and Tosefot disagree who recited hallel. Rashi says it was the Israelites
in each group and Tosefot says it was the Levites who sang the hallel. The Brisker Rav, Rabbi Yitskhak
Zev Halevi Soloveichik, explains how each understood the purpose of the hallel. Tosefot understood that the korban Pesakh was no different from all
the other sacrifices. The Levites always sang hallel as part of the worship service because that was their job.
Consequently, they sang hallel at the
time of the shekhitah, the
slaughtering of the Paschal lamb. Rashi on the other hand says that the law
that Levites sing hallel had nothing
to do with the korban Pesakh. The korban Pesakh itself needed this
recitation of hallel. A Jew can’t
take the lulav and etrog[3] on
Sukkot without reciting hallel; so too
a Jew can’t offer up the korban Pesakh without
a song in his mouth.
Rambam poskins like the Tosefot declaring it
should be the Levites who sing hallel.
(Mishneh Torah, Sefer Korbanot, hilkhot korban
Pesakh, chapter 1, halakha 11)
[1] Herod Agrippa, also known as Herod or Agrippa I (Hebrew: אגריפס; 11 BC – AD 44), was a King of Judea from AD 41 to 44. He was the last ruler with
the royal title reigning over Judea and the father of Herod Agrippa II, the last king from the Herodian dynasty. The grandson of Herod the Great and son of Aristobulus IV and Berenice,[1] he is the king named Herod in the Acts
of the Apostles 12:1: "Herod (Agrippa)" (Ἡρῴδης Ἀγρίππας). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Agrippa)
[2] Hallel is the collection of Psalms from
Psalm 113 through Psalm 118. Some commentators say that Psalm 136 and even Psalm
135 was added to this hallel.
[3] The
lulav and etrog are certainly not sacrifices, but we sing hallel holding them in our hands.
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