Come together right now TB Yoma 2

With daf TB Yoma 2 we begin the massekhet. Yoma is the Aramaic word for day. This massekhet discusses the most unique day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. The holiness of time, the holiness of place, and the holiness of a human being all come together on Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the holiest of time because it provides atonement for our sins and allows us to purify our lives. On Yom Kippur the special atonement ritual takes place in the Temple’s Holy of Holies where the High Priest may only enter on Yom Kippur. Only the High Priest, whose sanctification is greater than all the other priests, performs all the rituals on Yom Kippur.

Massekhet Yoma is the next massekhet on our daf yomi journey because it is the next tractate in the Order of Moed, holidays. The length of the tractate determines its position in the Order and not its sequence in the calendar year. Massekhet Yoma has eight chapters. The first seven chapters deal with the intricate sacrificial service of Yom Kippur. Only the last chapter deals with issues concerning the way we observe Yom Kippur today.

The Mishnah begins: “Seven days prior to Yom Kippur the Sages would remove the High Priest, who performs the entire Yom Kippur service, from his house to the Chamber of Parhedrin, a room in the Temple designated specifically for the High Priest during that period.” (Sefaria.org translation)

The High Priest was separated seven days prior to Yom Kippur for several reasons. By separating himself and living in the Temple, he was minimizing the possibility of becoming ritually unready and unable to perform his duties on Yom Kippur. Because the laws of the Yom Kippur service are many, complex, and difficult the seven days gave the High Priest the opportunity to either review or learn how the service must be done. As you may know at the time of the Second Temple the Jewish people were divided into different sects. The Pharisees who accepted the oral law and the Sadducees who didn’t were the two most important groups at that time. Sometimes the High Priest would be a Sadducee and the rabbis, the heirs of the Pharisees, want to make sure that no matter who the High Priest was he would do it their way.

“With regard to the halakhot of sequestering the High Priest prior to performance of the Yom Kippur service, and of sequestering the priest designated to burn the heifer prior to performance of the red heifer ritual, the Gemara asks: From where in the Torah are these matters derived? Rav Minyomi bar Ḥilkiya said that Rabbi Maḥseya bar Idi said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said they are derived from Aaron and his sons, who remained in the Tabernacle for seven days prior to performing the service in the Tabernacle on the eighth day of their inauguration, as the verse states: “As has been done this day, so the Lord has commanded to do, to make atonement for you” (Leviticus 8:34), meaning that this mitzva of sequestering was not limited to the days prior to the dedication of the Tabernacle; rather, it applies to future generations as well. The verse is interpreted homiletically: “To do”; these are the actions performed in the burning of the red heifer for which the priest performing the ritual is sequestered seven days in advance; “to make atonement”; these are the actions performed on Yom Kippur, before which the High Priest is sequestered seven days.” (Sefaria.org translation)