In the second temple in Jerusalem, sacrifices were made, twice a day, for the peace of the emperor and the peace of Rome, as a practice that spread from the time of the emperor Augustus onwards - a period corresponding to the reign of King Herod) and was associated with bravery in music, in a way that until then was considered as foreign worship
As we saw in the previous chapters, the first house occupied a prominent place in the life of the people. However, this did not simplify all areas of spirit and action in Israel, as in the days of the Second Temple.
During the days of the Second Temple, the work in the temple was divided into XNUMX shifts of priesthood and worship, with each shift serving a week in the temple twice a year according to the established order. Even the representatives of the people were divided into the lowly and the olim with each and every shift in order to stand for the sacrifices and thereby express that the constant sacrifice was offered in the name of the whole people, what's more, the needs of the altar and the temple were polluted by the entire people and the servants of the holy place were considered by the people as their messengers who serve before God in his name, as a kind of democracy in the ancient style.
The sages believed in the importance of sacrificial work as a means of strengthening the power of the deity and increasing the measure of mercy over the measure of judgment. And therefore they were careful to specify details in the labor laws that should not be violated.
The priests offered the sacrifices in the temple to help the unification of the divine forces and the unification of the measure of judgment and the measure of mercy. And hence the teaching of the equality of the sacrifices and bringing them in pairs, and especially bringing two sacrifices was constant every day.
It should be noted that the Temple was not free of Greek and Hellenistic influences even in the various orders involved in the work. This effect was special since its detailed signs were interpreted as signs of Israel's struggle with Greek worship. That is, of a general cultural confrontation that spread across many fields.
Hiding in this matter is of great significance for the period of our discussion, from the Herodian era to the destruction of the Second Temple, not only in the style of the exterior architecture of Herod's Temple, which was largely Greek-Hellenistic style, and not only in regard to the many facilities and accessories that were found in the Temple and listed in the Mishnah, for example the "Mochani" For the sink of a minor (from Yoma XNUMX), and the closest to the special facilities in the temples of the neighboring nations (it is enough to look at the descriptions of the temple in Ezekiel, for example, and we are dealing with him in the days of the First Temple and even in his predecessors, it is said in expressions such as "Ariel" and more, or in reference to "the serpent The "copper" that we worshiped, probably the Egyptian, was adopted by Moses and sanctified in the temple from the days of Solomon onwards), but also regarding musical accessories, those whose origin was with complete certainty foreign.
It should be noted that in the second temple in Jerusalem, twice a day, sacrifices were offered for the peace of the emperor and the peace of Rome, as a practice that spread from the time of the emperor Augustus onwards - a period corresponding to the reign of King Herod) and was associated with bravery in music. This practice contributed a certain extra dimension to the foreign musical influence on the temple music.
For our purposes, it is assumed that the regular sacrifices that were offered in the temple were the perpetual sacrifices, twice a day, at dawn and in the evening. These were the obligatory public sacrifices that all the people of the people undertook to bring. These sacrifices, which were in fact the most important of the daily work system in the Temple, symbolized the important and courageous connection between the people and their temple in the form of the cooperation between the priestly, funeral and Israel guards, those entrusted with the work. And it will be noted and emphasized that this situation completely did not exist and practice in the first temple.
The following two sources, cited by Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar, have a point to indicate the above to a large extent - "The priests and the Levites, the instruments of song and the people are delaying (in the later version "delaying") the work" (Tosefta Ta'anit XNUMX (XNUMX) XNUMX) ; "The priests and the Levites and Israel and Shir hinder the sacrifice" (Yerushalmi Talmud Taaniyot chapter XNUMX XNUMX p. XNUMX). That is to say, without any of the above-mentioned elements, there should be no sacrificial offering. Even so, the "song" or "song instruments" were especially emphasized here, since the Levites, their main function was singing and playing, and they are the ones who were mentioned as "Levites" in the above sources, emphasizing the addition of "song" and "song instruments". And lest the words come to emphasize, among other things, the necessity of musical instruments, certain musical instruments, in certain combinations, about which we will discuss later. However, one way or another, the interesting combination of priests, Levites, Israelites and "Shir" raises the importance and necessity of each element, and for our purposes - highlighting the importance of music and its function in the sacred system practiced in the Temple.
The musical aspect of the sacrifices was constant
The topic of our discussion, as mentioned, is the constant sacrifice that is made every day, in terms of a sacrifice in which music has taken an important and significant place as part of the work, an inseparable part.
The daily work began with the reading of the man, reading the proclamation - "The priests to work, and the Levites to the pulpit and Israel to the stand" (Yerushalmi Talmud Shekelim chapter XNUMX of XNUMX p. XNUMX).
The gates would only be opened with the arrival of the person in charge of conciliation. Then the donation of the fertilizer was made and the parts of the slaughtered lamb were prepared to be put on the altar. The priests gathered in the Gazit office and read the Ten Commandments together with the people. According to the Mishnah, three blasts would be fired when the relief gates were opened. The Mishnah enumerated the proceedings of the ceremony in this way: "The two priests (the one who won the incense and the one who won the anointment) arrived between the hall and the altar. One of the superiors took the rake (a musical instrument we will discuss later) and threw it between the hall and the altar. No one hears the voice of his friend in Jerusalem over the sound of the rake. And she used three things: A priest who hears her voice knows that his fellow priests are coming in to bow and he runs and comes. And a Levite who hears her voice (of the rake) knows that his Levite brothers are coming in to bow and he runs and comes. And the head of the class would place the impure at the Mizrah Gate (that is the Nicanor Gate, in order to purify them and bring about their atonement)" (Mishnat Timid 6:XNUMX).
And from here began the ritual of burning incense, during which the people would gather together for prayer. After the chanting, all the priests entered to bow in the temple, and then came out and stood on the steps of the hall to bless the people with a priestly blessing. And when the name was mentioned in a pleasant manner, the people would fall on their faces and bow down.
After the blessing comes the last part of the Tamimid service, which is the raising of the organs on the altar and the pouring of the wine. These two works were done with help on the altar before the people and were accompanied by the singing of the Levites and the prayer of the people, and this was when the actions of raising the organs were distinguished from the wine pressing by the priests blowing the trumpets.
The continuation of the description of the ceremony can be found in the Mishnah with the giving of the wine to the priest to ensoch - "... the garden stands on the horn and the sudars in his hand, and two priests stand on the milk table (it is a marble table that is located to the west of the lamb and on it they would place the organs) and two silver trumpets in their hands. Punch and cheer and punch. They (the two stabbers) came and stood by Ben Arza, one on his right and one on his left. The priest bowed to the prince, and the lieutenant waved the sodrin, and Kish ben Arza played the psaltery and the Levites spoke (sang) a song. When he reached the chapter (the place where the song stopped), the people bowed and bowed - for each chapter of takiya and for each takiya of the experience. This is the perpetual order (sacrifice) for the worship of the house of our God" (Mishnat Tamim 3:XNUMX). And this will be demonstrated later.
It should be noted that musical details that appeared in all the sub-sources listed here will be studied extensively later in the chapter. I requested not to refer, for the time being, to the musical analysis in the discussed section. And this is in order not to damage the musical experiential impression left behind by the constant sacrifice ceremony.
It must be assumed that the rules of the above ceremony are late, since from the words in Sipa of the above mishna it can be understood that this was said by Tana ben Hador of the generation after the destruction (73-70 CE), one who saw the work in the temple in his youth, with his own eyes. That is, we are talking about the rules of the ceremony that were accepted and formulated, probably, around the year 64/63 AD.
The next Mishnah (ibid. 4) enumerates "the song that the Levites used to say (sing) (every day) in the temple" during the wine tasting, in the morning and in the evening, and this at a time when every day they sang in a fixed order a different song which is a certain psalm and a fixed number of psalms. The beginning of this order was at the beginning of the Second Temple period at the time of the dedication of the Temple by Judah the Maccabee in 164 BC, but its final formulation was entered towards the end of the Temple period. This formulation, in its foundation lies a core and an expression for the clear institutionalization of temple music.
It should be noted that in one of the sources of the Mishnah it was emphasized not only the fact that the voices emanating from Jerusalem, from the Temple, were heard from afar, but the musical detail is what remains interesting: "The dead were hearing the sound of the bell." From Jericho they would hear the voice of the song:" (Timid 117)) and according to the researcher M. Geshuri, the people who heard the "Song of Yom" and the accompanying music, knew what day it was, as if Yom's hymn was a kind of "talking day" (M.S. Geshuri, Jerusalem the city of music from the Second Temple period, Hoch Menorah, XNUMX XNUMX, p. XNUMX). The closeness between the bell and the singing of the Levites, as it appears above, in the wine tasting ceremony, is definitely interesting.
The special thing in the selection of the sung hymns is found and embodied in their content. These contained the poet's appeals to the audience, as a practice that was common in temple rituals, and whose purpose was to create a connection between the people and their temple and its forge. These songs, in their content, directed the attention of the people who gathered in the temple courtyards to the beauty of Jerusalem and the splendor of the temple. These called the people to put their trust in the rock of their salvation, in Jehovah, who is eternal and whose record is sealed in all corners of the universe. The seventh psalm, the Shabbat psalm, was a kind of summary of all the psalms of the week. And so the two elements overlapped - the content of the song and its pleasantness-shadowing. The first - an immanent longing and the second as a means, and both in a special combination left an impression and an experiential mark on the population that crowded into the courtyards of the temple, and contributed, in no small measure, to the forging of the bond between the people and their temple.
The chapter of the day, as mentioned, was not sung all at once, but in pauses, and the expertise of the Levites was also expressed in the distinction between chapter by chapter in each song, or between each pleasant and pleasant, according to a change in the orchestral accompaniment, or in the term "sala", as a signal to raise the voice or change the melody. With each ending, one of the players would "slide" on a single oboe, examining an issue that will be discussed later.
In the following, we will examine the essence of the various office holders such as Ben Arza, or the lieutenant and the facilities such as the "pulpit". However, we will already emphasize here that this was the peak organization of temple music, examining the signature of drivers and orders, the fruit of the period that began with the construction of the Herodian Temple and ended - in the last decade of the Temple days.
It should be noted that apart from the three blasts for the opening of the relief gates in the morning, nine more trumpet blasts were heard in the regular dawn ceremony, and nine in the evening, and this is according to the Mishnah's instruction, that there is no more than twenty-one blasts each day. These blasts were carried out by the priests only. However, the meaning of the percussion was not only musical, but was used to give signs or signals. This cannot be said in relation to the singing of the Levites, which was entirely musical. And again, to teach us about the meaning of music among the superiors, members of the funeral class.
The order of the Tamim work of the Inter-Arabs was the same as the Tamim order of Shahar, apart from the priests' blessing which was held only in the morning, and two things were added to it - the lighting of the seven candles in the golden lamp in the temple and the placing of two pieces of wood on the altar.
The importance of the singing of the Levites during the performance of the perpetual sacrifice, during the mixing of the wine, was preserved even in later traditions of the Amorites of the Land of Israel, such as in the somewhat peppered rhetorical question from the mouth of Rabbi Yonatan in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani - "Why is it that there is no singing except about the wine?" ... Hence one does not say poetry except about the wine" (Talmud Babylon XNUMX p. XNUMX).
The impression of the ceremony and its experience left deep traces in Judaism as a goal that the leaders of Judaism sought to achieve by the temple music, its development and the organization of its drivers and series - to cheer the hearts of those gathered in Jerusalem who came to witness the daily worship of God, whether pilgrims who remained in the city, whether Jews who came to Jerusalem for trade business and the like. The religious message that the temple sought to impress upon the heart of every Jew thus gained an essential dimension through the melodiousness of the psalms and their playing.
The musical aspect of Shabbat sacrifices
All the works connected to the altar, including the constant sacrifices, were also conducted on Shabbat. On this holy day, the sacrifices of the individual were not offered, but the public sacrifices, the regular and additional ones only. After the morning sacrifice, the departing guard would sacrifice the Shabbat supplement in the form of two lambs, and next to the "song of the day" based on the constant sacrifice, a "song of the day" of the additional sacrifice was added. This included the "Listen" chapter, which would be divided into six chapters, and every Shabbat they would sing one chapter on the Seder and at the minach they would sing verses from the biblical "Song of the Sea", and as we were taught about the importance of the song of the Levites in these chapters, we settled on the tradition of recognizing that the service of these, both "Song of the Levites".
The sources do not reveal anything about how the song "Hear" was performed. However, this is not the case with regard to the "Song of the Sea", a poem which even Josephus took pains to emphasize the relationship between it and music and between it and the laws of poetics (such as in "The Antiquities of the Jews II) 346).
From the Mishnah, we learn from Rabbi Akiva that "it teaches that Israel was concerned after him (after Moses), that Moses over each and every thing as they recite the Hallel...Rabbi Nehemiah says: As they recite the Shema" (Suta 4:XNUMX) and this is to teach us about the importance of answering in connection with Song of the Sea". And it is interesting that there are textual differences in the Sage sources between Rabbi Akiva's version and Rabbi Eliezer's son of Rabbi Yossi HaGalili's version and between Rabbi Nehemiah's version regarding the "Song of the Sea" poem.
Be that as it may, in this poetry the antiphonal idea stood out, that is, the participation of the audience and/or the choir in the entire poem. And this was one of the goals that the music set for itself - to look for the connection between the people and the work of the temple in terms of a connection that drew its strength from the audience's participation in the temple ceremonies. This sharing, whether it was active (the audience's response), or passive (the crowding of the population in the courtyards of the temple) undoubtedly enriched the experiential impression on the public. It seems that clouds of holiness surrounded him.
We should note that the Song of the Sea has been attributed in the Jewish tradition to the delegation of a heavenly-apocalyptic power and mainly this is the cause of the Shechinah's immersion and her dwelling in the Temple. It was a moment, which the brave bond between him and the music has given special importance recently. And sages found a reference to the sanctity of poetry from Mount Sinai.
An interesting fundamental point will be raised here as follows: while in the early days of the Second Temple the figure of King David was at the center of several traditions that were wrapped in music, during the period of the subject of our discussion, the figure of Moshe emerged in its various aspects, and the Taasim is one of the Midrashim, that Moshe is the one who taught the The poetry of the Levites, and the song of the sea and "listening" are well connected in Moses and it is interesting that the song of the sea occupied a central place among the sages of the third century AD, when in this period the Jews were expecting the chariots of the long-awaited deliverance, the result of the circumstances of the time, which is the period of anarchy throughout the entire Roman Empire.
It seems that the key to the mystery is between the teeth of time. The period in question was distinguished by the construction of the magnificent Temple as a result of the initiative of the House of Herod and Agrippa. Also, the first century AD was steeped in evidence of a messianic awakening (Christian, Jewish and even pagan), a kind of redemption. And Moses, the father of the prophets, as a figure with a heavenly aura, could certainly fit in with the circumstances of the time. And from then on, in the Tanait and Talmudic tradition, the character of Moses stood out several times more than that of David.
We will emphasize here, similarly to the previous chapter, that an expression of the bright heavenly radiance that surrounded the temple music in the period in question was embodied and found in all those testimonies about the music of the sky, the song of the angels, which is like it above, like the earthly temple which was for Moses.
It should be noted that all of the above, about day-to-day small things, the regular, daily work in the Temple, the one that increased the value of the sacrifices and the value of the music that reached its peak both from the experiential point of view and from the organizational point of view toward the second half of the first century CE, seems to have been summed up in a tradition that sinks into one mouth Among the gifts of the Amorites of all times and the reference to Rabbi Yochanan who prayed about the verse from the book of Debi (22:XNUMX:XNUMX): "And the minister of the Levites will correct (correct) the burden because he understands", - "What kind of work (so in the text) needs work?" He says: singing!" (Babylonian Talmud, Arkhin XNUMX p. XNUMX). That is - the virtue of music as an inseparable part of the "work" - the sacrificial work in the Temple as a real "work".
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