וְאֶת הַדָּאָה וְאֶת הָאַיָּה לְמִינָהּ. אֵת כָּל עֹרֵב לְמִינוֹ. וְאֵת בַּת הַיַּעֲנָה וְאֶת הַתַּחְמָס וְאֶת הַשָּׁחַף וְאֶת הַנֵּץ לְמִינֵהוּ (ויקרא יא, יד-טז).
In the last chapter in this week's parsha we read about all the Kosher and treif animals.
In parshat Noach we read about all the animals coming into the תֵּבָה, two by two, except for one category of animals, which came in groups of seven (בראשית ז, ב). The animals that came in sevens were the pure animals. In addition to two required for perpetuating the species, additional animals of these pure species were required - in order to bring Korbanot and to eat, both in the time of Noach and much later … in the Beit HaMikdash.
Everyone knows which animals are permitted into the Mikdash – cattle, sheep, goats, turtledoves and pigeons.
In this shiur I would like to discuss other, highly unlikely animals that you would not expect to find in the Mikdash but were indeed there.
When one thinks of strange animals, the first that springs to mind is probably be the תַּחַשׁ, a unique animal that HKB"H created just for the generation of the Midbar, to cover the Mishkan and the keilim. It was a unique creature with a multicolored skin, as Onkelos called it - סַסְגוֹנָא and it was probably very large, because one solid piece of skin (not a patchwork) had to cover the Mishkan (קהלת רבה, וילנא, א, א).
But that was in the Mishkan, I am talking about the 1st and 2nd Batei Mikdash. The specific animals I would like to discuss are - dogs, lions, eagles, ravens, lizards and mice.
I know you are probably scratching your eyes, wondering whether you are in fact reading a shiur, or a Harry Potter book (??) … but read on and be prepared to have your world rocked.
So, to be honest, five of the six were not actually present in the Mikdash in their live form, but rather in pictorial/symbolic form. One of the six was present in its live form. Let's begin working our way down the list.
In last week's shiur on Tzav, we read about the Heavenly fire on the Mizbeach (Yoma 21b) that resembled a crouching dog. I brought various Mefarshim that explain the symbolism of the fire in the shape of a dog (Gemara Pesachim, Maharsha, Rema, Zohar etc.). When the Korban was offered on the Mizbeach you could actually see the fire in the shape of a dog. The sources don't say what type of dog, a St. Bernard, poodle or golden retriever. Most likely it was a stray, mongrel dog (searching for scraps).
A second opinion says that the fire resembled a crouching lion, the king of the beasts, the symbol of Yehuda, etc. However, that was not the only "lion" in the Mikdash, there were two others.
The tall building in the Beit HaMikdash, the Ulam, also resembled a crouching lion – it was wide in front and narrow at the back (Mishna, Middot 4, 7), as it says - הוֹי אֲרִיאֵל אֲרִיאֵל קִרְיַת חָנָה דָוִד (ישעיהו כט, א).
We find the third lion, perhaps the clearest of them all, on the thick Parochet that divided the Heichal and the Kodesh Kodashim. The Gemara (Yerushalmi, Shekalim 8, 2) says that there were two images of Kruvim on the side of the Parochet facing the Heichal. Exactly how they were made and what the Kruvim looked like is a machloket in the Gemara. According to all opinions at least one of the Kruvim had the face of a lion (some say both).
According to one of the opinions, the second Kruv on the Parochet was not a lion but had the face of an eagle! This eagle was present in both the first and second Batei Mikdash, until they were destroyed.
There was, however, another eagle that was only there for a much briefer period before it was removed. King Herod hung a gold statue of an eagle (the symbol of Rome) over the entrance of the Ulam when he rebuilt the 2nd Mikdash, but this was forcibly removed when the Jews revolted against him, towards the end of his life in 4BCE (יוסף בן מתתיהו, קדמוניות היהודים, טז').
While on the subject of birds, there was a prominent feature that existed in the 2nd Mikdash that was absent from the 1st Mikdash. It was called the כָּלֶה עוֹרֵב. In the 1st Mikdash, HKB"H's Shechina resided and as a result, although birds were offered as Korbanot on the Mizbeach, the Mikdash was a "no fly zone".
No birds flew overhead, nor landed and perched on the various structures of the Mikdash. However, in the 2nd Mikdash, where the Shechina did not reside, ravens frequently flew and landed, making a huge mess, which was demeaning to the Mikdash.
To prevent this, they constructed the כָּלֶה עוֹרֵב on the roof of the Ulam (Mishna, Midot 4, 6). What form this took exactly is a matter of opinion. Some say it was like sharp nails to prevent birds landing (Rashi, Menachot 107a). Some say it was like teeth of a serrated saw (רמב"ם הל' בית הבחירה ד,ג). Some say it was a kind of a scarecrow (Tosfot, Menachot 107a). Some say it was only on the perimeter of the roof, some say all over the roof (Rashi, Shabbat 90a).
As someone who manages a bakery, I can testify that it is a constant battle to keep out the various pests crawling around, like lizards. Obviously, the Beit HaMikdash was on a much higher madrega, but we do find one incidence of a lizard in the Mikdash and that is in connection with the Lechem HaPanim.
The Gemara (Pesachim 3a) discusses how they divided up the Lechem HaPanim on Shabbat to the Kohanim, who each ended up receiving a very small portion, some say a kezayit, some say the size of a broadbean (פוּל), but despite this, when they ate it, it filled them up as if they had eaten an entire meal.
Once, when distributing the pieces of Lechem HaPanim, one of the Kohanim complained and used a derogatory phrase to describe his portion - הִגִּיעַנִי כִּזְנַב הַלְּטָאָה, "My piece is so small, it resembles the tail of a lizard!" The Gemara says that it is one thing to complain, but to use derogatory language like that, something is not right! They checked and discovered some פְּסוּל in his lineage and that he was not fit to serve as a Kohen.
The Gemara brings this to teach us that things don't exist in a vacuum. If someone descends to unacceptable levels, it is inherited from somewhere in their lineage.
Finally, unlike the more abstract "lizard" in the Mikdash, our final creature was more tangible – mice. Mice in the Beit HaMikdash??!
In order to describe how this came about, we need to first read an episode from sefer Shmuel (שמואל א, פרקים ד-ו):
The Navi tells us that the sons of Eli, Chofni and Pinchas, did not follow in his footsteps and the spiritual level of Am Yisrael deteriorated. This brought the wrath of HKB"H upon us and He sent the Philistines to attack us. In this battle, four thousand Israelites died.
Am Yisrael gathered and decided what to do. The elders said, "Why should we lose more lives, let us send the Aron Habrit ahead of us, to defeat our enemies". Am Yisrael took the Aron from Shiloh and accompanied by Chofni and Pinchas, brought it to the Israeli camp. When Am Yisrael saw it they cheered.
The Philistines, not expecting to hear victory cries from the Israeli camp, sent spies to find out what was going on. When they heard that the Aron was there, they were fearful. However, their leaders rallied them on and said "Act like Philistines! Do you want to be slaves to the Israelites?" The Philistines attacked again and in the battle Chofni and Pinchas were killed, 30,000 of Am Yisrael perished and the Aron was taken into captivity.
One of the soldiers in the battle, Shaul (this was before he became king), managed to grab the Luchot from the hands of Goliath and ran with them to Shiloh to tell the sad tidings to Eli. Upon hearing his sons had been killed, Eli did not respond, but when he heard that the Aron HaBrit had been captured, he fell backwards off his chair, broke his neck and died.
The Philistines took their prize, the Aron, back with them to their city of Ashdod. They placed it in front of their idol "dagon" (which resembled a fish) as a gift. The following morning, they awoke to find dagon had fallen over on the floor, in front of the Aron. They stood the idol upright, but the same thing happened the following night, the idol toppled over and this time the head and hands broke off the idol.
In addition to the above, HKB"H smote the inhabitants of Ashdod with a plague – when they went to the bathroom, mice crawled into their behinds, damaged their intestines and crawled back out. The Ashdodians did not take kindly to this turn of events, so they hurriedly decided to send the Aron out of Ashdod, south, to the city of Gat. The same thing that happened in Ashdod, happened in Gat, so they sent the Aron to the city of Ekron (just north of Bet Shemesh). However, the Ekronians refused to accept it.
After seven months of suffering, the Philistines decided there was no choice but to return the Aron to Am Yisrael. They consulted with their priests and magicians how to do this and their advisors told them to send the Aron back, accompanied by gifts. What gifts? Five gold statues of intestines and five gold statues of mice (symbolizing the plague with which HKB"H afflicted them).
The Philistines then took a wagon, harnessed it to two suckling cows, placed the Aron HaBrit on the wagon, and alongside it, a box with these five gold intestines and five gold mice statues. They sent the cow-driven wagon in the direction of Bet Shemesh. The cows traveled in a straight line, singing as they went (Shochar Tov, שמואל יב).
It was the time of the wheat harvest and the residents of Bet Shemesh were out in the fields harvesting wheat (In the Mishna [Menahot 8,1] it tells of two places in biblical Israel that were renowned for their high-quality wheat, one of these places is Zonicha, which is just outside Bet Shemesh – today there is a Moshav there called Zanoach).
When the residents of Bet Shemesh saw the Aron trundling towards them they rejoiced. The wagon continued to the field of a man named Yehoshua, in which there was a large rock (the Malbim says that HKB"H put the rock there specifically for this).
The Levi'im unloaded the Aron and placed it on this rock and they sacrificed the two cows as korbanot Olah. They offered the 5 golden intestines as a korban Asham, one for the city of Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gat and one for Ekron, the five Philistine cities smitten by the plague.
The Aron was taken to Kiryat Ye'arim to the house of Aminadav, where it remained for 20 years until David HaMelech moved it to Yerushalayim.
The five gold mice remained in the field of Yehoshua from Bet Shemesh, until the time of Shlomo HaMelech. When Shlomo HaMelech built the 1st Midkash, he took this box with the five gold mice and placed it next to the Aron HaBrit in the Kodesh HaKodashim (Bava Batra 14a).
The story in Shmuel does not end well. All those wheat harvesters who gazed upon the Aron perished. The Gemara (Sota 35b) brings two opinions, one says 50,000 people, each one equivalent in stature to the 70 members of the Sanhedrin, the other opinion says 70 people who were each equivalent to 50,000 people in spiritual stature. It is forbidden to look at or touch the Aron directly.
The family of Kehat that carried the Aron in the desert had the greatest number of fatalities amongst the Levi'im. When David moved it to Yerushalayim, accompanied by great fanfare, at one point the wagon teetered and the Aron began to slide off. Uzah, a close friend of David, reached out to grab it and stop it from falling and died as a result.
So, there you have it – mice, albeit gold mice, in the holiest place in the Mikdash, right next to the Aron HaBrit in the Kodesh HaKodashim.
As we can see, there were some unexpected creatures in the Mikdash, some figurative, some made from gold and others live and flying around.
It is impossible to escape the similarity between current events and this episode from Shmuel Aleph.
Due to a lowering of the spiritual level in Am Yisrael, the current "Philistines" attacked us, killed many and captured that which is most dear to us. We currently have an army of "Shauls" trying to retrieve them.
Be'ezrat Hashem, the presence of these captives in Gaza will wreak the same havoc upon the Philistines as it did back in the time of Shmuel, bring a curse to every place they move them to, until our enemies beg us to take them back, with extra gifts.
If we can all unite and re-acquire the necessary respect for the Aron HaBrit and the Luchot inside it, the story will end happily this time with the rebuilding of the 3rd and final Beit HaMikdash בבי"א.
Shabbat Shalom
Eliezer Meir Saidel
Machon Lechem Hapanim
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