Tractate Sukkot, whose third chapter Daf Yomi readers finished this week, is not one of the parts of the Talmud primarily concerned with the Temple. Unlike Yom Kippur, which in Temple times was a holiday focused on the high priest in Jerusalem, Sukkot is a holiday celebrated by all Jews at home. Yet reading the Talmud, you never know when a memory of the Temple, and a longing for its rebuilding, is going to loom up in the midst of the discussion. That is what happens on Sukka 41a, when we get a glimpse of the rabbis’ deep conviction that the Temple will certainly be rebuilt—and not just someday in the indefinite future, but possibly at any given moment.
So, what would happen, the rabbis ask, if the Temple happened to be rebuilt on the 16th of Nisan? That is the second day of Passover and the day when the priests began to offer the omer sacrifice—an offering of barley that indicated it was legal to begin eating produce from the new year’s harvest. While the Temple stood, there was a rule that Jews had to wait to begin eating that produce until the afternoon of the 16th, when they could be sure the sacrifice was complete. Once the Temple was destroyed, however, the omer could no longer be offered, so Jews began to eat the new year’s harvest at dawn on the 16th.
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