The building itself was divided into two parts. The half which lay inside the courtyard wall was used as, among other things, a synagogue for the priests during their morning services. The second half, which was built outside the wall, was the meeting place of the Sanhedrin. The meetings took place in this area since the Sanhedrin sat during these meeting, and sitting down was only permitted outside the courtyard proper, except for a Jewish king from the House of David.

A full session of Sanhedrin included the 71 judges seated in a semi-circle; three rows, each of 23 students who sat in straight rows before the judges; at least two scribes and various interested parties. The Gemara (Succah 7b) tells us that the space taken up by one seated man was no less than one Amah.

If you calculate it, the semi-circle of judges had a diameter no less than 45 Amos and a depth (radius) of about 22 Amos. The three rows of students must have filled at least three more Amos (from front to back) and we must allow one more for the scribes etc. Therefore, the Sanhedrin half of the building, aside from its walls, must have measured at least 45 x 26 Amos. It is known that the inner half of the building was equal in size to its Sanhedrin twin.

Now, to the west of the Lishkas Hagazis lay two adjoining buildings (Palhedrin and Exiles' Chamber) which must have taken up some space, so even if we say that the shorter dimension (i.e. 26 Amos) lay on an east-west axis, when you add it to the width of the walls and the size of the two western buildings, you run into a problem.

There simply wasn't room in the courtyard for these buildings to have stretched more than 22 Amos west of the Women's Courtyard wall. This is because at 22 Amos, the slaughter house area began as it stretched from the altar all the way to within five Amos of the northern courtyard wall.

The north-south axis didn't leave us much room to work with either, as the whole distance from the northern wall to the beginning of Sha'ar Nikanor was about sixty Amos.

How, then, did everything fit in?

One possible answer lies in recalculating the minimum floor space needed to hold 71 sitting judges etc. Who says that their semi-circle was perfectly round? Perhaps they were seated in a long "U" shape to save space or maybe they were staggered (i.e. one slightly behind or in front of his neighbor).

Still, this one requires more thought. And vision.

Bais Hamoked

At night, in the building below, the priests of that day's watch were sleeping; some on the floor of the main hallway and some on large slabs of stone that stuck out from the northern wall. At the southern end of the hallway was a huge door leading into the main courtyard. Built into the door was a smaller opening that allowed priests in and out in the early morning with a minimum of noise. At the northern end of the hall was another door which led to a staircase out and down to the Temple Mount.

Off to either side of the hall, were entrances to smaller rooms. The south-western room was a holding pen for the animals which would most likely be needed for the coming days' sacrifices. To the south-east was the chamber used for baking the Show Bread.

Inside the north-east chamber were the remains of the altar, dismantled after having been misused by Greeks and Hellenistic Jews before the Chashmona'im (Maccabees) retook the Temple at the time of Chanuka. The north-west was home to a small fire for warming cold priests and from it a tunnel stretched under the floor of the Temple to a Mikvah and bathroom. Priests who became impure at night would immediately go to that Mikvah, then wait for the opening of the outer gates in the morning and leave the area.

North-South Relations

Hang on a second.

The story is that there are different versions of the correct text to this Mishna and my decision to follow this particular one was based on nothing less than a scientific weighing of the opinions of many early and later scholars and a subtle and precise analysis of all the available data.

...Ok, so it was a flip of a coin, but there are many Jews who learn that the buildings were situated this way all the same...

The Parve Chamber

It seems there was a fellow named Parve who had an unhealthy interest in witchcraft (he also had some unsavory friends - like Bilaam and his two sons).

Parve picked up a desire to get in to see the high priest at work on Yom Kippur. One version has him using witchcraft to build the room that bears his name, then tunnelling underground into the Kodesh Hakedoshim (Holy of Holies).

Another version has Parve climbing to the roof of his room to watch the priest in the Mikvah.

The priests seem to have been tipped off about the story and managed to catch the culprit in the act, killing him for his troublemaking. To express thanks to G-d for having saved us from whatever scheme Parve had in mind, the sages named the room Parve.

Rabbi Boruch Clinton teaches at the Ottawa Torah Institute yeshiva high school and Machon Sarah high school for girls (both in Ottawa, Canada). You may reach him with comments and questions at bclinton@torah.org.

You can now read some of Rabbi Clinton's essays on Torah life at http://www.ncf.ca/~es625/essays

You can also buy his collection of essays on the Book of Shmuel (Samuel) in printed form at www.lulu.com/marbitzmedia

Copyright © 2000 by Rabbi Boruch Clinton and Project Genesis, Inc.