Sukkah, Daf Nun Aleph, Part 5

 

Introduction

Today’s section discusses the glorious double colonnade that served as a synagogue for the Jews of Alexandria, Egypt.

 

תניא, רבי יהודה אומר: מי שלא ראה דיופלוסטון של אלכסנדריא של מצרים לא ראה בכבודן של ישראל.

אמרו: כמין בסילקי גדולה היתה, סטיו לפנים מסטיו, פעמים שהיו בה (ששים רבוא על ששים רבוא) כפלים כיוצאי מצרים +מסורת הש"ס: [פעמים שהיו שם ששים רבוא כיוצאי מצרים ואמרי לה כפלים כיוצאי מצרים]+, והיו בה שבעים ואחת קתדראות של זהב כנגד שבעים ואחד של סנהדרי גדולה, כל אחת ואחת אינה פחותה מעשרים ואחד רבוא ככרי זהב.

 

It has been taught: R. Judah stated: He who has not seen the double colonnade of Alexandria in Egypt has never seen the glory of Israel. It was said that it was like a huge basilica, one colonnade within the other, and it sometimes held twice the number of people that went forth from Egypt.

There were in it seventy-one chairs of gold, corresponding to the seventy-one members of the Great Sanhedrin, not one of them containing less than twenty-one talents of gold.

 

Alexandria served as a major settlement of Jews during the Second Temple period. In this section we learn of the beauty and glory of a double colonnade where the leaders of the Jewish people would sit and which also served, as we shall see, as a synagogue. While it seems quite obvious that some of these numbers are exaggerations, clearly the Talmud describes a large number of people.

 

ובימה של עץ באמצעיתה, וחזן הכנסת עומד עליה והסודרין בידו. וכיון שהגיע לענות אמן – הלה מניף בסודר, וכל העם עונין אמן. ולא היו יושבין מעורבין, אלא זהבין בפני עצמן, וכספין בפני עצמן, ונפחין בפני עצמן, וטרסיים בפני עצמן, וגרדיים בפני עצמן. וכשעני נכנס שם היה מכיר בעלי אומנתו ונפנה לשם, ומשם פרנסתו ופרנסת אנשי ביתו.

 

And a wooden platform was in the middle on which the attendant of the Synagogue stood with a scarf in his hand.

When the time came to answer Amen, he waved his scarf and all the congregation would respond "Amen."

They did not sit all mixed up, but goldsmiths sat separately, silversmiths separately, blacksmiths separately, metalworkers separately and weavers separately, so that when a poor man entered the place he would recognize the members of his craft and he would turn there, and receive a livelihood for himself and for the members of his family.

 

What is most interesting about this section is the description of separate seating in the synagogue. This was a way of separating people by class as seating was in European synagogues and still is in some places today. It was a way for people looking for jobs to meet people of their own profession. In other words, there was a strong socio-economic component to it as well.

 

אמר אביי: וכולהו קטלינהו אלכסנדרוס מוקדן. מאי טעמא איענשו? – משום דעברי אהאי קרא +דברים יז+ לא תוסיפון לשוב בדרך הזה עוד, ואינהו הדור אתו.

כי אתא, אשכחינהו דהוו קרו בסיפרא +דברים כח+ ישא ה’ עליך גוי מרחוק.

אמר: מכדי, ההוא גברא בעי למיתי ספינתא בעשרה יומי, דליה זיקא ואתי ספינתא בחמשא יומי, נפל עלייהו וקטלינהו.

 

Abaye stated: Alexander of Macedonia slew them all.

Why were they so punished? Because they transgressed this verse: "You shall not return and come back on this way" (Deuteronomy 17:16) and they did return.

When he came he found them reading from the Torah, "The Lord will bring a nation against your from afar" (Deuteronomy 28:49) he said, "It should have taken my ships ten days" journey, but to arrive but a strong wind arose and they arrived in five days! He fell upon them and slew them.

 

In this section, Abaye claims that all of these myriads of people in Alexandria were slain by Alexander of Macedonia. I wouldn’t grant a significant amount of historical accuracy to this statement, but it does seem that Abaye senses that Alexandria’s Jewish community was destroyed at some point. However, there is some interesting theology in this section. As is typical, the rabbis portray the non-Jewish political leader as if he subjects himself to the Jewish God, reads verses and makes decisions based upon them. Second, the people are punished for their sins. In this case, the very decision to return to Egypt was against the Torah. This is actually quite a complex subject, for despite the prohibition of living in Egypt, Jews have lived there periodically over the past 2000 years and for a time it was an important Diaspora community. There also seems to have been some antagonism between the Jews of Babylonia and those of Egypt. This may be partially the background to these statements of Abaye, a prominent Babylonian sage.