Nehemiah’s Secret Night Mission to Rebuild Jerusalem - Nehemiah Part 3 - Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

Okay, we're continuing our learning of safer Nehemia. And you'll recall again the chronology here is very very important. I have to keep on repeating it. The second base hamikdash began to be constructed in the second year of Daryavesh the second and it was completed in the sixth year of Daryavesh the second. And basically there had been an 18-year hiatus from the reign of Koresh through the the second year of Daryavesh which means in other words Koresh's proclamation was 52 years after the korban >> [clears throat] >> but the binyan base hamikdash was resumed 70 years after the korban 52 plus 18. Okay, so we actually end the 70 years of the Babylonian exile with the beginning of the building after the interruption. We don't count the initial you know pre-interruption laying of the foundation. Ezra did not come to Eretz Yisrael until the seventh year of Daryavesh which is one year afterwards. And we had mentioned because of his rebbe Baruch ben Neriah and Nehemia seems to show up the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes which is another king or it's another name but just [clears throat] to keep it simple Hazal in Maseches Rosh Hashanah simply say although other meforshim go into very complicated chronologies Hazal simply say Maseches Rosh Hashanah that Artaxerxes was another name for Daryavesh the second. So according to that the chronology now becomes relatively straightforward. Second year of Daryavesh the second they began to rebuild the base hamikdash the ban of Koresh was withdrawn. The sixth year it was finished and it was dedicated Chanukas Sabayis. The seventh year, Ezra shows up. The 20th year, 13 years later, Nehemiah, who is the cup bearer for the king of Persia, comes. And uh that takes us to the book of Nehemiah. So, once again, remember therefore that Nehemiah is 13 years uh he 14 years after the completion of the base of Mikdash, 13 years after Ezra. Now, it's clear Ezra is still alive because we're going to see in the book of Nehemiah that Ezra and Nehemiah interact. As Zerubbabel is not mentioned, so it's it's very probable that Zerubbabel is not alive at this particular time. And in many, many ways, Nehemiah is the political successor to Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the political leader. Ezra is like the Godol, the spiritual leader. And Nehemiah also becomes the political leader. So, it makes a lot of sense just in terms of simple shot that Zerubbabel, who of the dedication of the second base of Mikdash, passed away somewhere between, we don't have the exact year, between year six and year 20. Now, Nehemiah needs an excuse to go. And the excuse basically is that Yushalayim is in a state of decrepitude, meaning although there is a base of Mikdash, but the walls of Yushalayim, which Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed, are totally broken into. Uh the Jewish people are exposed to enemies, to wild animals, to pirates. And Nehemiah basically begs the king for permission to be able to go. Now, remember, according to Chazal, although this is not befarish in Tanakh, Daryavish, this King Daryavish, or King Artaxerxes as he's called in the book of Nehemiah, is none other than the son of Achashverosh and Esther Hamalka. Fact, it's it's very, very interesting that the whole story of Purim, the great story of Purim, occurred during the 18 years. You had Koresh, then you had Achashverosh, then you had Yoyavish. And yet, in the book of Nechemia and Ezra, there is no mention at all of the miracle of Purim. It's totally not mentioned. It's a It's a very bit of an oddity. Why would it not be mentioned? But it is It is not. Uh so, Nechemia gets permission from the king to come to Eretz Yisrael, and uh the king also gives him uh resources, financial resources, to be able to rebuild the walls of of Yerushalayim. And he seems to give him some political power as well, perhaps because unless Nechemia is kind of a governor of of the province, he will not be able to tell people what to do. Okay, so that's basically what what perek aleph and bet uh say. Um he does show up uh in uh to in Yerushalayim, and uh perek bet gives us a very interesting uh experience, a night time inspection of the wall, riding on his donkey, meaning before he proposed any plan, he simply needed to see exactly what needed to be repaired, and he got himself on a donkey, and in the middle of the night Okay, it doesn't say the middle of the night, but at night, he rode around the entire circumference >> [snorts] >> of the city to determine what exactly needed to be done. Now, it's not immediately apparent why did he feel uh he had to do this alone, number one, and why did he feel he had to do it at night? I think it's fairly clear that the pesukim are describing a secret mission of some sort. Night, by himself. It's not really clear. Why couldn't he just tell people, "Hey, we have a problem. Let's go and inspect what needs to be done." Uh but perhaps it's not it's not kosher really. In other words, I don't even have a particular reason, but perhaps he felt that unless he could present to the people that there is what the problem is, they wouldn't listen to him. Meaning, he had to come and say, "Hey, this is it." He had to present a finished problem that had to be solved. Now, these chapters of the Nehemiah are extremely We're not going to go into it that much, but they are extremely interesting for people who are into archaeology. They're fascinating for archaeologists because all sorts of gates and corners and walls are described by name going back to HaMelech's time or David HaMelech's time. And archaeologists to this very day are debating, "Where is this gate? Where is that thing? Where is that?" So, uh Nehemiah perek bet and gimmel, if you are into archaeology, uh that is a major major part of Nach to study about the ancient uh construction of Yerushalayim and where the walls were located. Also, there's going to be a major major issue. And this will this will have halachic ramifications. If Nehemiah's construction, which will be the next thing that happens, is that simply mimicking, duplicating the city of HaMelech? Or is it a larger city? Is it a smaller city? Many of you have ever gone on tours of Yerushalayim, you'll notice the often point out the lingo of a tour guide is, "This is Nehemiah's wall, etc." Meaning, they're assuming Nehemiah's wall is different than Shlomo's wall. And again, we'll discuss that because that's very no good in the halacha l'maaseh. Uh if Nehemiah's city is simply repairing Shlomo's city, or Nehemiah's city is smaller, or Nehemiah's city is bigger, right? There're are three different possibilities of what Nehemiah is is encircling. But that is his nighttime inspection of the wall. And then perek is a very long perek. And once again, when you read a lot of names, it's our instinct to get bored with names. This one did this, this one did this, just like in Bereshit and in Noach. And in Divrei Hayamim, but I think I told you this myself. Now, the first nine perakim of Divrei Hayamim, Chronicles, which were also written by Ezra. So, Ezra and Nehemiah were very fascinated by names. They they really wanted to preserve a lot of genealogical records. So, the first nine perakim of Divrei Hayamim is only a list of names. Now, Adam, starting from Adam. Adam, Sheth, you know, etc. So, they say if you wanted to be a talmid of the Vilna Gaon. Now, for Sheth, the Vilna Gaon didn't have a regular yeshiva. To be a talmid of the Vilna Gaon, you already had to be a very big talmid chacham. You couldn't just show up and say, "Yeah, I want to be the Vilna Gaon's talmid." But in addition to being a talmid, in addition to being a talmid chacham, you also had to show that you had a tremendous love of Torah. So, the love of Torah, the story goes, was he would tell you to learn the first nine perakim of Divrei Hayamim 100 times. And if you still felt a geshmack after learning it 100 times, that shows you truly love the Torah because essentially you're reading lists of names over and over and over and over again. But if you love the Torah, you'll see all sorts of meaning even in the names and even in the sequence. So, in Ezra and Nehemiah, there are many many lists that are preserved lovingly. And in perek, what is preserved is the idea that as he's reconstructing the wall. And once again, point A to point B, this gate to that gate, and that gate to that gate, and that gate to that gate. Again, archaeologists are fascinated by this. But, he gives you the designated family that was in charge of constructing segments of the wall. There actually more than 50 segments, 52 segments of the wall. And they were constructed by different families. Sometimes, now it's not really clear why did a given family get a certain segment. Sometimes, it's because they lived there. In other words, they built a section of a wall where their houses were, where their dwellings were. Other times, it was just assigned by lottery, etc. But, Perek Gimel goes over in great detail in over 50 different sections. From this point to this point was built by this family. From this point to this point was built by this family. From this point to this point was built by this family. Now, even if you won, even if you would, you know, everything, you know, in Israel they have the Tanakh contest, uh international Tanakh contest. And uh I think Netanyahu's son once was actually a winner of this year years ago. Um but, uh the Tanakh uh contest is quite obscure. You know, they'll ask you all sorts of obscure bits of information, but even the Tanakh contest in Israel doesn't ask you who built the segment of the wall from Shaar Ashpot to Shaar Mayim. Uh like, you know, nobody expects you to know that. So, when you look at it, you skip it over. But, you have to understand something. How important this was for the people who lived there at the time. Because this was a badge of honor. This was a permanent memorial. Like, you put up a plaque, you know, this building was donated by so-and-so. Well, what about this? This part of the wall of Yerushalayim was built, not just donated, built by so and so. So, the very thing that might bore you today, because, you know, you have no particular interest in it, was extremely important not just for that generation. It was important for generations after generations. A person would say, "My great-grandfather built this section of the wall." So, you have to understand that what Nehemiah is trying to do is Nehemiah is trying to bring honor to those who were most ser nefish to rebuild the walls of Yerushalayim, that their names should be memorialized. So, all of their descendants should have pride in the great, great deeds of their predecessors. The Tshuvas HaRoshba writes, not about this in particular, but he writes, "Mitzvah l'farsem oseh mitzvah." It is a mitzvah to publicize those who do mitzvahs. Now, this immediately creates a conflict. A person is supposed to be modest in his mitzvahs. A person is not to seek is not supposed to seek kavod. On the other hand, one of the ways we influence other people is by the mitzvahs that we do. I mean, if you only keep your mitzvahs totally to yourself, people, including your own children, are not going to learn from you, right? So, there has to be a difficult balance. You know, every rabbi goes through this. You know, in America, they started they started doing it in Israel, too, but it's really an American custom. Uh every show and yeshiva has an annual banquet in order to raise money. And the annual banquet always has an honoree. You know, somebody you're honoring, guest of honor, and the theory is people will give money because they want to honor this guy either because of business reasons or personal reasons and the like. Right? So, every rabbi goes through this minuet. You know, you go to the the uh proposed guest of honor and say, you know, we'd like to honor you with a banquet and the person has to say, "Oh, no, I don't want to be honored. I don't want to" and we always have to come back with the line, "We're not doing it for you. We're doing it, you know, uh so people will have this you know, to contribute uh to the mice and now sometimes we we we generate who are all too eager to be honored. But the truth of the matter is uh if you're eager to be honored, you might I don't want to be too harsh, but it might be that's a sign you don't deserve to be honored. Uh it's Madavka the person who doesn't want to be honored who perhaps may deserve it. This is what Pirkei Avot says. If you boreiach min hakavod, uh if you run away from honor, the honor will run after you. If you run to the honor, the honor runs away from you. Right? That's that's kind of kind of how it works. So, the point I'm making is if if you understand the role of these names and there'll be other lists of names as well, that it's not just a list of names, but it's a badge of honor, those who are most earnest fish to build, then it actually you know, you might even be interested in looking at the names. Hey, who did build? Cuz we don't have I mean again, you understand the walls of the old city today have nothing to do with the Nehemiah, certainly nothing to do with The walls of the old city today uh are of non-Jewish origin. Uh they were built by uh under the uh the uh rule of Suleiman [snorts] the Magnificent, uh but they largely duplicate the boundaries. Yes, the boundaries are are there, but the walls themselves are not uh uh we talk about Nehemiah's wall, we talk about Shlomo's wall, we're you're only talking about archaeological artifacts that they can identify here and there. So, don't confuse the present walls of the old city with any of this construction. So, but but nevertheless, if you have the correct identification of the gates and the like, which don't necessarily match up with the modern gates, then you can at least say that this stretch was built by so-and-so even though it's not the actual wall uh that they that they built. So, in that sense, uh Nehemiah thought it was a very very important idea to memorialize the heroic efforts, especially since, as he goes into great detail, it was not only a mesirus nefesh. And by the way, it does mention for those of you that are inclined to uh women's liberation, that fathers and daughters were involved in construction as well. So, he explicitly mentions that women were helping, girls were helping their uh parents uh kind of construct the wall, right? So, it's brother and sister, father doesn't say mother necessarily, but it says uh father, son, daughter were operating in in constructing in constructing the wall. Now, especially since Nehemiah goes to great detail to discuss the dangers in construction, that there were enemies. And again, this is a very close parallel to Ezra. If you remember with Ezra, there were enemies who tried to stop the building of the Beit Hamikdash. And indeed, they succeeded for 18 years. Here, there were enemies who tried to stop the building of the walls of Yerushalayim, but they didn't do so by going to the king and complaining because they knew that would not help anymore because this king is not like Koresh. This king allowed the Beit Hamikdash. This king allowed the building of the wall, but they simply engaged in terrorism. They attacked. They killed peo- They might have Well, it doesn't say they actually killed people, but they tried to kill people. Uh and Nehemiah even describes a situation where everybody was building a wall uh had like a a hammer a tool in one hand and a sword or a knife in the other hand to be able to to fight. Uh I'm not sure if that's meant to be taken literally. If you have a sword in one hand, you can't really work, but it means that they had weapons on them. Uh so it was very very dangerous. And Nehemiah goes to details describing the dangers and I would think that that is part of the honor that he wants to give to people who were moser nefesh not only to build the wall, but also to uh you know, risk their lives in order to create a safer environment. And something to think about when you think about the IDF, right? Etc. Of course, I'm not saying it's it's exactly the same, but once again, the idea of hakaras hatov for people who put their lives at risk in order to make a safer safer for Klal Yisrael as a whole. That's what Nehemiah is is trying to get at. So as I say, there is more than 52 sections of the wall that are credited to 52 family groups who did this. In fact, the Cohen Gadol at this point, Yeshua ben Yehozadak already died. He was the Cohen Gadol at the time of the Chanukah celebration. Uh and his son also died, but the next one in line, the grandson of Yeshua is a name actually the this name is very familiar to you from a different context. His name is Elyashiv. Now when you think Elyashiv, yeah, this is is this Rav Elyashiv's uh you know, great grandfather or something? No, no, it's not. Uh but Elyashiv uh was the name of the Cohen Gadol at the time of the building. The truth is, it's interesting Rebel Yoshua's family's name. Well, Rebel Yoshua's grandfather, his mother's father, was Rav Elyashiv, who was known who was a great great Makubal. He wrote the great maybe the last great definitive safer of Kabbalah, Leshem Shevo V'Yachloma. So, he's called the Baal Hasulam. Baal Hasulam. And Rebel Yoshua was very close to him. He was nephew and Rebel Yoshua was 12, but he actually helped his grandfather be masader the Kabbalistic writings. His grandfather was almost blind uh towards the end of his life. Now, Rebel Yoshua's father, Reb Avraham, who was a big talmud chacham, he adopted his wife's last name. His last name was something else. So, while Yoshua is not really the name of his father, it's really the name of his mother, uh after Reb Elyashiv. So, now in Russia, the name was actually Elyasaf. It was not Elyashiv. It was Russian Elyasaf. So, when they came to Eretz Yisrael, just like many people, they Hebrewized the name to Elyashiv. Yeah, and Elyashiv is a biblical term. It is the name of the uh the grand it's the third Cohen Gadol. It's the grandson of Yehoshua ben Ben Yachai Tzadok. So, it mentions that even Elyashiv the Cohen Gadol >> [snorts] >> himself got involved in construction of part of the wall. And the fact that even the most chashuv person uh did not have a problem. Now, it reminds me a little bit of something in much more modern times. We know that what is called the Yeshuv Hayashan. Yeshuv Hayashan means the old settlements. You heard the phrase Yeshuv Hayashan. And that's really a term for the pre-Zionist Ashkenazi Jewish community. Now, the pre-Zionist Ashkenazi Jewish community is not that old. I mean, the Sephardic community is much, much older than Ashkenazi. But, the nucleus, at least in Yerushalayim, of the pre-Zionist Ashkenazi community are the talmidim of the Vilna Gaon. Now, when the Vilna Gaon died, uh he himself wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael. He did not get here. Um why that's so is still a bit of a mystery. His talmidim said that the Vilna Gaon was a gilgul of Moshe Rabbenu, and since it was decreed that Moshe Rabbenu could not go to Eretz Yisrael, the Vilna Gaon could not go to Eretz Yisrael, either. As I say, there's still a mystery. Some give very technical reasons, but because he actually left. The Vilna Gaon left Vilna to go to Eretz Yisrael, and then, like, a few months later, he just shows up again. And he never gave a reason. His only son, Rav Avraham ben HaGra, said he asked his father many, many, many times. Most of the time his father said, "I don't want to talk about it." Uh at one time, his father said, "Min HaShamayim, they did not let me go." And that doesn't really say exactly what happened. So, I'm going to digress a moment just to talk about that. So, there's speculation, as you'd imagine, people have have all sorts of theories exactly uh what what happened. Some give technical reasons, which are kind of disappointing in a way, that the Vilna Gaon felt it would be too difficult to keep terumah, ma'aser, and shmita in Eretz Yisrael. So, he was just machriach that the conditions were that he couldn't do the mitzvot properly. To me, that's a little schwach. I mean, the Vilna Gaon could certainly figure it out. I mean, there'd be no question. But, but some say that way. Others have a very intriguing svara, which is really very, very powerful. They point out that when the Vilna Gaon left Vilna on his way to Eretz Yisrael, there was a stopover in Amsterdam. And I'm not an expert in the route, but apparently Amsterdam is not in the right direction. Why did he stop in Amsterdam? And the theory that was developed is that the Gra was a tremendous admirer of the Ramchal. The Ramchal had died already. But when the Gra read Mesilas Yesharim, the Gra said if the Ramchal would be alive, uh he would walk uh to learn Torah from the Ramchal. In fact, that's kind of how the Ramchal became popularized in the Ramchal's lifetime. There was a lot of opposition against him. He was on the verge of being put in cherem because of his kabbalistic teachings. And uh he was a bit of a very strong nonconformist. And you know, you wouldn't learn Ramchal in the mainstream yeshiva. So, how did Ramchal make it? He made it primarily because of the tremendous koach of the endorsement of the Gra. The Gra said the Ramchal is kodesh kodashim. That made the Ramchal kodesh kodashim because the Gra put his seal of approval. Uh just like Maharal's writings much much later became popular only after Rav Footner kind of brought it in. Uh before Rav Footner, Ramchal was uh not Maharal was not that widely studied. So, be that as it may, so the theory goes like this. The Ramchal had lived in Amsterdam. Originally from Italy, but he had lived in Amsterdam. And then from Amsterdam he came to Eretz Yisrael where he died very young. He died around 40 uh years old. Uh but the Gra had heard that the Ramchal had a secret store of writings about Mashiach and Geulah that were hidden away in Amsterdam. And the Gra wanted to read the Kisvei Aram Chal while bringing the Geulah before he would come to Eretz Yisrael. And this whole idea was a Messianic idea that we'll have the Ramchal's Svarim about how to bring the Geulah, then we'll come to Eretz Yisrael, we'll bring Mashiach, we'll bring Geulah. So, that's the theory of why he went to Amsterdam. So, why did it collapse? So, here we're not sure either. I mean, the Gra just said Minashamayim, they didn't want me to do it. Either he did not find the writings or he found the writings, but Minashamayim, there was a sign that we're not yet ready for for Geulah. So, be that as it may, uh the Gra did not uh come go to Eretz Yisrael, but his Talmidim did. And his Talmidim were not just involved in Ruchniyus, they were not just involved in uh Kollelim and Yeshivos. They were physical, they physically built a number of the neighborhoods. Many of the neighborhoods the older neighborhoods outside of the old city walls are from the Talmidei HaGra, whether it's Mea Shearim, Nachalat Shiva, Yemin Moshe, uh things like that. Uh Moshe is of course Moshe Montefiore, who was the British nobleman and philanthropist who economically supported all of these neighborhoods. And they had a Shita, Talmidei HaGra had a Shita that in order to ensure that a Makom has Kedusha, every single aspect of its construction has to be done by Tzadikim or by Yirei Shamayim. You don't have Arab workers, you don't have non-religious workers. The plumbing I was going to say the air conditioning, but they didn't have air conditioning those days. But whatever it would be, whatever the infrastructure was, the building, the brick laying, and therefore they had an idea that the most Chashuve people had to be physically involved in the construction of Eretz Israel to ensure its Kedusha. So, that I think you see from Nehemiah where even the Cohen Gadol was physically involved in building in building the land. Okay? And uh we see this model in the Tamei'ei HaGra uh much much later. Um okay. So, that's the um that's the story of the construction and then uh we are told in Perek Vav, so some of the details skip around a little bit. Meaning the actual construction is Perek Gimel. [clears throat] Perek Vav, there's some other things in the middle we'll get to later. Perek Vav gives me two bits of interesting information. It took 52 days to complete the wall. 52 days. Now, I'm not sure if that means 52 days of work, which would mean longer because you have Shabbos in the middle, or the whole thing is 52 days, which means they only worked minus the the Shabboses. And we are told of the completion date. We're not given a starting date, so that's why I can't compute how you're counting the 52 days, but the the conclusion date is the 25th of Elul. Right before Rosh Hashanah. The 25th of Elul is actually a significant date. It is the first day of creation. Remember, Rosh Hashanah is the sixth day of creation. That's the day Adam HaRishon was created. Go back six days, that's Elul 25. And uh the Meforshim say that this is a remez that rebuilding the walls of Yerushalayim is like creating a new world. It's like creating a world of of kedusha. So, 52 days to complete, although as I say, I'm not really sure what the starting date was in terms of Shabbat. And it was completed on the 25th of of Elul. And presumably, this is still the 20th year. In other words, the the Khamenei started this immediately. This is This is the 20th year of Darius. He came and he started and he did it. So, this is pretty good. If you think about it, how long it takes to do construction today, uh this is pretty good. It wouldn't have been any faster today. Uh that's for sure. Uh now, here I I just want to throw you a little bit of a kasha. We've spoken before about the safer, which is the oldest safer [snorts] of Torah Shebal Peh that was written down. It's even older than the Mishna. It's 100 years older than the Mishna. And this is the safer called Megillat Taanit. And the Gemara itself quotes Megillat Taanit sometimes. It quotes it as a braisa, cuz it is a braisa, because anything outside of the Mishna from the Tannaim is called braisa. Braisa just means outside. But this is a braisa that's earlier. Right, some braisas are later than the Mishna. Some braisas are earlier than the Mishna. Megillat Taanit is a braisa that is earlier than the Mishna. Now, what is Megillat Taanit? Megillat Taanit, which literally means the scroll of fast days, but it's really the opposite. It is a list of notable days that Chazal said are celebrations for which you're not allowed to fast and you're not allowed to eulogize. Some of them are less festive, so there's a prohibition of fasting, but you're allowed to eulogize. Some of them are on a higher level of simcha, you're not allowed to eulogize, either. Now, Megillas Taanis does not mention Shabbos, Yom Tov, those things, of course. Uh those are in the Torah, you don't you don't fast. But it does mention Chanukah. Uh and it mentions a lot of dates that we don't even keep today. The military victories besides Chanukah, different military victories of the Hasmonean and the like. Uh and the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah says l'maskana batla Megillas Taanis chutz mi Chanukah that the holidays of Megillas Taanis are [clears throat] no longer kept except for Chanukah. So, there are like 30 days and most of them we do not keep today. But one of the days that is listed as a holiday in Megillas Taanis is in the month of Elul. And it says this is when the walls of Yerushalayim were rebuilt. And that became a simcha uh that Chazal enshrined in Megillas Taanis that on that day you're not allowed to give a hesped for a meis and you're not allowed to fast. Problem is Megillas Taanis seems to give you the wrong date. The date that is given in Megillas Taanis is the 4th of Elul. The 4th of Elul the walls of Yerushalayim were completed, and therefore it is a day that you don't eulogize and you don't fast. Problem is, of course, the pasuk says b'feirish in the book of Nehemiah that the wall was completed not the 4th of Elul. The wall was completed the 25th of Elul. Right? It's the wrong date. So, because of this the Meforshim want to suggest contrary to what you might think in terms of pashut chat that the statement the walls of Yerushalayim were complete so you think Nehemiah because it's the month of Elul they say it's referring to a totally different thing that happened uh hundreds of years later either in the days of the Hasmonean time where they also expanded the city. That's expanding the city. Or even in Roman times, the last Jewish king before the Hurban was Agrippas. He was a actually Jewish king. And he expanded Yerushalayim, etc. And that became a simcha, though of course it didn't really help because shortly afterwards was the Hurban, which is part of why Megillat Taanit became battul. All of these happy days weren't happy anymore. So, even though the text of Megillat Taanit seems to be referring to Nehemiah. But the Meforshim say it's just bringing Nehemiah to show that rebuilding the walls was a simcha. In other words, it's trying to show you, you see from Nach that when you rebuild the walls, you have a celebration. So, we will have a celebration when the Hasmonean did it, and we will have a celebration when Agrippas did it, but not that this particular date corresponds to Nehemiah. It's a bit of a doichek in Megillat Taanit because as they say you're very tempted because Elul, it's the same month, you're very tempted to assign it to Nehemiah. But in point of fact, the dates don't match. Uh Nehemiah's wall was completed the 25th and whatever celebration this is is attributed to the 4th of of Elul. Okay? So, that's why the Meforshim say that this is not Nehemiah's wall. This is referring to either the Hasmoneans expansion or even the expansion under Agrippa Hamelech who was the last Jewish king before the before the carbon. Okay? All righty. So now what's then complicated I'll save this for tomorrow is things are split up in the community and it's not always clear why they're split up. Meaning from Prakim Aleph to Daled it's fairly clear the building of the wall. Then we're going to have a lot of unrelated things. Then Perek Vav goes back to the building of the wall. That's where you get the date of the 25th of Elul and the 52 days. And then we have other things, some very important things. [clears throat] And then all the way at the end of the book we have a and this is going to be very important halakhically, we have the ceremony of dedicating the wall. And I'm going to spend a lot of time with that although it's it's at towards the end of the book. And the question becomes chronologically when did they do this dedication? I mean in other words the simple shot would be that they finished the wall uh the the 25th of Elul and then they had a dedication ceremony. Maybe they had it before Rosh Hashanah. But there is another possibility that even if they finished the wall maybe the dedication ceremony was not right away and maybe it was years later. I mean that would explain why it's put after a whole bunch of other events. Right? So it's not really clear how you correlate the dedication ceremony of the wall with the completion of the wall. Were they adjacent to each other? Was it the same day? Or was it after Yom Tov? Cuz you're coming close to Rosh Hashanah. Or was it even years later after other issues were resolved? But I'm going to just for tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to spend time on the dedication ceremony because uh the Mishna in Maseches Shevuos uh uses the story of Nehemiah for some very, very important halachic principles about expanding the Makom Hamikdash, interestingly enough, and expanding Yerushalayim, and the conditions that have to be met in order for Kedushas Hamikdash to go beyond its boundaries. And there are such possibilities. And for Kedushas Yerushalayim to go beyond its boundaries, and you have to follow the procedures that were utilized in Nehemiah's sanctification. Um Pa- pa- part of the problem is, though, that the way the Mishna describes the ceremony is not exactly the way the Psukim describe the ceremony. So, uh there's going to be problems there also. That the Mishna says, "Do A, B, C, and D." And uh in the book of Nehemiah, it's A, B, E, and F. Okay, so we'll talk about those those different issues. So, this if you're interested to look ahead, this is already towards the end. This is Perek uh Yud Yud Beis. Okay, see you tomorrow. >> [clears throat and laughter]