Mishnayos Shekalim Perek 8 Mishnah 5
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שקלים פרק ח׳ משנה ה׳
The Gemara discusses the aforementioned curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the Sanctuary. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says in the name of Rabbi Shimon the son of the deputy High Priest: The curtain has the thickness of a handbreadth, and it is woven from seventy-two strands of yarn. And each and every strand from those seventy-two is made from twenty-four threads. The curtain was made from four materials: Sky-blue wool, purple wool, scarlet wool, and fine linen, and a strand was made up of six threads of each type of material. And with regard to the dimensions of the curtain, its length was forty cubits, as the height of the ceiling of the Sanctuary; and its width was twenty cubits, to match the width of the entrance; and it was made from eighty-two ten-thousands, i.e., 820,000 golden dinar. And they used to make two new curtains every year. And the curtain was so heavy that they needed three hundred priests to carry it when they would immerse it.
רַבָּן שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן גַּמְלִיאֵל אוֹמֵר מִשּׁוּם רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן הַסְּגַן, פָּרֹכֶת עָבְיָהּ טֶפַח, וְעַל שִׁבְעִים וּשְׁתַּיִם נִימִין נֶאֱרֶגֶת, וְעַל כָּל נִימָא וְנִימָא עֶשְׂרִים וְאַרְבָּעָה חוּטִין. אָרְכָּהּ אַרְבָּעִים אַמָּה וְרָחְבָּהּ עֶשְׂרִים אַמָּה, וּמִשְּׁמוֹנִים וּשְׁתֵּי רִבּוֹא נַעֲשֵׂית. וּשְׁתַּיִם עוֹשִׂין בְּכָל שָׁנָה, וּשְׁלשׁ מֵאוֹת כֹּהֲנִים מַטְבִּילִין אוֹתָהּ:
Bartenura
נימין. ליצי״ש בלע״ז:
עשרים וארבעה חוטין. לפי שהיא עשויה מתכלת וארגמן ותולעת שני ושש, וכל מין ומין חוטו כפול ו׳. כדאיתא ביומא:
ארכה מ׳ ורחבה כ׳ כמדת פתח האולם שהיה גבהו ארבעים ורחבו עשרים:
ומשמונים ושתים רבוא. כך היה מנין החוטים שהיא נעשית מהן. פירוש אחר, מנין דנרי זהב שהיו מוציאין עליה. ויש ספרים שכתוב בהן ובשמונים ושתים ריבות, כלומר דשמונים ושתים נערות בתולות היו מתעסקות בעשייתה:
ושלש מאות כהנים היו מטבילין אותה. דכלים הנגמרים אע״פ שנגמרו בטהרה צריכים טבילה לקודש כדאיתא במסכת חגיגה. ושלש מאות כהנים דתנן במתניתין לשון גוזמא והבאי הוא, דלא היה צריך כל כך כהנים להטבילה:
נימין – “Lytzish” in the foreign language.
עשרים וארבעה חוטין – because it is made from blue, purple and crimson yarns and fine linen and each and every species, its thread is doubled six times as is mentioned in Yoma (Talmud Yoma 87a).
ארכה מ' ורחבה כ' – like the measure of the hall leading to the interior of the Temple (see Tractate Middot, Chapter 4, Mishnah 7), that its height (it should be “length,” based upon the commentary of the Tosafot Yom Tov) was forty cubits and its width was twenty cubits (see also Tractate Middot, Chapter 3, Mishnah 6; but we also learn in Chapter 3, Mishnah 7 that the height was also forty cubits).
ושמונים ושתים רבוא – this was the number of threads from which it was made. Another explanation: the number of gold dinars that they spent on it. But there are books in which it is written in them that “that with twenty thousand and eighty,” meaning to say that there eighty-two young virgins were engaged in making it.
ושלש מאות כהנים היו מטבילין אותה – utensils that were completed even though they were completed in ritual purity, require immersion for holy things, as is found in Tractate Hagigah (Chapter 3, Mishnah 2). The three hundred Kohanim that are taught in our Mishnah is the language of hyperbole and exaggeration, for they did not require so many Kohanim to immerse it.