La libación de agua —¿Cómo es eso? Llenaría un matraz dorado con tres troncos [(la menor de las libaciones, un cuarto de un hin para un cordero)] del Shiloach [un manantial cerca de Jerusalén]. Cuando llegó a la Puerta del Agua [(Una de las puertas de Ezra se llamó así porque a través de ella se trajo el frasco de agua para la libación del festival)], sonaron (en el shofar) tekiah, teruah, tekiah, [de acuerdo con (Isaías 12: 3): "Y sacarás agua con alegría". Subió la rampa, [que estaba en el sur del altar] y giró a la izquierda, [porque las libaciones están en la esquina suroeste (del altar), que es la primera (a la que llega) cuando gira a la izquierda.] Había dos cuencas de plata allí. R. Yehudah dice: Eran de cal, pero su superficie estaba ennegrecida debido al vino (vertido en él) [para que parecieran plata, que es más oscura que la cal.] Y tenían salidas [una a cada una] como dos delgadas hocicos, uno (relativamente) grueso (para el vino); el otro, (relativamente) delgado (para el agua), de modo que ambos (el vino y el agua) lleguen al fondo al mismo tiempo. [("como dos hocicos delgados" :) el Cohein se agitaría (el contenido) en la boca de las cuencas, y las libaciones descenderían a través de los caños sobre el techo del altar, donde había un conducto por el cual el agua y el agua el vino descendió a la mierda (un hoyo al lado del altar), que era hueco y muy profundo. ("uno, grueso; el otro, delgado" :) Uno de los hocicos (el hocico del vino) era grueso; y uno, (el hocico de agua) era delgado. Esto, para que ellos (el vino y el agua) lleguen al fondo al mismo tiempo. Porque el agua fluye más rápido que el vino, que es más espeso y más lento. Por lo tanto, el hocico del vino se hizo más grueso (es decir, más ancho) que el hocico del agua, de modo que llegaran al fondo al mismo tiempo.] La cuenca occidental era para el agua, y la oriental para el vino. Si vertió el vino en el depósito de agua o el agua en el depósito de vino, todavía ha cumplido su obligación. R. Yehudah dice: Con un registro realizó la libación los ocho (días). [Él difiere con el primer tanna en ambos, tres registros y siete días, R. Yehudah dice (solo un registro, y eso) que la libación también se obtiene al octavo día. La halajá no está de acuerdo con R. Yehudah.] Y al que realiza la libación se le dice: "¡Mantén la mano en alto!" [para que podamos ver si viertes agua en la cuenca (para los saduceos no reconocen que la libación de agua es una mitzvá)]. Por una vez, un [Saduceo] vertió [el agua] sobre sus pies, y toda la gente lo "apedreó" con sus etrogim.
Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
מן השלוח – it is a spring that is near to Jerusalem.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Sukkah
Introduction
Another one of the unique ceremonies performed at the Temple on Sukkot was the water libation. During the year libations, that is pouring liquid onto the altar, were always performed with wine. The water libation is unique and was vehemently opposed by the Sadducees, as we shall see at the end of the Mishnah.
The water libation functioned as a supplication to God to bring rain in the upcoming season. As I have emphasized in other places, the rainy season in Israel is from Sukkot to Pesah. If enough rain does not fall in this period people’s lives would have been in serious danger. In the Temple they would pour water onto the altar to ask God to bring rain from the heavens to fill the cisterns and underground aquifers below.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
שער המים – One of the gates of the [Temple] courtyard is called this, on account of the fact that there they would bring in the flask of water for the libation of the Festival.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Sukkah
How was the water libation [performed]? A golden flask holding three logs was filled from the Shiloah. When they arrived at the water gate, they sounded a teki'ah [long blast], a teru'ah [a staccato note] and again a teki'ah. [The priest then] went up the ascent [of the altar] and turned to his left where there were two silver bowls. Rabbi Judah says: they were of plaster [but they looked silver] because their surfaces were darkened from the wine. They had each a hole like a slender snout, one being wide and the other narrow so that both emptied at the same time. The one on the west was for water and the one on the east for wine. If he poured the flask of water into the bowl for wine, or that of wine into that for water, he has fulfilled his obligation. Rabbi Judah says: with one log he performed the ceremony of the water-libation all eight days. To [the priest] who performed the libation they used to say, “Raise your hand”, for one time, a certain man poured out the water over his feet, and all the people pelted him with their etrogs. The water libation ritual would begin with a procession from the Shiloah, the stream that empties out at the base of the Temple Mount. As we shall see when we learn the fifth chapter, this procession would begin in the morning after Simchat Bet Hashoevah (to be explained below). The people would make their way up to the Temple and enter through a designated gate called “the water gate.” [Made much more famous about 2,000 years later!] Just as we saw with the aravah ritual, here too they blew three shofar blasts. Again, this seems to have been a way of highlighting the event and emphasizing its importance in light of the fact that others disagreed with its fulfillment. They would then pour the water into a special bowl that had a hole in it. The water would go down to a cistern underneath the altar called “shitin”, where according to legend it would cause the waters of the deep to rise and nourish the earth. The wine libation was done simultaneously. Rabbi Judah disagrees with the first opinion in the mishnah concerning two matters: 1) the libation was done with a log and not with three logs. Secondly, he holds that the water libation was for all eight days and not just on the seven days of Sukkot. In the final story a priest, identified in the Talmud as a Sadducee, pours the water onto the floor of the Temple rather than pouring it onto the altar. In response, the people pelt him with their etrogs. There are several fascinating aspects to this story. First of all, although the Sadducean priest disagreed with the water libation, he was still working in the Temple and he ended up with the water flask in his hand. If the Sadducees controlled the Temple why did he have the water flask such that he had to cast it down? Why would they have bothered bringing the water up from the Shiloah in the first place? And if the Pharisees controlled the Temple, why would they have let a Sadducean priest perform a ritual that they surely knew he disagreed with? Another interesting point is that the people’s sentiments clearly lie with the rabbis/Pharisees. Finally, there is a very similar story in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 13, Chapter 13: “As to Alexander, his own people were seditious against him; for at a festival which was then celebrated, when he stood upon the altar, and was going to sacrifice, the nation rose upon him, and pelted him with citrons [which they then had in their hands, because] the law of the Jews required that at the feast of tabernacles every one should have branches of the palm tree and citron tree; which thing we have elsewhere related.” This event occurred during the Hasmonean reign, meaning sometime in the early 1st century B.C.E. Alexander Yannai was king and high priest and was known to have had Sadducean leanings. However, there is nothing in Josephus about a water libation. The people pelt him with etrogs (citrons) because they oppose him as king and high priest. It is hard to know if the story in the Mishnah is related to this story from Josephus, either historically or literarily, but one thing we can know for sure if you’re a Sadducee in the Temple on Sukkot, you’d better watch your head!
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
תקעו הריעו – because it is stated (Isaiah 12:3): “Joyfully shall you draw water [from the fountains of triumph].”
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
עלה בכבש – [the ramp] was on the southern side of the Altar.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
ופנה לשמאלו – for the libations were made in the south-west corner, and when he turns to the left, it is the first.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
שהיו משחירים פניהם – on account of the wine, and they were similar to silver which is black from the plaster.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
כמין שני חוטמין דקין – one snout in one bowl with one perforation in its nose, and the Kohen/priest would empty into the mouth of the bowls and libations would cause an uninterrupted flow/splash and descend through the spouts on the roof of the Altar, and on the Altar was a perforation where the wine and the water would go down to pits by the side of the altar into which the remainder of the libations were poured which are cavities and very deep.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
אחד מעובה ואחד דק – one of the perforations was thick, and that was the one for wine, and one that was thin was for the water.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
כדי שיהיו כלין שניהן בבת אחת – for the water would hurry to leave more than the wine, for the wine was thicker and took longer to leave, therefore, the perforation for wine was fatter than the thin perforation for water, in order that they can be emptied at the same time.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
ה"ג מערבי של מים, מזרחי של יין – the bowls were placed near the corner nearest this one for the one and the other for the other, one to the western side and one more inside of it, that is, to the east.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
ר' יהודה אומר וכו' – in two things he disagreed; on the three logs he disagreed and on the seventh [day] that was stated by the first Teacher. And Rabbi Yehuda came to say that even on the eighth day they would pour a libation, but the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Yehuda.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
הגבה את ידך – in order that it could be seen if he was placing water in the bowl, for the Sadducees didn’t accept the libation of the water.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Sukkah
שפעם אחת נסך – one Sadducee [offered a libation] with the water on his feet.
