פירוש על יומא 1:5

The elders of the Court would transfer him. Those who had read before him the order of the day.

Introduction As I stated in my commentary to mishnah two and in my introduction to the tractate, many of the high priests were Sadducees, or perhaps more accurately, had Sadducean leanings. The Sadducees debated with the Pharisees the proper form of the Yom Kippur ritual, as I explain below. In the mishnah’s eyes, the elders spend a week teaching the high priest how to perform the service in the proper Pharisaic manner. Our mishnah describes the parting words between the elders and the high priest, where they remind him to act like a Pharisee and not a Sadducee.

לזקני כהונה – to teach him the priest’s taking handfuls of incense (see Talmud Yoma 19a, which was the task of the House of Avtinas to teach him the manipulation of the incense), as it says (Leviticus 16:12): “two handfuls of finely ground aromatic incense” and this was difficult work.

The elders of the court handed him over to the elders of the priesthood and they took him up to the upper chamber of the house of Avtinas. On the eve of Yom Kippur the elders would give him over to the elders of the priesthood. He would go up to the house of Avtinas where the incense was normally made. There he would learn how to make the incense that he was going to make on Yom Kippur within the Holy of Holies.

The House of Avtinas. There they would make the incense.

They adjured him and then left. And they said to him [when leaving]: “Sir, high priest, we are messengers of the court and you are our messenger and the messenger of the court. We adjure you by the one that caused His name dwell in this house that you do not change anything of what we said to you.” When the elders of the court depart from him they recite to him the following oath, reminding him that he must do whatever they have taught him to do. The Talmud explains that there was the following debate between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sadducees held that the high priest would put the incense into the incense pan outside of the Holy of Holies and then go inside, whereas the Pharisees held that this was done inside.

והשביעוהו – that he would not become a Sadducee to improve the incense upon the coal-pan from outside and to bring it in from inside, as they expound (Leviticus 16:2): “for I appear in the cloud over the cover,” from the cloud of the of smoke of the incense it will come, and then I will appear over the cover, but the matter is not this, for the Biblical verse states there (Leviticus 16:13): “He shall put the incense on the fire before the LORD…”

He turned aside and wept and they turned aside and wept. In the climactic conclusion to the mishnah, both the high priest and the elders end up crying (this would make a good movie). He cries because they suspected him of being a Sadducee and they cry because reality forced them to suspect him. Alternatively, they cry because the situation in their time had deteriorated so badly that they had to force a high priest to take an oath that he would not act like a Sadducee.

הוא פורש ובוכה – for they suspected him of being a Sadducee.

והן פורשין ובוכין – that they suspected him, as the Master said (Shabbat 97a): “A person who suspects those who are fit, is whipped on his body.”