Today’s daf includes the following mishnah:
One who sells a plot of land to another or who receives a plot of land from another (under commission) to build a bridal house for that one’s son or a widow’s house for his daughter, he should build it four cubits by six — these are the words of Rabbi Akiva.
Rabbi Yishmael said: This is a cowshed! One who wants to build a cowshed builds it four by six. A small house is six by eight; a big one is eight by ten; a banquet hall is ten by ten. The height should be half its width and half its length. A proof for this: Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: Like the building of the Sanctuary.
A bridal house or a widow’s house is a simple, basic home. What are the minimum dimensions acceptable for such a build? Rabbi Akiva (who was accustomed to poverty) says four by six cubits — slightly larger than a king-sized bed — is an adequate footprint, while Rabbi Yishmael describes such a structure as a mere cowshed and asserts the minimum should be double that. Rabbi Yishmael also addresses the height of the structure, which he says should be the average of its length and width. This happens to have been true for the Sanctuary, which was 20 cubits wide, 40 cubits long and 30 cubit high. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel’s statement — like the building of the Sanctuary — is brought as proof.
Other versions of Rabban Gamliel’s statement appear elsewhere in the Mishnah and, in fact, later on our daf, where he is reported to have said: All is like the building of the Sanctuary. This statement is interpreted in the Gemara in two opposite ways. One possibility is that the statement is direct and declarative, as we just read it above, furnishing proof for Rabbi Yishmael’s assertion about the height of a building. But another possibility is that Rabban Gamliel means it sarcastically, as in: Are all buildings like the Sanctuary?
These two readings open us to two different ways of relating to God and the role of the Temple in our lives. Perhaps our homes are like the Temple in the way our Shabbat table is like the altar — a direct analogy and imitation. Or perhaps our homes are completely different from the Temple and should not be compared to it. In talking about the space of the Sanctuary, the Gemara (on tomorrow’s daf) wonders how it was possible for the kruvim (angels) to fit on top of the Ark of the Covenant. The problem is that the measurements given for the kruvim and the measurements given of the Sanctuary don’t seem to match — the former are apparently too big to accommodate the latter. It is then asserted that the kruvim, despite their prodigious size, miraculously didn’t occupy any space at all. And yet, a slew of rabbis come to disagree with this, offering various layouts in which the measurements make sense.
I want to argue that the same tension between the two readings of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel is present here. Is the Temple a place of miracles, or a place that is guided by rational, natural procedures? One could argue both. One might conceive of the purity and impurity rituals and sacrificial rites of the Temple to be magically cleansing, or one might conceive of them in a less supernatural way: a manifestation of our moral actions, and the sacrificial cult as a way to actualize what we are trying to do spiritually.
What could be better than saying our house is like the Temple, that God is present in our houses, that we can interact with God in a very real way? Personally, I long to feel God tangibly in my life. But sometimes that is hard. I am fascinated by the Temple, by the way it made sin and repentance a physical process — but I don’t know if I would want to do that myself. Sometimes it feels like the Judaism we have now is completely removed from the sacrificial system, and it feels utterly illogical to assert that our houses are like the Temple. But other times, the idea of God as a real presence and our homes as Temples make sense. Perhaps, then, Rabban Gamliel’s claim is less a statement either way than an aspiration — a hope that we can experience God’s presence in our homes, as the Jewish people once did in the Temple.
Read all of Bava Batra 98 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on October 1, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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