Want to picture a sanhedrin in session? The mishnah on today’s daf describes how the 23 judges were arranged: in a semicircle, with three rows of Torah scholars sitting in front of them as judicial alternates, ready to step in if something happens to one of the appointed judges. The Talmud next asks for the source of this seating arrangement.
Rabbi Aha bar Hanina says: As the verse states: “Your navel is like a round goblet, let no mingled wine be wanting; your belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.” (Song of Songs 7:3) “Your navel” — this is the sanhedrin. And why is it called “your navel”? It is because it sits in the navel of the world. “Goblet (agan)” — because it protects (megina) the entire world. “Round (hassahar)” — it is similar to the moon (sahar).
Rabbi Aha bar Hanina finds a biblical basis for the sanhedrin’s standard seating chart in Song of Songs 7:3, an appreciative description of the beloved’s beautiful abdomen. How is a sanhedrin like a woman’s navel? When the Temple stood, the sanhedrin met in the Temple precincts — “the navel of world.” In Song of Songs, the deep navel is compared to a goblet, and the Hebrew word for a goblet is similar to the word for a shield. Thus, Rabbi Aha infers that the sanhedrin protects the world. He concludes that the Hebrew word for round, which is etymologically related to the word for the crescent of the moon, cryptically prescribes the semi-circular seating arrangement of the judges.
Having established this connection between the verse in the Song of Songs and the sanhedrin, and used it to demonstrate the biblical basis of the seating arrangement of judges, Rabbi Aha continues to exposit the verse in this vein, returning to the theme of the sanhedrin’s universal benefit to humanity:
“Your belly is like a heap of wheat” — just as a heap of wheat, all derive benefit from it, so too, the sanhedrin, all derive benefit from their explanations.
Rabbi Aha’s explanation is a typical midrashic reading, taking each part of the verse and interpreting it in light of the subject at hand. How did he pick this particular verse? At the literal level, the Song of Songs reads as a risque love poem. For the rabbis, it was also an important allegory for the passionate relationship between God and Israel, and therefore often interpreted through midrash.
In his now classic Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash, Daniel Boyarin argued that midrash is intertextual, meaning that when it connects biblical texts to other seemingly unrelated ideas, it is often accomplishing a two-directional act of interpretation. In the example on today’s daf, reading the sanhedrin into Song of Songs creates a much deeper and more lasting appreciation for the lover’s gorgeous curves. And the abundance of the woman’s shapely body offers insight into not only the physical layout of the court but also its central position in the maintenance of a just world.
Read all of Sanhedrin 37 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on January 23, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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