When the Holy Ark Traveled | Zevachim 119
Summary
- R' Meir Simcha (Meshech Chochma, Parashat Re'eh) presents an answer to an exceptionally difficult question about offerings brought at Bochim (Shoftim 2) and at Bet El after the episode of Pilegesh beGiv'ah (Shmuel I 20:26–27) during the Shiloh period when there is an apparent issur of outside offerings. He establishes two frameworks for the status of private altars: one that makes it dependent on the Makom Asher Yivchar principle of menucha (Shiloh) and nachala (Yerushalayim), and another—rooted in a Tosefta and Yerushalmi and formulated by the Meiri—that makes it depend on the location of the *aron*. He then argues that in those narratives the *aron* was not in Shiloh (but in Shechem and Bet El), which reinstated a heter for *bamot*, and he extends this logic to explain the issur of *bamot* in the *Midbar* because the *aron* was present.
- R' Meir Simcha cites a question from a chavrusa about Shoftim 2:5, which records that the people cried at Bochim and “brought offerings to Hashem,” even though, by the chronology, the Mishkan was already at Shiloh for 14 years and *bamot* should be prohibited. Seder Olam counts Yehoshua’s passing at year 28 after entry, with seven years of conquest and seven of apportionment, and the Mishkan’s immediate move from Gilgal to Shiloh for 369 years with no gap. The question challenges how those offerings were not a case of *shechutei chutz* during Shiloh’s period of issur *bamot*.
- R' Meir Simcha adds a second question from Shmuel I 20:26–27, which recounts that all Israel gathered at Bet El, wept, fasted, and “brought olot and shelamim before Hashem” in the same Shiloh era. He characterizes both questions as קשיות עצומות because they describe public offerings outside Shiloh while Shiloh ostensibly imposes an issur of *bamot*.
- The text delineates multiple periods with differing statuses: the 39 years in the wilderness, 14 years at Gilgal, 369 years at Shiloh, 57 years at Nov and Givon, 410 years of the First Temple, and 420 years of the Second Temple. It states that the 39 in the wilderness had an issur *bamot*, Gilgal a heter *bamot*, Shiloh an issur *bamot*, Nov and Givon a heter *bamot*, and both Batei Mikdash an issur *bamot*.
- One approach makes issur/heter *bamot* depend on whether the Shechinah is in the chosen house versus a temporary hosting, drawing on the Alshich and on sources quoted by the Brisker Rav. It presents the verse כי לא באתם עד עתה אל המנוחה ואל הנחלה and the teaching מנוחה זו שילה נחלה זו ירושלים, asserting that when the Mishkan stands in a Makom Asher Yivchar, offerings outside are prohibited, whereas in transient hosting there is heter *bamot*.
- The Yerushalmi (Megillah 1) cites a siman: כל זמן שהארון בפנים הבמות אסורות; יצא הבמות מותרות, making the status of *bamot* hinge on the location of the *aron*. The Meiri (Megillah 1) explains that in the wilderness there was a mizbeach with the *aron* present, so *bamot* were asur; at Gilgal the *aron* traveled with the wars and was not fixed with the mizbeach, so *bamot* were mutar; at Nov and Givon the Mishkan and mizbeach stood without the *aron* (captured by the Philistines, later in Kiryat Ye'arim, at times in the house of Oved Edom), so *bamot* were mutar. The Meiri states that when Yerushalayim was established and the *aron* stood by the mizbeach, *bamot* became forbidden permanently, while during all times of heter the copper mizbeach served as a public “*bamah gedolah*” without removing the permissibility of private *bamot* so long as the *aron* was not fixed with it.
- R' Meir Simcha asserts—*lulei demistafina*—that even within the 369 years of Shiloh, whenever the *aron* was physically not “bifnim,” the law would revert to heter *bamot*. He grounds this in the Yerushalmi’s siman that the determinant is the presence of the *aron*, not merely the designation of Shiloh as menucha.
- R' Meir Simcha, citing Rashi and Radak to Shoftim 2, states that the Bochim episode occurred immediately after the petirah of Yehoshua and the zekeinim, and Bavli Shabbat 105b reads ימים האריכו, שנים לא האריכו, indicating the elders died about when Yehoshua did. He then cites Yehoshua 24, where Yehoshua convenes Israel at Shechem, writes a covenant, and places a great stone “תחת האלה … אשר במקדש ה',” which Rashi explains as referring to the location because they brought the *aron* there, as implied by ויתייצבו לפני האלקים. He concludes that at that time the *aron* was in Shechem rather than in Shiloh, creating a window of heter *bamot* that validates the offerings at Bochim.
- R' Meir Simcha points to the next verse in that narrative: וישאלו בני ישראל בה' … ושם ארון ברית האלוקים בימים ההם, which explicitly locates the *aron* at Bet El. He concludes that since the *aron* was outside Shiloh at Bet El, the offerings of olot and shelamim there were permitted by the heter *bamot*.
- R' Meir Simcha presents a practical implication: if status depends on Makom Asher Yivchar, Shiloh’s menucha would always impose issur *bamot*, making those narratives unanswerable; if it depends on the *aron*, the heter applies whenever the *aron* is out, even during Shiloh. He further explains the issur *bamot* in the *Midbar* despite the absence of menucha and nachala, because the *aron* was present with Israel throughout the wilderness.
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