יומא 9:1 — Soncino English Talmud

Because he sent into all the districts of Israel and he found that they were separating only the great heave-offering; [it is also right that the Sages did not impose upon these bakers] the first tithe and the poor man's tithe, because [of the principle that] the claimant must produce evidence; but the second tithe, let then [the baker] separate, take it up to Jerusalem and eat it there! ‘Ulla said: Because these parhedrin were beating them all the twelve months and telling them ‘sell cheap, sell cheap,’ the Sages did not burden them [to set apart the second tithe and take it up to Jerusalem]. What does parhedrin mean? — Porase [managers]. Rabbah b. Bar Hana said: What is the meaning of the passage, The fear of the Lord prolongeth days,’ but the years of the wicked shall be shortened? ‘The fear of the Lord prolongeth days’ refers to the first Sanctuary, which remained standing for four hundred and ten years and in which there served only eighteen high priests. ‘But the years of the wicked shall be shortened’ refers to the second Sanctuary, which abided for four hundred and twenty years and at which more than three hundred [high] priests served . Take off therefrom the forty years which Simeon the Righteous served, eighty years which Johanan the high priest served, ten, which Ishmael b. Fabi served, or, as some say, the eleven years of R. Eleazar b. Harsum. Count [the number of high priests] from then on and you will find that none of them completed his year [in office]. R. Johanan b. Torta said: Why was Shiloh destroyed? Because of two [evil] things that prevailed there, immorality and contemptuous treatment of sanctified objects. [Proof that] immorality prevailed because it is written, Now Eli was very old, and he heard all that his sons did unto Israel, and how that they lay with the women that did service at the door of the tent of meeting. Notwithstanding R. Samuel b. Nahmani who said in the name of R. Johanan: Whosoever says, The sons of Eli sinned is but mistaken; it is^ᵃ^ᵇ^ᶜ^ᵈ^ᵉ^ᶠ^ᵍ^ʰ^ⁱ^ʲ^ᵏ^ˡ^ᵐ^ⁿ^ᵒ^ᵖ^ᵠ^ʳ^ˢ

^ᵃnote:Johanan, the high priest.
^ᵇnote:The great mass of the people, exclusive of the Haberim. V. Glos. s.v. haber.
^ᶜnote:V. Sot. 48a.
^ᵈnote:The first tithe belonged to the Levite and was due annually; the second tithe was to be consumed by the owner in Jerusalem, annually; the third tithe was due every third year-it was the poor man's tithe.
^ᵉnote:The heave-offering of the tithe, like the terumah (v. Glos.) itself, was, on penalty of death through divine action, forbidden to be eaten by a non-priest. With regard to the poor man's tithe, the baker could say: If you want to assert legal claim thereto, you will have to prove that the ‘am ha-arez, from whom I bought it, has failed to give tithe thereof before he sold it to me. Unless such proof was forthcoming, there was no legal claim on the part of the Levite on the non-Levite poor to its possession.
^ᶠnote:Paredroi-assessors, counsellors. The Mishnah J. reads paledroi. The Tosef. paredroi. These assessors had a bad reputation from their oppressive measures at the market places, over which, as commissioners, they had jurisdiction. So that, apart from the fact that the high priests, during the second Temple, were changed as often as these officials, the fact that they were dubbed paredroi indicates that there must have been more than one point of contact between these officials and the priests.
^ᵍnote:Usually their office was of twelve months’ duration. As the next line shows, these officials made full use of their twelve months’ opportunity for abuse of power.
^ʰnote:The Sages preferred to give the baker haberim the benefit of the doubt that the ‘amme ha-arez, as a rule, do give the tithe.
^ⁱnote:Cf. "**, supervisor, purser, collector, which is logical rather than etymological.
^ʲnote:Prov. X, 27.
^ᵏnote:[Var. lec., eight priests. Cf. I Chron. V, 36ff. Jehozadak who was taken to exile not being counted. V. Tosaf. s.v. tku and Rashi I Chron. V, 36.]
^ˡnote:Simeon the Just, High Priest Simon I, c. 300 b.c.e. ‘ v. Aboth, Sonc. ed., p. 2.
^ᵐnote:John Hyrcanus, the Hasmonean high priest (Jastrow). V. Ber. He succeeded Simeon the Righteous as high priest (Bertinoro, Ma'as. Sh., 5, end). After eighty years serving as high priest he became a Sadducee (Ber. 29a). That makes it difficult to identify him with John Hyrcanus.
^ⁿnote:V. Tosef. cf. Yoma 1. [High priest in the days of Agrippa II. He is not to be confused with the high priest of the same name who is reported by Josephus (Wars VI 2, 2) to have been executed in Cyrene after the destruction of the Temple. V. Buchler. op. cit. p. 98.]
^ᵒnote:V. ibid. I. The Tosef. reads Harsoth. In Yoma 35b he is described as a model rich man who forsook his financial interests to devote himself to the Torah.
^ᵖnote:Bah, in his marginal notes, inserts on the basis of text on parallel passages the following interpolation here: R, Johanan b. Torta said: ‘And why all that? Because they bought the priestly office for money, for R. Assi reported that Martha, the daughter of Boethus, brought King Jannai two kabful of denars to nominate Joshua b. Gamala as one of the high priests. And R. Johanan b. Torta said (further). The same statement is made, infra 18a, in the name of R. Assi.
^ᵠnote:An interesting account of Torta is given in the Pesik. Rab. XIV: (tortah being taken as the feminine of tora, hence cow. It occurs in this form in the Targum Num. XIX, 2.) He said: If a cow that has no speech and no mind, recognized her Creator, should I, whom my Maker created in His image, not go and acknowledge Him. He became a Jew, studied, grew efficient in the Torah and they named him Johanan b. Torta.
^ʳnote:The seat of the Tabernacle after the conquest.
^ˢnote:As the text indicates. The same apologetics are elsewhere used to defend Reuben, the sons of Samuel, David, Solomon. (Shab. 55b).