1:3–3:4, and perhaps the ritual palm branch narrative in Sukkah 4:4. Or they may have a more hybrid judicial-Temple ritual role, as in the ‘eglāh ‘ărufāh (broken-neck calf) narrative in Soṭah 9:1–9, in which the Court is involved in a ritual associated with priests and the Temple, which still has to do with the absence of justice for the abandoned body found, and in the priest-disqualification trial narrative in Middot 5:4, in which the Court adjudicates about the validity of individual priests in the Temple.13 In Rosh Hashanah 2:5–7 and perhaps Ta‘anit 2:1–5, the court plays a central role in rituals that are at least partially centered on the Temple—the determination and proclamation of the new moon and the fast-day prayers when there is no rain—though the Temple is somewhat peripheral to these rituals, which continue to be performed even after the destruction.14 These narratives vary in the degree of Court authority they depict; but in sum, they repeatedly portray the Court as involved in and with authority over the performance of ritual associated with the Temple in Temple times.15
Sectarian Resistance and Court Authority
A second way in which the Mishnah’s ritual narratives give the Court authority over Temple ritual is by depicting the Court exercising authority against sectarian resistance. As we have seen in the red-heifer narrative, Court members are involved in the preparation for the ritual “because of the Sadducees,” which seems to mean that they ensure that the procedure does not follow the Sadducean view. According to the narrative, members of the Court would intentionally render the priest impure and then ritually order him to immerse himself for purification. With this unusual procedure, it was guaranteed that he did not wait until sunset to become pure before performing the ritual (indeed, he did not wait at all). And because the sectarian-Sadducean view required him to wait until sunset, the procedure ensured that the performance of the ritual did not follow the sectarian view. By describing sectarian resistance and the Court’s role in quashing this resistance, the narrative puts the Court and no one else in the position of authority over the ritual.
This particular conflict about the nature of purification for the red-heifer ritual is evidenced in an earlier text, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls known as 4QMMT. This ancient scroll from the time of the Second Temple recounts the same divergence of opinion; but here, it is told from the point of view of the Mishnah’s tsadduḳin (Sadducees or perhaps Zadokites). According to 4QMMT, the priests involved in the ritual (in contrast to the Mishnah’s single priest) must wait until sunset to become pure in order to perform their tasks.16 For those living during the time of the Temple who produced 4QMMT, this and related conflicts over Temple practice helped define their group identity; but such was not the case for the rabbis of the Mishnah. As Shaye Cohen has argued, there is little evidence of such sectarian struggle during the post-destruction era in which the rabbis lived.17 In the red-heifer narrative, the rabbis recall such conflict not because it continued in their own day but because the memory of past sectarian disputes both created and demonstrated the authority of the Temple-era Court. As Catherine Bell has suggested, rephrasing Foucault, resistance itself helps create the power relationship.18 This is especially true in a literary account. The Mishnah’s inclusion of the Sadducean resistance provided the opportunity for its imagined Court to express its power to suppress this resistance.
Elsewhere in the genre, sectarians—called tsadduḳin, bēitĕsin,19 minim (heretics), and perhaps, in one instance, kutim (Samaritans)—are described as resisting in a similar manner on as many as four additional occasions.20 One of these possible occasions is the Day of Atonement narrative. The Mishnah itself never mentions any sectarian conflict about how the Day of Atonement procedure is to be performed, yet the Tosefta and both Talmuds understand that the (potentially) sectarian high priest is forced to follow the dictates of the Court and not his own sectarian views. In each of these instances, sectarian conflict is the platform upon which Court authority over the details of the ritual rests.
The extent to which the Mishnah emphasizes the absolute authority of the Court against sectarian resistance can be seen in the contrast between the Mishnah and Tosefta in the way they imagine sectarians resisting. Three times, the Tosefta imagines a sectarian priest successfully following the sectarian version of Temple practice. On singular occasions, a Boethusian (bēitĕsi) or Sadducean tsadduḳi) manages to thwart the “correct practice” of the Day of Atonement ritual (Kippurim [= Yoma] 1:8), the red-heifer ritual (Parah 3), and the water-libation ritual (Sukkah 3:16).21 Two of these times, he dies within a few days, for defying either the sages or Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai. The third time, he causes “the entire nation” to pelt him and damage the altar.22 The common consensus of “the entire nation” against the improper water libation and the supernatural punishments for performing the ritual in the sectarian way demonstrate that the sectarian view is incorrect. So, too, the seemingly singular nature of these events limits the extent of Sadducean or Boethusian influence. Yet by depicting sectarian priests following sectarian practice, the toseftan version allows that these groups (or this group) may well have had some, or even extensive, control over ritual practice. In the Mishnah, in contrast, sectarians are a threat to correct practice, yet they are never imagined actually having the power to perform the ritual according to their own views. The Tosefta does not mention any Court. In the Mishnah, there is a powerful Court that has fully suppressed the sectarians.23
Ritual Failure and the Court’s Power to Change Ritual
A third way in which the ritual narratives give authority to the Court is by describing the Court making changes in ritual procedure when ritual fails.24 According to the Mishnah, the Court is the body with the authority to make a change in how a ritual is performed every year. The role of the court in changing Temple ritual because of failure can be seen in a small section of the narrative describing the Day of Atonement ritual in the Temple, Yoma 2:1–2:2, a section that focuses on the regular clearing of the altar’s ashes:
פרק ב’ בראשונה כל מי שהוא רוצה לתרום את המזבח תורם בזמן שהן
מרובין רצין ועולין בכבש וכל הקודם את חבירו לתוך [ארבע] אמות זכה
אם היו שנים שוין הממונה אומ’ להן הצביעו ומה הן מוציאין אחת או
שתים ואין מוציאין אגודל במקדש ב’ מעשה שהיו שנ[י]ם שווין רצים
ועולים בכבש ודחף אחד מהן את חבירו ונשברה רגלו וכשראו בית דין
שהן באין לידי סכנה התקינו שלא יהו [תורמין] את המזבח אלא בפייס
(2:1) At first, whoever wanted to clear the ashes off the altar would clear off the ashes. When there were many interested [priests], they would run and go up the ramp of the altar, and whoever reached within four cubits first, won. If they were tied, the appointed one [mĕmuneh] would say to them, “Raise fingers!” [to decide the winner]. And what would they bring out? One or two [fingers], but they do not bring out a thumb in the Temple.
(2:2) It once happened that two who were equal were running and going up the altar, and one pushed the other and he broke his leg. And when the Court saw that they had come to danger, they decreed that henceforth they would determine who cleared the ashes by lots.
A useful framework for interpreting this and other accounts of ritual failure in the Temple ritual narratives can be provided by the theoretical study of what Ronald Grimes terms “infelicitous performances” of ritual.25 As Grimes shows, ritual
