Tanach Thoughts

So, life got in the way (more on that in a future post) and I was not able to create the second post until now. Apologies to anyone who may have been waiting. To recap, the destruction of Shiloh and the apparent subsequent removal of the Tabernacle from there are never explicitly mentioned in the Book of Shmuel. We only have some later hints to this in Yirmiyahu and Tehillim. That question is: This seems to have been a moment of great tragedy to Am Yisrael, according to the two instances in which the event is hinted at. Why then was this not recounted explicitly? Last time I offered my own idea. This time I'll offer up an idea by Rabbi Eitan Shandorfi in his book "הדר הנביאים" - "Hadar Ha'Nevi'im" (the Splendor of the Prophets). Rabbi Shandorfi dedicated an entire chapter of his book to discussing the matter. He finally concluded that the primary purpose of the Tabernacle was to serve as a dwelling for the Holy Ark of the Covenant. No Ark in the Tabernac...

A few days ago I was privileged enough to hear a fascinating short TED-sized lecture by one of the doctorate students in my department at university. This student, a rabbi in his profession, spoke about his doctoral thesis which just recently he handed in to the university's review board and was pending a verdict from them. The thesis, which I won't discuss at length here for a number of reasons, the main being that it's still pending a verdict from the board (and the others being that for the most part, it's not Tanach-related), focused on the Mishmarot Kehunah of the Second Temple Era and later. The Mishmarot Kehunah were the divisions of priests that served at set times year-round. Each division served for about two weeks every year and everyone served together on Chol Hamo'ed. Now, I came up to him after the lecture and asked him a question on one aspect of his theory: Per his theory, the four priestly families that came during Shivat Tzion and recreated the pr...