Study Yoma folio 54A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
כל הדרה״. מאי: ״כל הדרה״ — חדרה. אתה, מאי אתה אומר? אמר לו, שאני אומר: ארון במקומו נגנז, שנאמר: ״ויאריכו הבדים וגו׳״.
all her splendor” (Lamentations 1:6). What is the meaning of: “All her splendor [hadara]”? It means: Her chamber [ḥadra], i.e., something that was hidden within the innermost chambers, namely the Ark. You, R' Shimon ben Yoḥai, what do you say in response to this? He said to him: As I say, the Ark was buried in its place and not exiled, as it is stated: “And the staves were so long that the ends of the staves were seen from the sacred place before the partition, but they could not be seen without; and they are there to this day” (I Kings 8:8).
אמר ליה רבה לעולא: מאי משמע? דכתיב: ״ויהיו שם עד היום הזה״, וכל היכא דכתיב: ״עד היום הזה״ לעולם הוא? והכתיב: ״ואת היבוסי יושב ירושלם לא הורישו בני בנימין וישב היבוסי את בני בנימין בירושלם עד היום הזה״, הכי נמי דלא גלו?
Rabba said to Ulla: From where in this verse may it be inferred that the Ark was buried in its place? Ulla replied that the source is as it is written: “And they are there to this day,” which is referring to any day when one might read this sentence, i.e., forever. Rabba objected to this explanation: And is it the case that anywhere that it is written “to this day” it means forever, as opposed to the time when the verse was written? But isn’t it written: “And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites resided with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem, to this day” (Judges 1:21)? So too here, let us say that the Jebusites were not exiled from Jerusalem.
והתניא, רבי יהודה אומר: חמשים ושתים שנה לא עבר איש ביהודה, שנאמר: ״על ההרים אשא בכי ונהי ועל נאות מדבר קינה כי נצתו מבלי איש עובר ולא שמעו קול מקנה מעוף השמים ועד בהמה נדדו הלכו״, ״בהמה״ בגימטריא חמשין ושתים הוו!
But wasn’t it taught in a baraita that R' Yehuda says: No person passed through the land of Judea for 52 years after the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, as it is stated: “I will raise crying and wailing for the mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness, for they have been burned, with no person passing through. And they do not hear the sound of the cattle; from the bird of the heavens to the beast [behema], all have fled and gone” (Jeremiah 9:9). Behema, spelled beit, heh, mem, heh, has a numerical value of 52, alluding to the fact that no one passed through the land for 52 years.