1. Cohn, Naftali S., The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 6–11Google Scholar.

2. See B. Yoma 39ab and Y. Yoma 5:4 (42c) and 6:3 (43c) as an example of where the rabbis explicitly highlight the corrupt nature of the high priests, and B. Yoma 9b, where the rabbis point to women as responsible for sexual misconduct and hence the destruction of the First Temple (see discussion below).

3. Feintuch, Yonatan, “Ben kohanim le-ḥakhamim: ʿAl ʾaggadah ʾaḥat be-heksherah ha-raḥav be-bavli yoma,” Meḥkere Yerushalayim be-sifrut ʿivrit 23 (2010): 1–14Google Scholar, and Schӓfer, Peter, “Rabbis and Priests, or: How to Do Away with the Glorious Past of the Sons of Aaron,” in Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World, ed. Gardner, Gregg and Osterloh, Kevin (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 155–72Google Scholar; and my articles, “Rabbinic Masculinities: Reading the Ba'al Keri in Tractate Yoma,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 22 (2015): 109–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Imagining the Priesthood in Tractate Yoma: Mishnah Yoma 2:1–2 and BT Yoma 23a,” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues 28 (2015): 88–105Google Scholar; “And No One Gave the Torah to the Priests: Learning to Read the Mishnah through the Lens of the Priests and the Temple,” in Learning to Read Talmud: What It Looks Like and How It Happens, ed. Kanarek, Jane and Lehman, Marjorie (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2016), 85–116Google Scholar; “Dressing and Undressing the High Priest: A Talmudic View of Mothers,” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues 26 (2014): 52–74Google Scholar.

4. For a more in-depth discussion of the impact of the Temple Yom Kippur and the high priesthood on Qumran, Philo, and early Christianity, as well as the divergence of the rabbinic Yom Kippur from that of the Temple Yom Kippur rite, see Ezra's, Daniel Stökl Ben The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 78–138Google Scholar.

5. Rosen-Zvi, Ishay, The Mishnaic Sotah Ritual: Temple, Gender and Midrash (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. See Naomi Koltun-Fromm's article, “Imagining the Temple in Rabbinic Stone: The Evolution of the ʾEven Shetiyah,” in this collection of articles on the Jerusalem Temple. The sources that she analyzes do not convey the same message as I am arguing here regarding the attitude of the rabbis toward the Temple and the priests. Cohn, in his book Memory of the Temple, makes a strong argument for the rabbinic desire to assert their authority, but does not observe the sharpness of the critique of the priests that I observe in Yoma. Finally, for an entirely different perspective see Balberg, Mira, Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who argues that the rabbinic sacrificial vision and the role of the priests in it function for the rabbis as an idealized model of halakhic performance (209).

7. Rosen-Zvi, Mishnaic Sotah Ritual, 7–10.

8. Moore, Lisa Jean and Kosut, Mary, “Bodies as Mediums,” in The Body Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 141Google Scholar.

9. See Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger (1966; repr. London: Routledge, 1992), 116, 163–64Google Scholar.

10. Arthur, Linda B., ed., introduction to Religion, Dress and the Body (Oxford: Berg, Oxford International, 1999), 2, 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Douglas, Purity and Danger, 163–64, where she argues that the body is a symbol of a society's social order; Douglas, , Body Symbols (Oxford: Blackstone, 1970)Google Scholar; Douglas, , Natural Symbols: Explorations of Cosmology (London: Routledge, 1996)Google Scholar; and Bourdieu, Pierre, “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction,” in Knowledge, Education, and Social Change, ed. Brown, Robert (London: Tavistock, 1973)Google Scholar. Burroughs and Erenreich underscore that the dynamics of power relationships are stamped onto the body and that the social construction of the body in turn creates a desired culture, even if (as I would argue), it is imagined. Burroughs, Catherine B. and Erenreich, Jeffrey David, Reading the Social Body (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.  Also see Moore and Kosut, “Bodies as Mediums,” 19–20, 141.

11. I build on Isaiah Gafni's question in studying Yoma: “Were the sages convinced … that the present is always a reduced and inauspicious reality when compared to a glorious past, or might there be exceptions to this linear regression that argue for an improved and superior (and I would argue different) present when compared to the past?” See “Rabbinic Historiography and Representations of the Past,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, ed. Fonrobert, Charlotte Elisheva and Jaffee, Martin S. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 303CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. The most recent analysis that adopts the talmudic tractate as a unit of analysis is that of Mira Beth Wasserman, who focuses on Zarah, B. Avodah in her book Jews, Gentiles and Other Animals: The Talmud after the Humanities (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017)Google Scholar. She writes, “I take a strong position in this debate when I argue that AZ is unified by an overarching structure and animated by a set of recurring themes” (21). See her discussion there.

13. See for example, Swartz, Michael D., “Ritual Is with People: Sacrifice and Society in Palestinian Yoma Traditions,” in The Actuality of Sacrifice: Past and Present, ed. Houtman, Alberdina, Poothuis, Marcel, Schwartz, Joshua, and Turner, Yossi (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 206–27Google Scholar, who argues that M. Yoma, T. Yoma, and Y. Yoma criticize the priesthood, while the liturgy (piyyutim) written for Yom Kippur valorizes it. Also compare this article to the other articles on the Jerusalem Temple in this issue of AJS Review. We do not all reach the same conclusions.

14. See Stokl, Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity, and Tabory, Joseph, Moʿade Yisraʾel be-tekufat ha-mishnah ve-ha-talmud (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995), 259–306Google Scholar.

15. See Marjorie Lehman, “And No One Gave the Torah to the Priests,” 85–116.

16. See for example M. Yoma 3:4–5:

17. See Exodus 30:19–21, where God commands that Aaron and his sons must wash their hands and feet before serving in the tent of meeting. To do so is to ensure “that they may not die.”  But the rabbis in the Bavli struggle to find the scriptural loci for the rite of washing one's hand and feet between each change of vestments on Yom Kippur (B. Yoma 31b–32b), something we find clearly delineated in T. Yoma 1:17–18, which relies on Exodus 30:20 for teaching this rite, and which appears nowhere in B. Yoma. In the Bavli, Exodus 30:19–21 only serves the purpose of discussing timing, that is, whether the second sanctification, or washing of the high priest's hands and feet between each of the five Yom Kippur services, occurs while he is dressed in his new vestments or not (B. Yoma 32b). Leviticus 16:23–24 plays a far larger role in the discussion, but is used to discuss the high priest's required full-body immersion. Also compare the Bavli with Y. Yoma 3:6 (40c), where Rabbi Yoḥanan argues that the sanctification of the hands and feet is not essential to the Yom Kippur rite of the high priest. And see B. Zevaḥim 20a–21b for another extensive discussion on hand and foot washing.

18. T. Yoma 1:17; Y. Yoma 3:6 (40c). This is in contrast to the Tosefta, which does not require sanctifying one's hands and feet as many as ten times as described in the Mishnah, and the Yerushalmi, where Rabbi Yoḥanan argues that these sanctifications are not essential to the Yom Kippur Avodah. The Bavli is clearly recognizing these sanctifications of the hands and feet as wholly part of the Yom Kippur Avodah as noted in the Mishnah. While we can find a version of the toseftan baraita in the Bavli (B. Yoma 30b) it does not serve to overturn hand and foot washing ten times on Yom Kippur.

19. See John 13:1–17, where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet and commands his disciples to wash the feet of one another. In fact, foot washing remains a church rite in some traditions until the present day. Note that hand and foot washing is also a requirement stated in the Qur'an 5:6. See Achrati, Ahmed, “Hand and Foot Symbolisms: From Rock Art to the Qur'an,” Arabia 50, no. 4 (2003): 488Google Scholar.

20. See 1 Samuel 24:4, where Saul enters a cave, להסך את רגליו, that is, to relieve himself. Also see the parallel in Y. Yoma 3:2 (40a).

21. See Deuteronomy 23:2, where anyone who “has his member cut off” cannot be admitted into “the congregation of the Lord.” לא יבא פצוע דכא וכרות שפכה בקהל יקוק.

22. Note the following earlier parallel found in a baraita quoted on B. Niddah 13a, where the context is one of preventing seminal ejaculation that wastes seed:

Although the context in B. Niddah is unrelated to priests it reflects a larger rabbinic fear regarding questionable kinship. When quoted in B. Yoma the source takes on a different valence in its reference to priests.

23. Note that on B. Yoma 30a the rabbis discuss the issue of what occurs when one defecates and excrement remains on his body at a time when he wants to recite Shema. Interestingly, there is no reference to washing one's hands and feet. The issue focuses on whether one can recite the Shema or not in the wake of the vileness of excrement that might be visible on his body.

24. See Hezser, Catherine, “The Halitzah Shoe: Between Female Subjugation and Symbolic Emasculation,” in Jews and Shoes, ed. Nahshon, Edna (New York: Berg, 2008), 50Google Scholar, who discusses the sexual symbolism of the foot and the shoe.

25. Much sexual innuendo in rabbinic literature was associated with feet and most especially heels (specifically the use of the word עקב). For example, see M. Niddah 8:1 and B. Niddah 58a, where a clear association is made between a heel and a woman's vagina, and see B. Nedarim 20a, where even looking at the heel of a woman would lead one to beget degenerate children. See Admiel Kosman's discussion about Mar Ukba and the references to “heel” in Ketubbot, B. 67b, in Gender and Dialogue in the Rabbinic Prism (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 47–48Google Scholar. Further discussion of this linkage is beyond the scope of this article.

26. Bal, Mieke, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 3Google Scholar.

27. See Kalmin, Richard, Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 37–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of Babylonian anxiety about their authority as compared to Palestinian rabbis; see Alexander, Elizabeth Shanks, Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 179–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on cultural reproduction through teaching Torah to one's disciples; also see Lehman, “Dressing and Undressing the High Priest,” 58–60.

28. See Bal, Mieke, Death and Dissymetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), 5–6Google Scholar, whose argument regarding the book of Judges suggests that we might see this as a desired revolution, that is, a strong push for change, on the part of the rabbis.  Also see Swartz, “Ritual Is with People,” 221–22, who argues the opposite in pointing to the development of the Yom Kippur liturgy.  He highlights the fact that material found in M. Yoma in particular is used to venerate the cult and its ability to connect one with the divine, leaving us with the impression that later rabbis saw greater continuity between themselves and the Temple cult than talmudic sources in Yoma seem to suggest.

29. See Kalmin's Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine. B. Yoma 69a, which has no parallel in the Yerushalmi, supports Kalmin's observations that far more than sources found in the Yerushalmi, Babylonian sources tend to emphasize the role and authority of the rabbinic sages especially with respect to the rabbis’ desire for influence over and control of the priests (38).  The Yerushalmi presents rabbis who were more careful regarding what they said about others, such as priests, recognizing that their actions could provoke ridicule among nonrabbis (87).

30. See B. Yoma 9a; B. Yoma 39a; and Y. Yoma 1:1 (38c), 5:2 (42c), and 6:3 (43c).

31. Achrati, “Hand and Foot Symbolisms,” 478–80. Also see Hezser, “Halitzah Shoe,” 50.

32. Sources reveal that John Hyrcanus I destroyed the temple at Mount Gerizim in his desire to expand his borders during the first century BCE (129) and not Shimon ha-Ẓaddik. See Schwartz, Seth, Imperialism and Jewish Society 200 BCE–640 CE (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 37Google Scholar, and his article “John Hyrcanus I's Destruction of the Gerizim Temple and Judean-Samaritan Relations,” Jewish History 7 (1993): 9–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Noam, Vered, Megillat Ta'anit: Versions, Interpretation, History, with a Critical Edition [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2003), 262–65Google Scholar, regarding the parallel of this aggadic passage in Megillat Taʿanit and the development of this story. Interestingly, although not relevant for this analysis, according the Megillat Taʿanit the holiday honoring the destruction of Mount Gerizim by Shimon ha-Ẓaddik was set for the twenty-first of Kislev.

33. See B. Yoma 69a, where immediately following this tannaitic story a later redactional comment is added clearing Shimon ha-Ẓaddik of any transgression in wearing his priestly garments outside of the Temple.

34. See Josephus, where he treats the Samaritans quite negatively (War 1.62; Antiquities 11.341). In Antiquities, for example, 13.254, Josephus did not consider the Samaritans to be Jews. See Tsedaka, Binyamin, “Samaritans,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, ed. Berenbaum, Michael and Skolnik, Fred (Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 17:721Google Scholar.

35. Lehman, “Dressing and Undressing the High Priest,” 64.

36. Also see B. Yoma 72b, where the rabbis stress the importance of a pure heart in order to be deserving of Torah. See Lehman for a larger discussion regarding B. Yoma 35b in “Dressing and Undressing the High Priest” and see Feintuch, “Ben kohanim le-ḥakhamim,” 1–14.

37. See the version of this baraita in T. Yoma 1:7, where the father points out to his son that they need to follow the words of the rabbis.

38. See B. Yoma 19b, where we are also told that “not a few days went by until [the priest] died, and he was laid out in a garbage heap, and worms were coming out of his nose,” reflecting that he had not acted properly in the holy of holies. While the version of this tannaitic story in Y. Yoma 1:5 (30a) indicates that the mark was left on the priest's forehead—which makes more sense in the context of the story conjuring up the symbolic removal of the ẓiẓ that the high priest wore on his crown and which atoned for sins of arrogance (Exodus 28:38 and B. Zevaḥim 88b)—all known manuscripts of the Bavli support the Bavli's version.

39. B. Yoma 9b also has no parallel in the Yerushalmi, again supporting Kalmin's observations that Babylonian sources reflect a desire on the part of the rabbis to assert their authority over the priests and the Temple, in this case claiming that they understand the reasons for the destruction of the First Temple. According to Kalmin, the Yerushalmi presents rabbis who were more careful regarding what they said about others, such as priests, recognizing that their actions could provoke ridicule among nonrabbis. See Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine, 38 and 87.

40. See the parallel text in B. Shabbat 62b, where the exegesis of Isaiah 3:16 is contextualized within a discussion about wives cursing their husbands for not gifting them with acceptable adornments. The exegesis of Isaiah 3:16 is brought in as an example of a gendered depiction of women who show off their beauty, enticing men. Nothing is said about the destruction of the Temple in tractate Shabbat, only that cursing one's husband brings about the punishment of poverty. It seems, therefore, that the context in which this exegetical statement is made reflects the overarching themes of the tractate where it is found.

41. Nahshon, Jews and Shoes, 15.

42. Note the comparison to Luke 7:36–39:

43. See Green, Deborah A., The Aroma of Righteousness: Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

44. Bordo, Susan, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 6Google Scholar.

45. Also note other instances where feet serve as a trope to communicate a deeper message. Genesis 18:1–4 presents Abraham offering to his guests water to wash their feet, a sign of hospitality that foreshadows their significance as God's messengers. In 1 Samuel 25:41 Abigail washes the feet of David's servants, indicating to them that she would accept his proposal of marriage. In 2 Samuel 11:8 David tells Uriah to go home and “wash his hands and feet,” a statement that some argue euphemistically refers to sexual relations.

46. Below are two sources that point to a tradition of equating God's commandment to Moses and Joshua to remove their shoes with the idea that one should be barefoot when worshipping in the Temple.

47. Smith, Jonathan Z., Map Is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religion (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1978), xiiGoogle ScholarPubMed.

48. On B. Yoma 77a, the rabbis suggest also that weariness may refer to barefootedness. A play on the word עיף indicates that David's tiredness was brought on by the barefootedness he endured as he led his troops to fight against Avshalom.

49. See Clark, Elizabeth A., Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 206CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and her discussion of Émile Durkheim in his The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: A Study in Religious Sociology (New York: Macmillan, 1915), 299Google Scholar, and Bourdieu's, Pierre Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 123, 168–69Google Scholar. Also see Lehman, “Rabbinic Masculinities,” 109–36, regarding the issue of sexuality in the first seven chapters of Bavli Yoma as compared to the final chapter.

50. Note that in T. Yoma 4:1, the Tosefta is quite clear that one is not allowed to put on any type of shoe, even ones of a flimsier nature. Compare this to the opinion of Rabban Gamaliel in T. Yoma 4:5, who is more lenient and allows one to wear some types of shoes.

51. “Rabbah bar bar Ḥannah said: I once observed Rabbi Eleazar from Ninveh going out with a sandal made of bamboo on a public fast and I said to him: What is the law on Yom Kippur? And he said to me: It is no different [it is acceptable to wear shoes made of bamboo]. Rav Judah went out [on Yom Kippur] with [shoes made of] reed. Abbaye went out [on Yom Kippur with shoes made] of palm branches and Rava went out with [shoes made of] grass. Rabbah bar Rav Huna would wrap a kerchief around his foot and go out” (B. Yoma 78b).

52. See Koltun-Fromm, Naomi, Hermeneutics of Holiness: Ancient Jewish and Christian Notions of Sexuality and Religious Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 11–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of asceticism and Syriac Christianity. Regarding the Zoroastrian/Persian context see Kiel, Yishai, “Dynamics of Sexual Desire: Babylonian Rabbinic Culture at the Crossroads of Christian and Zoroastrian Ethics,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 47, no. 3 (2016): 364–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar. And regarding the ascetic tendencies of the rabbis see Fraade, Steven, “Ascetical Aspects of Ancient Judaism,” in Jewish Spirituality: From the Bible through the Middle Ages, ed. Green, Arthur (New York: Crossroads, 1986), 253–88Google Scholar; Diamond, Eliezer, Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Satlow, Michael, “‘And on the Earth You Shall Sleep’: ‘Talmud Torah’ and Rabbinic Asceticism,” Journal of Religion 83, no. 2 (2003): 205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Biale, David, Eros and the Jews: From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 34Google Scholar.

53. See Lehman, Marjorie, “Reading the Gendered Rhetoric of Yom Kippur,” in Introduction to Seder Qodashim, ed. Ilan, Tal, Brockhaus, Monika, and Hidde, Tanja (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 33–56Google Scholar, for a larger discussion on the treatment of sexuality and asceticism in tractate Yoma, chapter 8. Also see Feintuch, Yonatan, “Uncovering Covert Links between Halakhah and Aggadah in the Babylonian Talmud: The Talmudic Discussion of Yom Kippur Afflictions in B. Yoma,” AJS Review 40, no. 1 (April 2016): 17–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54. Stokl, Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity, 145–227 and 330.

55. See Lehman, “Rabbinic Masculinities,” 109–36.

56. See B. Yoma 74b, where the definition of the requirement of ʿinnuy (self-denial) is further explored by equating it with the legal principle שב ואל תעשה. B. Yoma 74b explores the notion of whether ʿinnuy means that one passively denies oneself sustenance (שב ואל תעשה) or inflicts pain and discomfort on oneself in order to experience proper ʿinnuy.

57. I am now returning to Rosen-Zvi's question, which I noted above. See Mishnaic Sotah Ritual, 7–10.