About this episode
Study Guide Sotah 41 Today's daf is sponsored in honor of Noa ben Shoshan and Ariel Katuf's marriage. The kohen gadol reads from the Torah on Yom Kippur. However, he skips from one section to another - how can this be done as one can only skip sections when reading from the Prophets, not from the Torah! Abaye resolves this as one can skip even Torah sections within the same topic as long as one can get to the other section within the time the translator reads the verse in Aramaic. The kohen reads the other section by heart as it is too far to get to and also it is not appropriate to roll a safer Torah in public. Why not use more than one sefer Torah? That is only permitted when it is different readers, but when just one person reads and he moves to another book, people will think the first one was missing section and thus, disqualified. What blessings does the kohen gadol say after he reads from the Torah? After he would read, people would bring their own personal sefer Torah and read from it. The king reads from the Torah at the hakhel ceremony once every seven years after the shmita year on the first day of Chol Hamoed Sukkot. One year King Agripas was reading and began crying when he got to the section saying that gentile kings cannot be king as he was presumed to have been descended from slaves as he was descended from Herod who was descended from a slave, according to the rabbis. The people told him not to be concerned and cried out, "You are our brother! You are our brother." The king reads a number of sections in the book of Devarim. A number of questions, some similar to what was asked about the kohen gadol's reading, are raised and resolved. Why did King Agripas stand while reading if the king is supposed to sit? It is known that a king who wants to relinquish the honor due to him cannot! Since this was for a mitzva, it is permitted. On account of the story of the Jews flattering Agripas, the Gemara launches into a series of statements regarding flattery.