Daf Reactions Menachot 109: The OTHER Temple

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Shalom friends. We've talked about the first Temple in Jerusalem. We've talked about the second Temple in Jerusalem, but I was today years old when I learned about the other Temple in Egypt. Plot twist, if you also didn't know about it, great. Let's be surprised together, shall we? Welcome to Daf Reactions Menachot 109. So, there was this Temple called the Temple of Onias, aka Beit Honio. And this was either an out-of-bounds Jewish Temple or a Temple of idol worship. The Mishna says that if you were a Kohen, you were a priest, and you were serving in Beit Honio, and then you wanted to return to the Beit Hamikdash, to the Temple in Jerusalem, you are placed on basically administrative leave. Paid administrative leave. Because you did the no-no of making offerings to God outside of the Temple. Like you can't return items you bought at Ulta to Sephora, right? Yes, they're both makeup stores, but they're not the same.

[00:00:48]However, the Mishna doesn't think that the Kohen in question did something as bad as idol worship. No. But, the Gemara brings two different versions of the story of the founding of this Temple in Egypt that contradict each other on this point. Version one is from Rabbi Meir, and it goes like this. Shimon HaTzaddik was an illustrious Kohen Gadol with a long career. And one day he said to his colleagues that this was the year he was going to die. And they're like, "What?

[00:01:11]How do you know that?" And he tells them that every Yom Kippur, he has a vision of an old man in white accompanying him into the Holy of Holies. Obviously, this is Mithrandir. And the man goes in with him and then comes back out with him.

[00:01:24]But this year, he tells them, "This year, he was accompanied by an old man dressed in black." Possibly the Witch King of Angmar. Who went in with him to the Holy of Holies, but did not come back out. So, he felt this was ominous, because it was, and gave him a premonition of his doom. So, he says his son, Honio, will be High Priest next, even though Honio had an older brother, Shimi. It's almost like we've learned nothing from the story of Esau and Yaakov. This is biblical sibling rivalry déjà vu all over again. Shimi was hella jealous and decided to ruin his brother's first day at work by dressing him not in the vestments of a High Priest, but instead basically putting him in women's clothing and then telling him to stand by the altar. And then he skitters off to the rest of the priests, points out his own brother, and said, "Oh my God, can you believe he took a vow to dress like his girlfriend when he became High Priest?" And everyone's like, this sneaky son of a tzaddik. The other priests wanted to kill Honio for this, and he runs away to Egypt. He's so traumatized by his experience that he goes ahead and builds a Temple for idol worship. And from this, we learn that being a malicious, jealous hater leads to idolatry. But Rabbi Yehuda is like, "Mm, no. That's actually not what happened in the story.

[00:02:36]We got to flip the script a little bit."

[00:02:38]Honio did not accept the role of High Priest, because he knows that he was the second son. But secretly, he was the hater. It was him who dressed Shimi in women's clothing and put him next to the altar. And it was Honio who was loudly like, "Wow, can you believe that guy took a vow to dress up like his girlfriend on his first day on the job?"

[00:02:57]But Shimi was like, "Hang on, slow your roll. Before you pelt me to death with etrogim or send your ravens after me, here's what really went down." And he plays back for all the Kohanim the secret recording he has of Honio setting this whole thing up. Now, sidebar, I would argue that from what we know of priestly vestments, they're already pretty feminine. Like let me just sew some bells and pomegranates at the bottom of my dress and see how masculine I look. But I digress.

[00:03:22]Di- gress. So, the other priests, now seeing this switcheroo, are like, "What?

[00:03:28]That's cray-cray." And they turn their ire on Honio. And that is when Honio was like, "Oh, fuck." And he runs away. But wherever he's trying to hide, people see him and they're like, "Hey, isn't that the guy from that viral TikTok?" So, he finally ends up in Egypt, builds this Temple, but doesn't bring offerings to idols there. This Temple is to God.

[00:03:46]Which supports the Mishna's initial assertion that the Temple was not in any way for idolatry. It was in fact just sort of like a satellite Temple or, you know, part of the franchise. Honio was clearly a truly shitty person, but he wasn't doing avodah zarah. Now, this is just example 10 billion of why hereditary power structures are really bad. And I for one am not at all sorry that the hereditary priestly class does not hold that kind of power or authority in Judaism anymore. Now, on a personal note, I did grow up in the shadow of a high-achieving older brother, who I simultaneously dearly loved and dearly envied for a very long time. I get what it feels like. But you know what I didn't do? Summon a gang of angry Kohanim to take him out. Like what the heck Kohanim is wrong with people? Good Lord, that's messed up. And let me just say, um, in case there's confusion, when I say good Lord, the Lord I am referring to is in fact Hashem. It is not, um, an idol. Just wanted to clarify, okay? Calm your Kohanim.