Menachot 97

A mishnah on yesterday’s daf painted an intricate picture of an apparatus built over the golden table for displaying the showbread in the Temple:

And there were four panels of gold there, and they split up at their upper ends, so that the rods upon which the showbread was placed would support the showbread. There were two panels for this arrangement and two panels for that arrangement, and there were 28 rods, each of which was shaped like half of a hollow reed. There were 14 rods for this arrangement and 14 rods for that arrangement.

This is a complicated image, and one that people have visualized in slightly differing ways. Essentially, however, there are panels that run from the floor up the sides of the table and above its surface. Their job is to support rods that are positioned across the table. The entire apparatus facilitates the precise placement of the 12 loaves of showbread above the table — much like a fancy cupcake stand in a bakery window.

The Torah does not obviously mention any apparatus for displaying the loaves, so the Gemara inquires from where in the Torah these details are derived. Rav Ketina supplies an answer:

Rav Ketina said: The verse states with regard to the table: “And you shall make its dishes and its pans its kasahs and its menakits with which it shall be covered of pure gold…” (Exodus 25:29). “Its dishes” — these are the molds. “Its pans” — these are the bowls for the frankincense. “Its kasahs” — these are the four panels of gold. “Its menakits” — these are the rods. “With which it shall be covered” — this indicates that the bread is covered by the rods.

In most translations of this verse from Exodus, the four golden items on the table are characterized as various kinds of vessels. For example, the Revised Jewish Publication Society translation renders them as bowls, ladles, jars and jugs. Rav Ketina, however, reads the first two as vessels but the second two as parts of the apparatus described by the mishnah: the two panels on each side of the table’s length and the rods between them crossing its width. Though one would still not have derived any of the mishnah’s incredibly specific details above from those words alone, Rav Ketina suggests that these words at least indicate the Torah’s source for panels and rods.

Rava challenges this reading:

Rava raises an objection: The mishnah states: Neither the arranging of the rods for the new showbread, nor their removal from the arrangement of the old showbread, overrides Shabbat. And if it enters your mind to say the rods are required by Torah law, why does their arrangement not override Shabbat?

The mishnah states that the set up and deconstruction of this apparatus is forbidden on Shabbat. But if these rods are a Torah-level requirement for the showbread, why wouldn’t their arrangement override the Shabbat prohibition? Interestingly, it is Rava himself who resolves his own objection:

Rava then said: That which I said is not correct, as we learned in the mishnah that Rabbi Akiva stated a principle: Any labor that can be performed on Shabbat eve does not override Shabbat. And these actions can also be performed in a manner that does not require overriding Shabbat for them.

Though it isn’t common, we occasionally see such cases in the Gemara, where a rabbi states an opinion and then later recants it. Rava found a flaw in his own argument: Since the arrangement of the rods is something that can be done before Shabbat, it does not override the Shabbat prohibition. This doesn’t prove that the apparatus is not dictated by the Torah. Rather, we can maintain the apparatus is a Torah-level requirement but could be set up before Shabbat, and therefore its set-up cannot override Shabbat once it arrives. 

Read all of Menachot 97 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on April 18, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.