Menachot 98

On today’s daf, the Gemara quotes a mishnah (Middot 1:3) that states there was an image of the city of Shushan engraved over one of the gates to the Temple Mount. Shushan, as you might recall from the story of Purim, was the capital city of the Persian Empire. The (historically fictional) events of the Book of Esther excepted, the Persians treated the Jews relatively benevolently. Notably, after defeating the Babylonians, they gave the Jews permission to return from exile and rebuild the Temple. But that doesn’t entirely explain what the image of Shushan is doing on a gate to the Temple in Jerusalem. Rav Hisda and Rav Yitzhak bar Avdimi have some ideas:

One said that Shushan was depicted so that those who passed through the gate would know from where they had come back to Jerusalem.

And one said that it was depicted so that the fear of the Persian Empire would be upon them, to prevent them from rebelling.

We can identify two very different lines of thinking. On the one hand, perhaps the representation of Shushan reminds the Jews of the support they received from Persia. The image is intended to instill gratitude. On the other hand, the returning Jews weren’t recreating an independent and sovereign political entity; they remained under Persian control. Perhaps, then, seeing Shushan as they entered the Temple would have recalled Persian dominion and instilled fear and subservience.

There’s no clear resolution between these perspectives, but the Gemara uses this as a springboard to meditate on the experience of living under foreign rule.

Rabbi Yannai says: The fear of kingship should always be upon you, as it is stated that Moses said to Pharaoh: “And all these, your servants, shall come down to me, and bow down to me, saying: Get out, you and all the people who follow you, and after that I will go out” (Exodus 11:8). Although ultimately Pharaoh would himself come to Moses, Moses mentioned only that Pharaoh’s servants would come to him, whereas he did not say this to Pharaoh about Pharaoh himself.

In foretelling the final plague to be visited on Egypt’s firstborns, Moses predicts that Pharaoh’s servants will bow down to Moses, begging him to take the Israelites out of Egypt. He omits mention of Pharaoh himself making the same plea, out of respect for Pharaoh and his position as king. If even a ruler like Pharaoh is worthy of this kind of respect, then surely other kings deserve similar treatment.
The Talmud offers a similar argument featuring Ahab, one of the kings of Israel in the biblical period:

Rabbi Yohanan said this principle may be derived from here, as it is stated: “And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel” (1 Kings 18:46).

You might recall that according to the Hebrew Bible, Ahab was, amid a long line of problematic kings, one of the worst. He encouraged worship of the Canaanite god Baal, put true Israelite prophets to death and even conspired to execute an innocent man in order to steal his vineyard. Nevertheless, Rabbi Yohanan notes, the prophet Elijah ran in front of Ahab as he rode toward the city on his horse, heralding his arrival.

This idea of showing respect for authority figures, even (or perhaps especially) when those leaders are dangerous and corrupt, may feel cringey, but it runs consistently through Jewish sources. In Avot 3:2, for example, Rabbi Hanina urges us to “pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for the fear it inspires, every man would swallow his neighbor alive.” Especially under modern democratic forms of government, we think of authorities as being beholden to their people rather than the other way around (whether Thomas Jefferson said it or not). But in the context of the ancient rabbis, where autocratic structures and foreign overlords were the norm rather than the exception, and where Jewish rebellions frequently had devastating results, one can appreciate the logic of this stance.

Read all of Menachot 98 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on April 19, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.