Hey there and welcome back to Take One, the podcast that brings you just one

Fisty page of Talmud each day.

And on today's pages, Menachot 63 and 64,

we have war. Civil war, a real one. It may shock you to learn this, but unlike today when all

Jews are peaceful and united and have virtually no infighting or internal divisions, there used to be a time long ago in a galaxy faraway, in which Jews would quibble with each

other non-stop.

And at no time, perhaps, was this division worse than it was around the year 67 BCE?

At that year, the Hasmanian queen Salomei died, leaving behind two sons, Aristobulus and

Hyrcanus. Hirkanus took the throne in Jerusalem, but his brother was jealous, fought a war,

won, and forced his brother to abdicate. So, on to Jerusalem, Aristopoulos went, reigning as the king of the Jews, but Herkinus wasn't about to take all of this lying down.

He teamed up with the Abateans, especially their celebrated cunning strategist anti-patter, and besieged Jerusalem.

The brothers fought for years until the Romans, unhappy with so much quibbling and

trouble in their dusty eastern province, intervened, conquered Jerusalem, and ended the mighty

Hasamenean dynasty. Yes, the very same one we read about in Hanukkah. On today's stuff, we

receive a great and dramatic story from that siege, pitting brother

against brother, a story that, sadly, still resonates strongly today.

Here it is, in full, in all of its tragic beauty.

When the kings of the Hasmanian monarchy, the Talmud tells us, besieged each other in their civil war.

Hyrcanus was outside of Jerusalem, besieging it, and Aristopoulos was inside.

On each and every day, they would lower dinars in a box from inside the city,

and those on the outside would send up animals for them to bring the daily offerings in the temple.

A certain elderly man was there in Jerusalem who was familiar with Greek wisdom.

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