A Miraculous Visual Treat
‘They Lifted It Up To Show…’
(Chagiga 26b)
Among the miracles that continuously occurred in the Beis HaMikdash was the lechem hapanim remaining fresh from the time they were baked and placed on the shulchan until they were removed and distributed to the kohanim a week later. On Yamim Tovim, the kohanim would lift up the shulchan with the fresh bread and show it to everyone in the Beis HaMikdash, publicly displaying the miracle.
The Bread is Fresh
According to Tosafos (s.v. Siluko), the lechem hapanim remained fresh and soft throughout the week. According to the Ritva (Yoma 21a), they actually remained steaming hot, as if they had just come out of the oven. As proof, he notes our sugya which states that people could look at the bread and tell that it was fresh. Had the bread only been soft, looking at it would have been meaningless. If it was steaming hot, though, the Gemara makes sense. People would’ve been able to see the steam rising from the bread.
A Look into the Heichal
The Radvaz was asked (Teshuvos 6:2178) how people could have seen the lechem hapanim considering that the shulchan was in the heichal and non-kohanim were not allowed anywhere near the entrance of the heichal (see Keilim 1:9).
The Shita Mekubetzes (Menachos 27b:6) suggests that for this special event, every Jew was allowed to come up to the entrance of the heichal, where the kohanim would bring the shulchan.
Replacing the Bread
According to this answer, the lechem hapanim remained in the heichal in fulfillment of the passuk, “The lechem hapanim shall always be before Me” (Shemos 25:30).
However, according to a variant version of Rashi (Yoma, ibid), the shulchan was taken out of the heichal so that everyone could see the bread (cited in Mishna L’Melech, Mishkav U’Moshav 11:11, and Oz V’Hadar printing of Yoma). This is also the opinion of the Talmud Yerushalmi.
What about the passuk that requires the bread always to remain “before Me”? The ChazonIsh (O.C. 129) suggests that showing everyone the miraculous bread necessitated an exception to the rule.
Showbreads Shown on Shabbos
The Radvaz (ibid) suggests another answer. He writes that the lechem hapanim were not displayed on each day of Yom Tov, only on the Shabbos of Yom Tov when they were replaced. The kohanim would bring the shulchan to the entrance of the heichal so that everyone could see the bread being replaced. The bread would then be carried throughout the Beis HaMikdash for all to see up close.
What would the kohanim do on Shavuos which doesn’t always fall out on Shabbos? The Radvaz suggests that perhaps the lechem hapanim was only displayed on Shavuos when it occurred on Shabbos. Alternatively, perhaps the lechem hapanim was only displayed on the Shabbos that followed Shavuos, called the Shabbos “nach Yom Tov” – joyously translated to mean simultaneously the Shabbos that is still Yom Tov and the Shabbos that is after Yom Tov. The Jews gathered in Yerushalayim would linger after Yom Tov until Shabbos to see the miracle.