Sotah 35 - May 3, 12 Iyar

The Gemara continues with drashot on the stories of the spies addressing various issues. At what stage did the spies have bad intent? How did Caleb get the people quieted to listen to him? The spies directly doubted the power of God. Why did they think it was a land that destroyed its inhabitants? Were they lying when they said that the spies appeared like grasshoppers in the eyes of the inhabitants? The day the nation cried after hearing the spies' descriptions was the ninth of Av and they were therefore punished many years later that on that same day, the Temple would be destroyed. How did the spies die and why? The Gemara then goes back to the topic of the crossing of the Jordan and explains more details of what happened. At the end of the passing through, the ark floated miraculously to the other side taking with it all the kohanim. Later in history, when Uza was worried the Ark would fall off the wagon as the ask was being returned to Jerusalem, he was punished because he forgot that the Ark can support itself, as happened at the crossing of the Jordan. King David was somewhat responsible as he should not have put it on a wagon, as the Levites in the desert were commanded to carry it on their shoulders. At an earlier time, when the Ark was returned by the Philistines, the people of Beit Shemesh were punished for not treating the Ark properly. What did they do? How many people died? Three months later, after the Ark was in the house of Oved Edom HaGiti, and Oved was blessed, David realized that the time has come to return the Ark to Jerusalem. How many animals were sacrificed during the procession? There were three sets of stones - one in the time of Moshe (learned out by gezira shava from the stones of Yehoshua), and two in the time of Yehoshua. On the last set, they wrote the Torah and put limestone. In what order? Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon disagree. The purpose of writing the Torah in seventy languages was so that the nations would see and turn away from their bad actions. Rabbi Shimon said they added a line at the bottom, meant to cause people from the seven nations (perhaps only those living outside of Israel) to repent.