Masechet Arakhin, Perek Bet (Chapter Two), Mishnah Gimel (three). This Mishnah continues to discuss minimums and maximums. We will elaborate on two more halachot (laws). The first is the mitzvah (commandment) to blow trumpets in the Bet HaMikdash when korbanot (offerings) are offered on behalf of the community—those brought daily, weekly, monthly, and during holidays. The Kohanim (priests) are the ones who blow the trumpets.
The Mishnah says that on a normal day, we would not blow fewer than 21 trumpet blasts in the Bet HaMikdash, and we would never blow more than 48. On a normal day, we blow the trumpet three times when we open the gates of the chatzer, of the courtyard, in the morning. Another nine times when we offer the morning Tamid (daily offering), and another nine times for the afternoon Tamid, for a total of 21 blasts.
To get to 48, the maximum, on days when a Musaf (additional offering) korban is brought—a holiday, Rosh Chodesh (New Moon), or Shabbat—another nine blasts are added. So you have the normal 21 plus the nine, giving you 30. On a Friday afternoon, another six blasts are blown to notify people to stop working before Shabbat, and then three more to signal that Shabbat is about to arrive. So that’s 36. If a Musaf offering coincided with a Friday, you would have that total of 36 blasts on that day.
On Sukkot, when there was the water-drawing ceremony, an additional 12 blasts were played for the drawing. So when Sukkot fell on a Friday, you had a total of 48 blasts altogether.
Next, we’ll talk about the instruments used in the Bet HaMikdash by the Levi’im (Levites), who sang with them while the nevalim were playing. For communal korbanot, we never use fewer than two nevalim, a type of stringed instrument. We never use more than six. We never use more than six because too many instruments would not create a pleasant sound. Six would be the maximum.
When flutes were used in the Bet HaMikdash, we would never use fewer than two of them. We don’t use fewer than two of them. We don’t ever use more than 12 of them. Twelve signifies the number of days of the year that flutes would be played. We’ll now list those days.
On 12 days during the year, the flute is played in front of the Mizbeach (altar) in the courtyard of the Bet HaMikdash while the korbanot are being offered. On the 14th of Nisan, when the korban Pesach (Passover offering) was slaughtered and the Hallel was being sung, they would play the flute. On the 14th of Iyar, one month later, during the slaughtering of the second Pesach offering, the Pesach Sheni (the second Pesach offering), they would play while the Hallel was being sung. The flute is also played on the first day of Pesach.
On the Yom Tov (festival day) of Shavuot and on the eight days of the Chag (festival), which is Sukkot, including Shemini Atzeret, the Levi’im sang the complete Hallel with the wine nesachim, the wine libations, of that day’s korban tamid (daily offering), while they were poured on the Mizbeach. The singing went together with the flutes.
Now that we’ve mentioned how many flutes are used and when they’re played, we’ll mention two more laws about the flutes. The people playing the flutes would not play on a copper flute, but would play on a flute made from a reed, because its sound was much sweeter and more beautiful than the sound of a copper flute.
When the music ended, it ended on a single flute. One flute would continue playing after the others had finished. It made for a pleasing ending, a conclusion, when a single flute concluded on its own rather than having multiple flutes playing.