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The Mishnah on our daf teaches about the bigdei kehunah – the special clothing worn by the kohanim and the kohen gadol. The kohen gadol wears eight special garments, of which four of them were the standard attire of a regular kohen.
The Gemara derives from passages in Shemot 39 that the basic material used in the fabric for the bigdei kehunah was linen, derived from flax – Linum usitatissimum.It is an erect annual plant growing between 30 and 100 cm tall, with slender stems.
The Hebrew language has several words torefer to “linen”: pishtah/pishtan/pishtim (“flax”), butz, sheish (Yoma 71b), and bahd (Zevachim 18b). In fact, the Talmud explicitly defines the last two words as “linen” — which is known in the Talmud as kitna .
We find an aggada about a Kohen Gadol who encounters Shemaya and Avtalyon at the conclusion ofYom Kippur seemingly revealing its proper attitude towards proselytes, and the message that great sensitivity should be shown towards them, including refraining from mentioning their background.