For the source text click/tap here: Sotah 41
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The Mishna on our daf describes an event that it calls parashat ha-melekh. The reference is to hakhel, a biblical commandment obligating the entire Jewish people to gather on Sukkot following the Sabbatical year (see Devarim 31:10). This event included a public reading of certain parts of the Torah by the king.
The Mishna relates that during the times of the Second Temple, King Agrippas read the Torah publicly, and broke into tears when he reached the passage describing the obligations of the king, and the rule forbidding the people from accepting upon themselves a non-Jewish king to rule them. The response of the people was to cry out, “Do not fear, Agrippas! You are truly our brother!”
We explore the ceremony off Hakhel, on this day the coronation of King Charles.