For the source text click/tap here: Horayot 5
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The Gemara asks how Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon derive that each tribe is considered to be a kahal – a community – in itself, which obligates them in individual community sin-offerings.
One suggestion is that the source is a passage in Sefer Divrei HaYamim II, or Chronicles II (20:5) that refers to King Yehoshafat standing in the midst of kahal Yehuda – the community of the tribe of Yehuda – in Jerusalem. Although only a single tribe was there, nevertheless they were called a kahal.
The Gemara rejects this source, arguing that Jerusalem cannot be brought as a proof, since the tribe of Binyamin was there, as well. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov suggests another source, pointing out that the patriarch Ya’akov refers to a promise made by God to grant him a kahal (see Bereshit 48:4, as well as 35:11) and only a single child, Binyamin, was yet to be born.
We explore the transition from tribalism to kehillah.