Question: The Ri (based on the Gemara in Bava Basra, Daf 75b) asks that from the clouds till the ground there are only three Parsah?

Answer: They were piled upwards way above the clouds.

Yerushalmi (Perek 7, Halachah 5): Rebbi Levi maintains that they were piled up to the heart of the Heaven. There (in Bavel) they said (the distance from the Yarden) up to Bavel ...

Source: Because the Pasuk (in Yehoshua) writes "Harchek", and it says there (in Melachim) "me'Eretz Rechokah mi'Bavel".

Yerushalmi: Resh Lakish said that they accepted the Nistaros in the Yarden. Yehoshua told them that if they don't accept the Nistaros the water will come and drown them.

Support: Rebbi Simon b'Rebbi Z'vid said that he was right, and he proved it by the fact otherwise, if Achan sinned why should most of the Sanhedrin fall?

A Change of Heart: Rebbi Levi added that in Yavneh, the decree was rescinded (when the Sanhedrin Davened); a Heavenly Voice announced that they no longer needed to worry the hidden things.

Yerushalmi: The Yerushalmi explains that one cannot compare something that one picks up from the floor as far as one's knees, and from his knees on to his shoulders to something that one picks up directly from the floor on to one's shoulders.

Yerushalmi (cont.): Nor is something that one loads oneself comparable to something that others load on to him.

Translation: Rabeinu Chananel explains that 'Turt'ni' in Greek, means the vertical rod of a set of scales.

Explanation #1: And how did they carry it? They brought two posts which they strapped with ropes, placing the cluster of grapes on top of the ropes, At the ends of the posts to which the ropes were strapped, they placed poles (Tosfos appears to repeat himself)) ...

Explanation #1 (cont.): And the cluster of grapes was placed on the ropes. Then they placed one pole across one end of the two (parralel) posts, and a similar post across the other end.

Explanation #1 (cont.): It comes out that there are two poles at the two opposite ends of the two posts to which the ropes were strapped, and the cluster was placed on top of the ropes.

Explanation #1 (cont.): Now on each of these poles they placed two thinner poles, one at each end. So it transpires that there were four poles at the ends of the two poles that were placed on top of the posts.

Explanation #1 (cont.): And two men carried each of these four poles (one at each end), In which case eight men carried the cluster of grapes.

Conclusion: So the explanation of 'Turt'ni ... ' is poles and poles on top of poles.

Yerushalmi, Explanation #1: The Pasuk writes "Ish Echad Ish Echad le'Mateh Avosav". According to Rebbi Yishmael this is a double (repeated) expression - They were twelve - eight carried the cluster of grapes, and four, the figs, the pomegranates and the vessels.

Yerushalmi, Explanation #2: Whereas according to Rebbi Akiva, this is an expression of inclusion - They were twenty-four, sixteen carried the cluster, and eight, the figs the pomegranates and the vessels.

Conclusion: According to Rebbi Yishmael, there were four poles, two running along, and two, across, whilst according to Rebbi Akiva, there were another four poles, running diagonally.

Explanation #1: It is possible that after having crossed to the other side of the Yarden, they turned and walked alongside the river bank, to make way for those who followed them into the river bed.

Proof: Seeing as the width and length of the Camp of Yisrael was twelve Mil, whereas the Yarden was only fifty Amos wide (and one Mil equals two thousand Amos).

Explanation #2: It is also possible that they only entered the Yarden in the formation that they encamped, but that, once they were in the Yarden, they stood next to one another tightly packed.

Proof #1: Otherwise, if they had also stood in the Yarden in the formation that they encamped, then they would not have all stood in the Yarden when Yehoshua issued them with the conditions (of entry into Eretz Yisrael).

Refuting Explanation #1: For you will find that the width of twelve Mil divides into four hundred and eighty strips times fifty Amos, which is equivalent to (the width of the Yarden); the size of each strip equaling twelve Mil long and fifty Amos wide.

Refuting Explanation #1 (cont.): And if one were now to place the four hundred and eighty strips one beside the other, it would amount to close to one thousand, four hundred Parsah running along the length of the Yarden

Refuting Explanation #1 (cont.): Whereas the Yarden is only discernable up to the Sea of the Plains (where it emerges from te Cave of Pamayas which is in the portion of Dan, as the Gemara explains in Perek Ma'aser Beheimah (Bechoros, Daf 55a)?

Refuting Explanation #1 (concl.): In fact, the whole of Eretz Yisrael is only four hundred Parsa'os long?

Refutation #2: Moreover, how could they have heard the conditions issued by Yehoshua.

Conclusion: One must therefore say that they stood in the Yarden, but not in the formation that they traveled, but tightly packed.

Question: Granted, asks the Ri, they crossed the Yarden the way they encamped, nevertheless, since they stood in the Yarden until Yehoshua had finished presenting the conditions and they picked up the stones, and the water did not return to its former position until they had all finished crossing, whilst those fifty Amos of the Yarden were being crossed, the watercontinued piling up, to a height of more than twelv Mil?

Answer: Since the added height did not reach a total of a Mil, the Tana did bother to mention it.

Question: Then why does Rebbi Elazar attribute it to the swiftness of the water, when it really depends on the delays in crossing?

Answer: They actually argue in two points; On what Rebbi Yehudah equates the swiftness of the people to that of the water, he said that this is incorrect, because even if they would have crossed the Yarden the way that they encamped, the water would have piled up more than thirteen (or more than twelve) Mil, so why did he say 'twelve'?

Answer (cont.): Furthermore, they crossed one after the other.

Question: And on this Tosfos' Rebbe wondered, that if they crossed one after the other, how can he limit the height of the water to three hundred Mil?

Making the Cheshbon: Since according to the Cheshbon of the piling up of the water, they traveled to a width of half a Mil, an a length of three hundred Mil minus twelve.

Making the Cheshbon (cont.): How is that? Make twelve strips of twlve Mil times twelve Mil, each strip one Mil wide and twelve Mil long. If you then join them together one beside the other, you will get a hundred and forty-four Mil long and one Mil wide.

Making the Cheshbon (concl.): And if you then divide the strips and join them to the length, you will get two hundred and forty-eight Mil long and half a Mil wide.

Question (concl.): How does he know that this is how they crossed?

Answer: It therefore seems that according to Rebbi Elazar b'Rebbi Shimon they did not cross at all in the way that they encamped, since when they encamped they were scattered, because their tents were pitched far from one another, in the way that caravans encamp.

Answer (cont.): But when they crossed, they moved close to one another, in which case, it is possible that the whole of Yisrael could fit into a space of half a Mil by half a Mil.

Answer (concl.): And when they crossed one behind the other, in the way that people tend to move along a path, ten abreast, it is possible that in a group the size of six hundred thousand people, that it took them that long to cross.

Clarification: Even though everybody knows that water is generally swifter, that is specifically where it flows along naturally; whereas here where it was flowing into a vertical pile, the speed of the people was on a par with that of the water.

Question: But does the Gemara not say in Perek Mi she'Meiso (B'rachos, Daf 18a) that the dead do not know anything, and that incorporates even the Avos, according to the Gemara's conclusion?

Answer: When someone Davens (for them to intercede on his behalf), the request is passed on to them.

Support #1: And so the Gemara explains in the second Perek of Ta'anis (Daf 16a) that one goes to a graveyard in order that the deceased should Daven on one's behalf.

Support #2: And so it says in the Pasek of Chasidim (Ta'anis, 22b) in the story where Rebbi Mana prostrated himself at theCave of the Avos.

Implied Question: Even though the Gemara concludes in the second Perek of Temurah (Daf 14b) that he went to bring Korbanos?

Answer: We can nevertheless learn from there that sheep thrive well there, since the Gemara thought that he went there to bring back lambs.