DVAR for Ekev (third part)
First Presented to Ottawa Reconstructionist Havurah - 04 August 2007
Revised for Adath Shalom - 27 August 2016

David B. Brooks

Nb 1: The discussion presented here represents material found in large sealed jars that were recently unearthed during recent archaeological  excavations near Tiberias.  Naturally, these materials, presumably the notes of a scribe, were in poor condition and had to be heavily redacted, for which I am responsible.  I am also responsible for translation from the original Hebrew, and the endnotes on Biblical terminology.

Nb-2: One further comment on the translation.  Careful readers will note that not all of the rabbis cited in the scribe’s notes lived at the same time as Judah HaNasi, yet each is characterized by what we do know about their personalities and opinions.  I have no explanation for this characteristic of the reports except to suggest that it may reflect an attempt the pseudonymous writing that is found writings books of the Hebrew Bible.

The time:	220 CE; 23rd of Av
The place: 	Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi’s summer cottage in Tiberias
The setting:	Editor’s Note: It appears that Rabbi Judah, or just Rabbi as he is called, has convened an informal session of his senior advisors on Project Mishnah. They are gathered on his patio overlooking Kinneret, enjoying local grapes, along with bagels and lox.

R. Judah:  Thank you all for coming. I have some bad news and some good news. 
As you know, Project Mishnah is coming to a close, and I have been hard at work editing all of your very useful comments.  However, and this is the bad news, I have found some places where we neglected to draw clear conclusions. The good news is that I don't think the issues will be difficult for us to resolve.

R. Meir (interrupting): Now that’s a dangerous prophecy to make, Rabbi.  To now, we have disputed every Mishnah in every perek in every Masechet in every Seder.1  By the way, these bagels are delicious, almost as good as the ones Bruria makes.

R. Judah (continuing): Right you are, Reb Meir. I should never anticipate where these discussions will take us.  Let's start.  You will recall that, about a third of the way through the scroll that was found in the Temple during Josiah's time,2 there is a description of rainfall in the land of Canaan.  Must-not3 wrote it is a good land "that soaks up its water from the rains of heaven."  (Ed. note: Dvarim 11:11 in a chumash.)  He goes on to say that He keeps his eye on the land throughout the year.  (Please excuse the sexism in my references to Must-not.  It is really only a minority of senior scholars who argue for gender-neutral language, and, though I respect their opinions, I just can not get used to it.)  Getting back to the subject, it seems clear to me that Must-not is saying that irrigation is forbidden for Jews living in Israel, and therefore we should add that in as a draft Mishnah in Seder Zera'im.4

R. Meir:  With respect, Rabbi, I do not read the text that way at all. Of course, it is a good land -- all those references to milk and honey, wheat and barley, etc!  However, the text really only says that it has more rainfall than Egypt, which is not really saying very much.

R. Akiba:  I concur. The text says that you may not have to irrigate, but where does it say that you must not irrigate?  Lots of Jews are farmers, and they have a tough time making a living.  Already they are being undercut by imports from Roman farms with their slave labour.  Besides, all of our festivals are based on agriculture. How would it be if there was a bad year for rain, and we had no harvest to celebrate at Pesach or Shavuot or Sukkot!

Unknown:  Oy vavoy. Ziz shver tzu zein a yid!

R. Judah:  Kein Yiddish. You know we agreed from the start that all discussions and all text would be in Hebrew.  Let's get back on topic. You have to read beyond the phrases I read before.  Read what follows.  The rain is not promised unconditionally. Not at all. The rain will only come if Jews follow the Mitzvot.  And that is the part of the text that we already agreed would be read twice every day just after reciting the Sh'ma – you know, the paragraph about the spring rain and the autumn rain, and harvests.  If Jewish farmers can irrigate, it will subvert Must-not's whole system of dispensing justice by providing or withholding rain.

R. Meir:  I am pleased that the role of justice has come up.  Bruria was arguing with me yesterday that we often ignore justice for women.  Women carry all the water, and therefore they should have the right to say . . .

R. Eliezer (interrupting):  Enough with this talk of Bruria.  I know she is an intelligent woman, and she is a good wife to you, Meir, but there is no place for women in legal discussions. Their role is at home with the kids.  Besides, all this discussion today is irrelevant.  Have you forgotten our previous decisions?  True, we never made a ruling on irrigation itself, but we did refer to irrigated fields5 in our decisions about watering on holidays and during the Sabbatical year.  If we talk about irrigated fields there, we cannot forbid them here.  My dear colleagues–and you know that I do not always speak so kindly to you–above all make our text internally consistent.

R Meir: As usual, Eliezer, your memory is fantastic, but must we be so picky.  We have made exceptions before and we can make them again.  You know a copy of the Mishnah was leaked to the public, and already there are scholars out there preparing commentaries on our work.  Why should we make it easy for them?  Anyway, I want to get back to the issue of justice.  Surely it is not beyond the power of Must-not to make a long enough drought so that even irrigation doesn't help.  Maybe irrigation is its own curse.  Look at what happened to those Sumerians; they irrigated so much that their fields turned salty and now they can only grow barley.

 R Simon: True enough, but as we see from the decline of Sumerian culture, rain is a very blunt way to dispense justice.  If, heaven forbid, the rain is withheld because some Jews have sinned, it won't be the rich farmers who will suffer. They can dig deeper wells or make longer channels.  It will be the poor ones, and who is to say that they are the ones who neglected the Mitzvot.

Unknown: The issue is even more complicated than that.  We have to go back to those quotations that Rabbi started with.  Must-not is not emphasizing all irrigation, but only irrigation for vegetables.  He says specifically (Ed. note: Dev. 11:10) with reference to Egypt, “There the grain that you sowed had to be watered by your own labours, like a vegetable garden.”  That is very confusing; no one in Canaan would think of irrigating grains like vegetables.  The Jordan is not the Nile; indeed, no river in Israel is so large as to permit irrigation of anything but vegetables and fruit.  Yet it is just those crops that permit small farmers and women to make a profit from their land.

R. Judah:  Oy vavoy!  We never seem to get away from the old and very troubling question of why bad things happen to good people!  As you all know, we have kind of finessed our answer to that question, and I for one am not satisfied with the way we left things.  Truth be told, Must-not's words are more than a bit ambiguous on individual as opposed to collective punishment.  However, we can't deal with that today.  Let's get back to irrigation.  We do not seem to be able to agree on whether or not it is forbidden. Can we at least agree that, if there is a shortage of water, people’s needs come before crops.

Many voices:   yes . . . ken . . . oui . . . right-on, brother! 

R. Judah:  OK. Very good.  As so often in the past, we seem to have backed into a Halakhic decision (Scribe: Did you get that?), but a decision nonetheless.  So irrigation comes after people have enough water to drink and cook and, may I add, bathe.

R Simon:  Not so fast. We Jews have traditionally been pastoralists, not farmers. Think of how often cattle and sheep and goats–you know, “flocks and herds”--are mentioned in the Torah. Water for the animals has to come before water for crops.

R Meir:  Maybe not. After all, eating meat was only a concession given by Must-not after the flood.  Why not encourage vegetarianism by putting crops before animals.  It certainly makes life easier not to have to worry about mixing fleishik and milchik.

R Akiba:  So, Meir, you would let the animals die of thirst!  Did you forget about the old law forbidding cruelty to animals? That also goes back to Noah, and it applies to everyone, not just Jews.  And, besides, who says animals are just for meat.  Where do you think that cream cheese you are putting on your bagel comes from!

Many voices expressing general consent to animals coming before crops.

R. Judah:  What a shlemiel I was to think that anything in Project Mishnah would be simple.  We are unanimous that people come first, and a clear majority says that animals come second (that's another Halakhah, Scribe).  I guess that we will just have to be vague as to what comes third. So long as we Jews stay up in the hill country of Canaan and don't farm near Spring Hill or Seven Wells,6 irrigation won't be important anyway. 

Everyone: Good idea. Elijah can tell us what the right answer is when he comes. Please pass the bagels.

-x/0\x-

Endnotes